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Larry Page – who shares the title of Google President even has an Israeli family connection.
B’nai B’rith Magazine, paper of one of the mightiest Jewish organizations, writes in their article “The Searchmasters”, spring 2006, on “…Larry Page, whose mother Gloria is Jewish”.
The Magazine continues:
Larry’s maternal grandfather, however, followed a much different path.
He was an early settler in Israel, making aliyah in the spartan desert town of Arad.
The Jewish entourage in Google
The Jew Craig Silverstein was the first employee hired by Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
The Jewish woman Susan Wojcicki was the one who gave Google office space to start the business.
Susan Wojcicki has since become Vice President of Product Management at Google.
This while here likewise Jewish younger sister Anne Wojcicki, a biotechnology specialist, in May 2007 during “a traditional Jewish wedding” ceremony (according to Israeli paper Ha’aretz, May 29, 2008) married the Google President Sergey Brin.
The world’s wealthiest Jewish bachelor is no more.
Sergey Brin, co-founder of search giant Google and worth over $16bn got hitched to his long-time love Anne Wojcicki earlier this month in the Bahamas, but so secret was the wedding, that it has only recently been confirmed.
According to a report in the San Jose Mercury News, the wedding took place under a chuppah with both Brin and Wojcicki confirming their commitment to the Jewish faith, though no rabbi is said to have officiated at the ceremony.
Wojcicki, is the sister of Susan Wojcicki who gave Google office space to start the business.
In 2001, Brin’s mother Eugenia commented she hoped he would find a Jewish bride.
“I hope he would keep that in mind,”she said.
Wojcicki, who has a background in biotechnology, has been active in Jewish projects and currently sits on the board of Reboot, a venture that engages Jews to explore their culture.
Recently, Wojcicki launched a biotech company 23andMe which has seen Google itself invest several million dollars into it.
Justin Rosenstein was a top engineer at Google serving three years as Google’s Product Manager for Page Creator.
Rosenstein was one of the first employees that Facebook’s Jewish boss Mark Zuckerberg poached from Google as Facebook began its rise in 2007.
In 2008 Rosenstein left Facebook with Facebook’s likewise Jewish co-founder, Dustin Moskovitz, to form a new company.
Another Jewish profile who has been important in the shaping of Google is Sheryl Sandberg.
Another Jewish profile who has been important in the shaping of Google is Sheryl Sandberg.
Sheryl Sandberg was Google Vice President of Global Online Sales & Operations, a position from where she built and managed the online sales channels for advertising and publishing and operations for consumer products globally.
Sandberg was behind Google’s AdWords, and sat in the board of Google’s philanthropic arm Google.org.
Before Google, Sandberg worked for the Jew Lawrence Summers, first when he was Chief Economist of the World Bank, then as his Chief of Staff when Summers was Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Administration.
The Jewish Chronicle (December 4, 2008) ran an article on the book “Jewish Wisdom for Business Success” – a book by Rabbi Levi Brackman and Jewish journalist Sam Jaffe
with examples of success stories such as Andy Klein, who quit corporate law to start a brewery and ended up with an investment bank, or Sheryl Sandberg, who rose to become vice president for global sales for Google.
And while there are role models to emulate, there also ones to avoid: Pharaoh the gas ruach (man of coarse spirit) or Korah, the ba’al ga’avah, the arrogant egotist.
As Vice President of Google’s Global Sales Sandberg was behind the AdWords project which links paid advertisements to search results, a gadget that allowed Google to turn their search engine into “extremely profitable business”, as Rabbi Levi Brackman and journalist Sam Jaffe write in their book “Jewish Wisdom for Business Success“, p. 2.
They have the case of Sheryl Sandberg in the first chapter in their book as an example of Jewish business success.
In the same p. 2 of their book:
Early in 2008, she left Google to become the second-in-command of Facebook, the emerging social-networking company.
Sheryl Sandberg – Jewish “second-in-command of Facebook” – is presently Chief Operating Officer at Facebook.
As COO, Sandberg is responsible for helping Facebook scale its operations and expand its presence globally.
Sandberg manages:
sales
marketing
business development
human resources
public policy
privacy and communications
and reports directly to Facebook’s Jewish CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Sheryl Sandberg is well connected to the Jewish community and the “philantropy” business, a favourite Jewish pastime where they can take a small part of their enormous wealth gained from the “goyim“ and put it in small projects completely after their taste, to show how humane, generous and an openminded they are.
