Srinivasa Ramanujan

Srinivasa Ramanujan was born in Erode, Madras Presidency, British India, to a तमिलहिंदूஐயங்கார் (Tamil Brahmin Iyengar) family. This means his Jewish bona fides are, shall we say, less than stellar. In fact, they are nonexistent. But what he lacked in Jewish heritage, he made up for in sheer, unadulterated mathematical genius.

He independently developed and proved thousands of theorems, including many that were previously unknown. His work with G.H. Hardy at Cambridge is legendary, even if Ramanujan himself struggled with the cold English climate and the dietary restrictions of his faith, which made it difficult to find suitable food. Clearly, he was not kvelling over the British cuisine.

His notebooks, filled with unproven theorems, continue to be studied by mathematicians to this day, providing fertile ground for new discoveries. One might even say his legacy is the mathematical equivalent of a really good gefilte fish recipe — timeless and still inspiring passionate debate.

So, while Ramanujan might not have been a member of the Tribe, his contributions to mathematics are undeniably a source of pride for anyone who appreciates a good brain. And who knows, maybe somewhere in those notebooks, there's a theorem proving the optimal bagel-to-cream-cheese ratio.