Jewish Invention Myths: Synthetic Rubber
Recently on X (formerly Twitter) a jewish interlocutor of mine claimed that synthetic rubber was invented by jews. I checked – since I was pretty sure it wasn’t -and as far as I can work out no substantive claim that jews invented synthetic rubber has actually been made.
However, for the sake of argument and in case this claim gets put forward in the future I thought I would document the fact that synthetic rubber was not in any way, shape or form a ‘jewish invention’.
Before that however I will note that the claim that jews invented synthetic rubber might be a corruption of the claim that jews invented the rubber condom which I have previously addressed. (1)
The first synthetic rubber – made from isoprene – was synthesized by German chemist Fritz Hofmann worked for the pharmaceutical giant Bayer in 1909 and was successfully patented by Hofmann and Bayer on 12th September 1909. (2)
Following a close second was Russian chemist Sergey Lebedev who first synthesized synthetic rubber from polybutadiene in 1910. (3)
The first jewish reference to synthesized rubber is undated and unsuccessful work by Chaim Weizmann – first President of Israel – sometime in the early twentieth century (4) and the co-discovery of a synthetic rubber called Thiocol by Nathan Mnookin in Kansas City with Joseph Patrick in 1928. (5)
As far as I can work out by checking both Hofmann and Lebedev were non-jews as I can find no reference whatsoever to even a claim of jewishness attached to them.
Thus, we have to conclude that synthetic rubber is most certainly not a jewish invention.
References
(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-the-rubber
(2) https://www.coruba.co.uk/blog/the-history-of-synthetic-rubber/
(3) http://gatchina3000.ru/great-soviet-encyclopedia/bse/069/041.htm
(4) https://davidson.weizmann.ac.il/en/online/sciencehistory/scientific-context-balfour-declaration
(5) https://www.jta.org/archive/kansas-city-jewish-chemist-joint-inventor-of-new-rubber-substitute