Sandberg was thus with Daniel Sokatch, CEO of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, on a joint venture “addressing global poverty and social justice issues through philanthropy”, December 10, 2008.
She also sponsors Jewish activities at for instance the Joshman Family Jewish Community Center, a center that not so surprisingly also has an “Israel connection”, as their website says.
The Joshman Center writes on this “Israel connection”:
Our mission is to strengthen relationships between American Jews and the Israeli émigré community and to build a deeper connection to Israel.
Sandberg was included in Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women of 2007.
She is married to former Yahoo! music head David Goldberg with whom she has two children.
More Google Jews – Elliot Schrage and Ethan Beard
The Jew Elliot Schrage was since 2005 Google’s Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs, the man who ran Google’s PR.
He had this important position until May 2008 when he left for Facebook to work under the same role.
At Google, he broadened the company’s messaging from a focus on only product PR to include all aspects of:
corporate
financial
policy
philanthropic
and internal communications.
Before Google Shrage served as a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Zionist infested “public policy think tank”.
Schrage together with the Jewish US Holocaust Museum launched the Darfur tool to Google Earth (see article U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Google Join in Online Darfur Mapping Initiative):
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum today joined with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) to unveil an unprecedented online mapping initiative aimed at furthering awareness and action in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Crisis in Darfur, enables more than 200 million Google Earth™ mapping service users worldwide to visualize and better understand the genocide currently unfolding in Darfur.
The Museum has assembled content – photographs, data and eyewitness testimony – from a number of sources that are brought together for the first time in Google Earth.
This information will appear as a Global Awareness layer in Google Earth starting today.
Google Earth’s Elliot Schrage, Vice President, Global Communications and Public Affairs, joined Museum Director Sara J. Bloomfield
Crisis in Darfur is the first project of the Museum’s Genocide Prevention Mapping Initiative that will over time include information on potential genocides allowing citizens, governments and institutions to access information on atrocities in their nascent stages and respond.
“Educating today’s generation about the atrocities of the past and present can be enhanced by technologies such as Google Earth,”
says Bloomfield.
“When it comes to responding to genocide, the world’s record is terrible.
We hope this important initiative with Google will make it that much harder for the world to ignore those who need us the most.”
“At Google, we believe technology can be a catalyst for education and action,”said Elliot Schrage, Google Vice President, Global Communications and Public Affairs.
“Crisis in Darfur will enable Google Earth users to visualize and learn about the destruction in Darfur as never before and join the Museum’s efforts in responding to this continuing international catastrophe.”
Of course, spreading the knowledge of Israel’s genocidal destruction of Palestinian infrastructure in Gaza in the 2009 assault is not part of this education.
He has since left for Facebook to become Director of Facebook’s Business Development and then Facebook’s Director of Platform marketing.
There are indications that he is Jewish.
Manber – Google’s Israeli Vice President of Engineering
Google’s Vice President of Engineering, Udi Manber, is Israeli and a graduate from the Israel’s Technion Institute in Haifa.
He has a long record of top jobs in Internet related positions.
Manber became the chief scientist at Yahoo! in 1998.
In 2002, he joined Amazon.com, where he became “chief algorithms officer” and a Vice President.
He was later appointed CEO of the Amazon subsidiary company A9.com, where he led the company’s A9 search engine work. (Please see an article on Amazon’s support for Israel.)
In 2006, Manber was hired by Google as one of Google’s Vice Presidents of Engineering.
In December 2007, he announced Knol, Google’s new project to create a knowledge repository.
Mandber as a senior Google operative, interacts with the Judeo-Zionist community.
Here is an advertisement which discloses how Google’s Manber will sit with a Rabbi and discuss Talmud and the Web:
Thu Sep 18, 2008
Contemporary Jewish Museum presents
Google’s Talmud: The Web, Jewish Culture, and the Power of Associative Thinking
Location – The Contemporary Jewish Museum 736 Mission Street San Francisco, CA 94103 district: Downtown/Financial District Location Date and Time – Thu Sep 18, 2008 (7:00 PM – 8:30 PM)
One of the hallmarks of Jewish culture and scholarship is an emphasis on commentary and “associative thinking,” a method essential to the creation of the Talmud and thousands of years of Biblical commentary.
