Leonard Mlodinow

Born in Queens to Holocaust survivors, Leonard Mlodinow clearly has impeccable Jewish *O*rigins. His parents, a survivor of Buchenwald and a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, ensured his early life was steeped in a history that would make any bubbe proud. You can't get much more "Jew-ish" than literally being born from the ashes of European Jewry.

While his *I*dentity isn't overtly religious—he's more about the laws of nature than the laws of Moses—Mlodinow has spoken about his parents' influence on his intellectual curiosity and humanistic values. It seems the trauma of the past transmuted into a powerful drive to understand the universe, which, let's face it, is a pretty profound way to honor one's heritage.

For *K*vell-worthiness, Mlodinow is off the charts. Co-authoring multiple books with Stephen Hawking, including the monumental "A Briefer History of Time," and writing bestsellers like "The Drunkard's Walk," certainly brings immense nachas. He has a knack for explaining quantum physics and chaos theory to the masses, making him a rare breed: a scientist who can actually write, and write well. He also has a PhD in theoretical physics and worked at Caltech, so he’s not just phoning it in.