Mel Wacks was educated as an electrical engineer at the City College of New York (B.E.E. 1959) and New York University (M.E.E. 1962). He later combined his interests in art and Jewish history with his hobby of numismatics to found the Jewish-American Hall of Fame in 1969; honorees include Rebecca Gratz, Emma Lazarus, Golda Meir, Bess Myerson, Ernestine Rose, Ida Straus, Barbra Streisand, Henrietta Szold and Lillian Wald. Wacks is the author of The Handbook of Biblical Numismatics and the web site for the Jewish Museum in Cyberspace www.amuseum.org.