Udi Manber, Google’s Vice President for Engineering and best-selling technology critic Howard Rheingold will join Rabbi Lawrence Kushner in a panel discussion exploring the connections between:
art
technology
Jewish culture
as seen through the new:
social
intellectual
spiritual
implications of the idea of “search.”
This will be followed by a discussion with Dan Schifrin, the Museum’s director of public programs and writer in residence.
Advertisement for the event was also made in the Jewish Weekly.
In the article “Google’s guru of giving“, January 24, 2008, The Financial Express details Larry Brilliant.
Dr. Brilliant led the Internet giant’s philanthropic arm Google.org, where he ruled over a and 40-strong team:
As well as adopting the informal company motto, “Don’t be evil”, the internet search firm’s co-founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, decided to commit Google to engage in serious philanthropy.
Innovative as ever, they created a new sort of philanthropic entity, a division of the company that could pursue its mission through both for-profit investing and making charitable grants.
This, they hoped, would one day:
“Eclipse Google itself in overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world’s problems.”
It would be funded with 1% of the firm’s equity, annual profits and employees’ time.
In February 2006, after a lengthy search, Dr Brilliant was appointed to run Google.org.
Media reports focused on the old hippy’s colorful past, not least his spell as a doctor with the Grateful Dead, a legendary 1960s rock band.
What attracted his new employers was his unique record of success both in running Silicon Valley tech firms and in implementing large-scale solutions to big social problems.
[…]
Though he has taken nearly two years to produce a strategy for Google.org, Dr Brilliant has not been taking things easy.
He may have added a taste for Hindu meditation to his Detroit Jewish roots (he once shared a guru with Apple’s boss, Steve Jobs), but he is a driven man, travelling widely and seeking advice from hundreds of people, pushing himself harder than friends say is wise for a sexagenarian.
When he arrived at Google.org he found extraordinarily high expectations, a blank sheet of paper to fill with a strategy, and “microscopic attention” from outside on what it was doing.
During his time as Google’s philanthropic boss Brilliant combined his work with his dedication for Jews and Judaism.
For instance, Brilliant, as Executive Director of Google.org, appeared as a speaker at the Jewish Community Federation in San Fransisco’s Business Leadership Council Breakfast meeting.
February 28, 2007.
According to the organization’s homepage
Larry Brilliant, Executive Director of Google.org, will share his vision for “Healing a Broken World” with attendees at the second annual Business Leadership Council Breakfast on Wednesday, February 28, 2007.
[…]
Dr. Larry Brilliant is the Executive Director of Google.org, the umbrella organization which includes the Google Foundation as well as partnerships with and contributions to for-profit and nonprofit entities.
[…]
Sponsored by AT&T and Levisohn Venture Partners, this special BLC event is open to all donors who contribute $1,000 or more to the 2007 San Francisco-based Jewish Community Federation’s Annual Campaign. Donors under the age of 40 who contribute $500 are also welcome.
The Jewish Community Federation is the central organization for fundraising, planning, outreach and leadership development for Jewish communities in San Francisco, the Peninsula, and Marin and Sonoma counties.
In fiscal year 2006, the Federation’s annual campaign allocated $18.3 million to some 60 agencies providing social services, educational and cultural programs in the Bay Area, in the U.S., Israel and elsewhere in the world.
In fiscal year 2006, the Federation’s Endowment Fund, with assets exceeding $1.8 billion, provided more than $203 million for a variety of grants, seed projects and emergency needs.
For more information, call 415.777.0411 or visit www.sfjcf.org.
So here we can see how the Google boss fraternizes with an organization that is interrelated to the Zionist state.
In April 2009 Larry Brilliant, after 3 years at Google, said he was parting ways with the Internet giant, leaving Google.org to join a new organization set up by former eBay President and Jew, Jeff Skoll.
But Dr Brilliant also said he would remain as an advisor to Google.
are invited by the Israeli leadership to Israel, during Israel’s 60th anniversary celebrations:
Facebook, Google founders to attend Jerusalem conference in May by Guy Grimland Ha’aretz Correspondent 01/04/2008
Co-founder of internet giant Google, Sergey Brin, will join Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and Yahoo president Susan Decker at a presidential panel on technology to be held at the Jerusalem International Convention Center May 13-15.
