Judah Alkalai, 1798-1878
Alkalai is credited with the idea of a national fund for Jewish land purchases. Adamant about the Jewish people returning to Eretz Yisrael, he advocated statehood in a booklet called “Shema Yisrael.” After the Damascus…
Chaim Nahman Bialik, 1873-1934
Bialik, recognized as Israel’s national poet, was born in Ukraine and moved to Palestine in 1924. After interviewing survivors of the 1903 Kishinev Pogrom, he wrote “Be-Ir ha-Haregah” (“In the City of Slaughter”), in which…
Irwin Cotler, 1940-
Cotler is Canada’s special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism after serving as a member of Parliament and justice minister. He defended Israel and Jews at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in…
Abraham Foxman, 1940-
Foxman was the national director of the Anti-Defamation League from 1987 to 2015. He and ADL spoke out against rising anti-Israel sentiment as an expression of increasing antisemitism beginning in the late 1990s. A Holocaust…
David Harris, 1949-
Harris served as the chief executive of the American Jewish Committee from 1990 until the end of September 2022. He made advocacy for a Jewish, democratic, internationally accepted Israel a fundamental part of AJC’s efforts….
Theodor Herzl, 1860-1904
Born in Hungary, Herzl is viewed as the father of modern political Zionism. A journalist, novelist and playwright, he embraced Zionism after reporting on Alfred Dreyfus’ trial in France. His pamphlet “Der Judenstaat” (“The Jewish…
Kenneth Jacobson, 1943-
The deputy national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Jacobson is the civil rights organization’s No. 2 official and its longest-serving professional. Since 1971, in roles that include international affairs, education, and marketing and communications, he…
Emma Lazarus, 1849-1887
Jewish poet Lazarus’ words, taken from “The New Colossus,” are on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” She wrote some of…
Moshe Leib Lilienblum, 1843-1910
A scholar and author born in Lithuania, Lilienblum embraced the Hibbat Zion (Lovers of Zion) movement in Russia after the pogroms of 1881 and served as secretary of an Odesa committee on Palestine settlement. His…
Louis Marshall, 1856-1929
Marshall co-founded the American Jewish Committee and served as its president from 1912 to 1926. He supported efforts that aided the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and united Zionists and anti-Zionists in helping…
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, 1927-2003
Moynihan was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 1975 when the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 3379, equating Zionism with racism. He delivered a passionate speech lambasting the resolution and its supporters and…
Raoul Wallenberg, 1912-1947
Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat who in 1944 saved thousands of Hungarian Jews, including future Congressman Tom Lantos, by providing protective passports and safe houses. He went missing in January 1945 and is believed to…
