ANDY KAUFMAN

Andy Kaufman, born on January 17, 1949, grew up in Great Neck, became a bar mitzvah at Temple Beth-El and graduated from Great Neck North High School in 1967. His family remained temple members as the American comedian, actor and performance artist quickly became a comedy sensation in New York. His appearances on Saturday Night Live included a famous debut as Foreign Man, which he then adapted into the character Latka Gravas on the sitcom Taxi, on which he was a regular from 1978 to 1983. A lifelong health fanatic and nonsmoker, the comedian was stunned when he was diagnosed in January 1984 with a rare form of lung cancer, which killed him a few months later. His life was the topic of the 1999 film Man on the Moon, in which Jim Carrey starred as the main character.

Josh Kopelman

Josh Kopelman, born April 17, 1971, is managing director of First Round Capital, a seed-stage venture fund, and an investor, director and advisor to a variety of businesses. The son of congregants Carol, z”l, and Richard Kopelman is an inventor of 16 U.S. patents for his work in Internet technology, was ranked third on the 2018 New York Times list of Top Venture Capitalists, consistently ranks in the top 20 of the Forbes Midas List of top 100 tech investors and has been named as one of the top 10 angel investors in the United States by Newsweek magazine. He and his wife created the Kopelman Foundation, a nonprofit philanthropic organization that provides start-up grants to social entrepreneurs. In 2002, the Kopelman Foundation funded a project to digitize and host the complete text of the Jewish Encyclopedia online.