The convention, which was formed at the initiative of President Shimon Peres, will also be attended by a number of Israeli:
political
religious
financial
leaders, as well as academics and cultural figures.
The panel will discuss issues facing technology in today’s age and the future, in particular in regard to how it will affect Israel and the Jewish world.
Former UK prime minister Tony Blair will also take part in the conference.
will be serving as the honorary chairpersons for the Israel 60th Birthday Presidential Conference which has enthusiastically attracted the attention of Jewish leaders and others worldwide.
And B’nai B rith Magazine are also happy with the representation:
I was particularly impressed with the large numbers of young people in attendance, representing Israeli universities and aliyah organizations like MASA.
At the conclusion of the panel discussion moderated by Israeli entrepreneur Yossi Vardi
and featuring, among others, Brin, the co-founder of Google; Susan Decker of Yahoo; and Rupert Murdoch (not Jewish),
several dozen young adults crowded on stage to meet the speakers – and more than one business card was exchanged.
We write more on the Zionists attending this conference in our section on Yahoo!.
Google’s business cooperation with Israel
Ha’aretz online edition 15/05/2008, writes:
Google co-founder lauds Israeli innovation in tech, environment by Lior Kodner Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
Google co-founder Sergey Brin on Thursday lauded Israeli innovations in technology and environmental efforts, saying Israel,
“Takes our climate challenges very seriously.”
Brin, visiting as a delegate to President Shimon Peres’ Presidential Conference, told Haaretz that these challenges have,
“Great geopolitical ramifications on this country, in addition to environmental ones.”
He noted that Israel’s leading efforts in the field of sustainable energy, saying:
“Obviously in Israel they need to innovate with water and things like that.
I was really intrigued to see drip irrigation.
I just realized that came out of Israel.”
Brin gave particular attention to Israel’s work in environmentally friendly transportation.
A prototype of the world’s first fully electric car was demonstrated for the first time on Sunday in Tel Aviv, by Israeli entrepreneur Shai Agassi.
Developers hope the car will revolutionize transportation in the country and serve as a pilot for the rest of the world.
If all goes as planned, Israel will be the first country to have electric cars on its highways in large numbers in the next few years.
Brin also spoke about new projects ongoing at Google, including the “huge range of efforts” being made on mobile technology and the patience needed in the field.
“I think it takes a while to develop the technology, to develop, to educate advertisers about it,” he said.
“We have to bootstrap everything. our search based targeted ads took a number of yearsand people are expecting overnight that you work a miracle. It is a combination of technology, advertising networks, bad user expectations.
All those things have to come together and that takes time,” he said.
During his visit, Brin toured Jewish sites, including the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin, attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, announced the establishment of an R&D center in Israel.
Ha’aretz 30/01/2006 writes:
Google founder plans R&D center in Israel by Guy Rolnik
DAVOS, Switzerland
Google
“is in the process of establishing an R&D center in Israel,”
Sergey Brin, a founder of the Internet search titan, told Haaretz during the World Economic Forum here.
Brin and co-founder Larry Page were among the more visible participants at the economic conference.
Both have a solid connection with Israeli entrepreneurs in the Internet field.
A Google executive told Haaretz that the company had recently recruited a large number of:
academics
engineers
mathematicians
statisticians
and economists for additional development of the company’s search engine algorithm and its smart ad systems on the Net.
There is still a shortage of quality personnel for developing analytic tools and predicting the massive volume of information accumulated on the search engine.
[…]
Last summer, Google decided to establish a local marketing and sales branch in Israel to bolster its advertising revenues in the Israel market.
Google hired Meir Brand to head its Israel office, choosing a former Microsoft executive just as it had done in China.
[…]
Ha’aretz interview with Sergey Brin in Israel, May 29, 2008:
[…]
This is Brin’s third visit to Israel.
The first time was with his parents, when he was still a teenager, and the second was in September 2003, when Google was still a relatively small, privately owned company.
Last week, however, Brin arrived here as the head of one of the largest and most influential companies in the world.
How has Israel changed since your previous visits?
“It’s pretty impressive just to see how the tech industry has continued to grow.
The development, kind of just looking at the city of Tel Aviv.
I mean, there are a bunch of buildings.
Maybe I’m crazy, but I feel like there are lots of buildings that weren’t here when I was here last.
And I’ve just seen some of the companies and their state of development, the levels developed here – it’s just incredible.”
[…]
Did your family ever consider immigrating to Israel?
“Boy, I need to ask them that. In fact, my great-grandmother lived in the U.S. for a period of time, so we did have some ties to the U.S. I think my dad actually had a colleague who had moved to the U.S., who had given him greater certainty [with respect to] the job market.
And those were the big factors.
But I can ask.
My parents are here with me – I mean, not in the office, but in Israel.”
In hindsight, considering what you see now in the U.S. and Israel, if your parents had come here, do you think we would have Google today?
[Laughs]
“Look, I’ve been very lucky in my life, and I’m sure there’ve been lots of random circumstances that have contributed to that, so I probably would not be the first to change it.
But looking at the kinds of innovation and development that I see here now, I certainly think it’s possible to enjoy great success coming to Israel.”
Google’s cooperation with Jewish censors
Below are some articles illustrating how Google assists Jewish Internet censorship.
The articles show that Google follows dictates from ADL and the Zionist Organization of America, that Google “robots” censor pro-Palestinian bloggers, and that sites like Radio Islam are censored.
ADL Praises Google for Responding to Concerns About Rankings of Hate Sites includes letter from Google Jew Sergey Brin and Google’s explanation for the word “Jew”.
How the Zionist Organization of America shapes Google’s policies ZOA complains about “anti-Semitism” …and Google adjusts promptly.
ZOA Convinces Google to Change the Earth the Zionist Organization of America changes the way we view the World through Google Earth.
Google’s war on pro-Palestinian bloggers Google’s “robots” unmasked, Is Google ethnic cleansing the Internet?
Uruknet cut off from Google News again! – external link information on how an Iraq war information site is being censored by Google.
Jew Gotta’ Friend at Google – what is “hate speech“?
Google News stops indexing what it calls “hate speech”.
“Google This”! – on Google’s Israel rush by Philip Jones, Rense.com
Google Fascists?
looking into the worrying implications of Google’s near monopoly of web search engines
Censorship of the Internet – study reveals Google censorship of Radio Islam’s sites by Germar Rudolf
Here we will give attention to one extra article to show how the Zionist organization ADL cooperates with Google.
In 2007 a conference was held in Israel with ADL, the International Network Against Cyberhate, and Google’s Israel Director Meir Brand.
Ha’aretz, 12/11/2007, writes:
Organizers of the conference representing the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish group that counters anti-Semitism, brought examples of anti-Jewish hate material freely available on the Internet, and participants called for more action to stop it.
[…]
He [Meir Brand] said Google removes results from its search index only when required to by law, for example, when copyright infringement is an issue.
In Germany and Austria, he said, Google removes Nazi content, which is against the law there.
Recognizing the problem, however, Google has instituted a warning system for hate entries, taking viewers to a page warning that some of the search results may be offensive, and noting that opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect Google’s views.
Just as a small reminder ADL’s Director Abraham Foxman was one of many top Jewish dignitaries in Israel celebrating Israel’s 60th Anniversary back in 2008.
Appendix
Excerpts from the article “Sergey Brin: the Google revolutionary“, by Mark Malseed, The Jewish Chronicle, April 6, 2007:
“This intensity emerges during weekly strategy meetings, where he and Page – who share the title of Google president – command the last word on approving new products, reviewing new hires and funding long-term research.
Brin also holds sway over the unscientific but all-important realms of people, policy and politics.”
“Brin’s Jewish sensibility is, likewise, grounded in his family’s experience of life in the Soviet Union, and their eventual emigration to the United States.
“I do somewhat feel like a minority,” he says.
“Being Jewish, especially in Russia, is one aspect of that.
Then, being an immigrant in the US.
And then, since I was significantly ahead in math in school, being the youngest one in a class.
I never felt like a part of the majority.
So, I think that is part of the Jewish heritage in a way.””
“As a young boy, though, he had only a vague awareness of why his family wanted to leave their native Russia.
He picked up the ugly details of the antisemitism they faced bit by bit years later, he says.
Nevertheless, he sensed, early on, all of the things that he wasn’t – he wasn’t Russian; he wasn’t welcome in his own country; he wasn’t going to get a fair shake in advancing through its schools.
Further complicating his understanding of his Jewish identity was the fact that, under the atheist Soviet regime, there were few religious or cultural models of what being Jewish was.
The negatives were all he had.”
“For many Soviet Jews, exit visas never came. But, in May 1979, the Brins were granted papers to leave the USSR.
“We hoped it would happen,” Genia says,
“But we were completely surprised by how quickly it did.”
The timing was fortuitous – they were among the last Jews allowed to leave until the Gorbachev era.
Sergey Brin, who turned six that summer, remembers what followed as simply unsettling” – literally so.
“We were in different places from day to day,”
he says.
The journey was a blur.
First Vienna, where the family was met by representatives of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which helped thousands of Eastern European Jews establish new lives in the West.
Then, on to the suburbs of Paris, where Michael’s “unofficial” Jewish PhD adviser, Anatole Katok, had arranged a temporary research position for him.”
“One thing the Brins shared with thousands of other families emigrating to the West from the Soviet Union was the discovery that, suddenly, they were free to be Jews.”
“Russian Jews lacked the vocabulary to even articulate what they were feeling,”
says Lenny Gusel, the founder of a San Francisco-based network of Russian-Jewish immigrants.
“They were considered Jews back home.
Here, they were considered Russians.
Many longed just to assimilate as Americans.”
Gusel’s group, which he calls the “79ers”, after the peak year of immigration in the 1970s, and its New York cousin, RJeneration, have attracted hundreds of 20- and 30-something immigrants who grapple with their Jewish identity.
“Sergey is the absolute emblem of our group, the number one Russian-Jewish immigrant success story,” he says.
The Brins were no different from their fellow immigrants in that being Jewish was an ethnic, not a religious, experience.
“We felt our Jewishness in different ways, not by keeping kosher or going to synagogue.
It is genetic,”
explains Sergey’s father Michael.
“We were not very religious.
My wife doesn’t eat on Yom Kippur; I do.”
Genia interjects:
“We always have a Passover dinner.
We have a Seder.
I have the recipe for gefilte fish from my grandmother.”
Religious or not, on arriving in the suburbs of Washington, the Brins were adopted by a synagogue, Mishkan Torah of Greenbelt, Maryland, which helped them acquire furnishings for their home.
“We didn’t need that much, but we saw how much the community helped other families,”
Genia says.
Sergey attended Hebrew school at Mishkan Torah for almost three years but hated the language instruction – and everything else, too.
“He was teased there by other kids, and he begged us not to send him anymore,”
his other remembers.
“Eventually, it worked.”
The Conservative congregation turned out to be too religious for the Brins and they drifted.
When a three-week trip to Israel awakened 11- year-old Sergey’s interest in all things Jewish, the family inquired at another synagogue about restarting studies to prepare for a Bar mitzvah.
But the rabbi said it would take more than a year to catch up and Sergey abandoned the pursuit.
If there was one Jewish value the Brin family upheld without reservation, Michael says, it was scholarship.
“What came next is Google legend.
In the spring of 1995, Sergey met an opinionated computer- science student from the University of Michigan named Larry Page.
They argued over the course of two days, each finding the other cocky and obnoxious.
They also formed an instant bond, relishing the intellectual combat.
Like Sergey, Larry is the son of high-powered intellects steeped in computer science.
The two young graduate students also share a Jewish background.
Larry’s maternal grandfather made aliyah, and his mother was raised Jewish.
Larry, however, brought up in the mold of his father, a computer-science professor whose religion was technology, does not readily identify as a Jew.
He, too, never had a Bar mitzvah.
Larry and Sergey soon began working on ways to harness information on the web, spending so much time together that they took on a joint identity, Larry and Sergey.
“Their venture quickly bore fruit. After viewing a quick demo, Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim (himself a Jewish immigrant from Germany) wrote a $100,000 cheque to “Google, Inc”.”
“They are without a doubt two of the most eligible bachelors on Google Earth, but both are reported to be in serious relationships – Sergey is reportedly engaged to Anne Wojcicki, a healthcare investor and the sister of Google executive Susan Wojcicki, who owned the garage where Google got started.
In a 2001 interview, Genia said she hoped Sergey would find
“Somebody exciting who could be really interesting to him… [who] had a sense of humor that could match his”.
As one might expect, she also prefers that Sergey marry a Jewish girl.
“I hope that he would keep it in mind,” she confided.”
“The Ten Commandments it is not, but Google does operate with a moral code of sorts.
“Don’t be evil” is the maxim supposed to guide behavior at all levels of the company.
When pressed for clarification, Google chief executive officer Eric Schmidt has famously said:
“Evil is whatever Sergey says is evil.”
One malevolent practice, in Google’s view, is tampering with or otherwise censoring the list of results produced by a Google search.
An early test of the Google founders’ commitment to providing unfiltered information struck very close to home.
The antisemitic website Jew Watch appeared prominently in Google results for searches on the term “Jew”, prompting Jewish groups to demand that Google remove the site from the top of its listings.
Google refused.
Sergey said at the time:
“I certainly am very offended by the site, but the objectivity of our rankings is one of our very important principles.”
As a compromise, Google displays a warning at the top of questionable pages.”
“Viewed against the backdrop of Sergey’s distaste for authority, the decision to cave in to China’s totalitarian leadership seems out of character.
Sergey’s public comments on the matter have evolved to reflect this contradiction.
While defending the decision at first, he later acknowledged that Google had “compromised” its principles.
“Perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense,” he has said, but adding:
“It’s not where we chose to go right now.”
Does a company founded by two Jews, no matter how assimilated, necessarily retain some defining Jewish characteristics?
The Google masterminds’ penchant for pushing boundaries – without asking permission – might as well be called chutzpah.
However you label it, it is an attitude that runs deeply through Google and may help explain why the company is embroiled in lawsuits over many of its new projects: the aggressive scanning of library books it does not own; display of copyrighted material; and copyright issues connected to its acquisition of YouTube, the online video site whose popularity rests in part on the availability of pirated television and movie clips.
Google’s first employee and several other early hires were Jewish and, when the initial winter-holiday season rolled around, a menorah rather than a Christmas tree graced the lobby. Google’s former chef, Charlie Ayers, cooked up:
latkes
brisket
tzimmes
and matzah-ball soup for Chanukah meals and turned the Passover Seder into a Google tradition.
To some, Google’s emphasis on academic achievement – hiring only the best and the brightest and employing hundreds of PhDs – could be considered Jewish.
So, perhaps, could
“Don’t be evil”.
With its hint of tikkun olam, the Kabbalistic concept of:
“repairing the world”
it reflects the company’s commitment to aggressive philanthropy.
Nevertheless, he and his parents do support a few charities.
“There are people who helped me and my family out. I do feel responsible to those organizations,” he says.
One of them is Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the group that helped the Brins come to the United States.
Genia serves on its board and heads its project to create a digital record of Jewish-immigrant archives.
Has Sergey been a target of antisemitism since he left the Soviet Union?
“I’ve experienced it,” he says.
“Usually, it is fairly subtle.
People are on about all the media companies being run by Jewish executives, with the implication of a conspiracy…
I think I’m fortunate that it doesn’t really affect me personally, but there are hints of it all around.
That’s why I think it is worth noting.”
Several years ago, Sergey and Larry visited a school for gifted math students near Tel Aviv.
When they took to the stage, the audience roared, as if they were rock stars.
Every student there, many of them, like Sergey, immigrants, from the former Soviet Union, knew of Google.
Sergey began, to the crowd’s delight, with a few words in Russian, which he still speaks at home with his parents.
“I have standard Russian-Jewish parents,”
he then continued in English.
“My dad is a math professor.
They have a certain attitude about studies.
And I think I can relate that here, because I was told that your school recently got seven out of the top 10 places in a math competition throughout all Israel.”
The students applauded their achievement and the recognition from Sergey, unaware that he was setting up a joke.
“What I have to say,”
he continued,
“Is in the words of my father: ‘What about the other three?'”
The students laughed.
They knew where he was coming from.
That Sergey has parlayed his skills into unimaginable business success does not mean those “standard Russian-Jewish parents” are ready to let him off the academic hook.”