Bella Abzug, 1920-1998
Abzug was the first Jewish woman elected to Congress, representing New York as a Democrat in the House from 1971 to 1977. The daughter of immigrants from Russia, she joined Zionist youth group Hashomer Hatzir…
Sheldon Adelson, 1933-2021
Casino magnate Adelson was one of the biggest donors to Israeli and Jewish causes. He launched and owned Israel Hayom, Israel’s most widely distributed newspaper, and was a stalwart backer of Benjamin Netanyahu. He funded…
S.Y. Agnon, 1887-1970
Known by the acronym Shai, Agnon became Israel’s first Nobel laureate when he received the literature prize in 1966. No other Hebrew writer has won the Nobel in literature. Born in Galicia, now part of…
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…
Doron Almog, 1951-
Almog, a retired IDF major general, was unanimously nominated in June 2022 to serve a four-year term as the chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, succeeding Isaac Herzog. A paratrooper, Almog was the first…
Aharon Appelfeld, 1932-2018
Born in a part of Romania that is now in Ukraine, Appelfeld was a writer and professor who survived the Holocaust as a child after escaping a concentration camp. He reached the Land of Israel…
Chaim Arlosoroff, 1899-1933
Arlosoroff, an ardent socialist and Zionist, was born in Ukraine and immigrated to Palestine in 1921. He was a founder of the Histadrut labor federation. Working with the Jewish Agency, he helped negotiate the Haavara…
Noah Barou, 1889-1955
Born in Ukraine, Barou was a trade unionist and political activist who was active in Poalei Zion. After that group broke with the new Soviet authorities, he moved to London, where he helped found the…
Fritz Bauer, 1903-1968
Bauer was a German Jewish judge and prosecutor before and after World War II. He was arrested by the Nazis in 1933, lived in Denmark from 1936 to 1943, then escaped to neutral Sweden. He…
Leonard Bernstein, 1918-1990
Born in Massachusetts to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, Bernstein was a prominent pianist, conductor and humanitarian. His longtime association with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra began with a concert he conducted in Tel Aviv in 1947. Among…
Jacob Blaustein, 1892-1970
Serving as the American Jewish Committee president, Blaustein in 1950 coordinated with Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to reach the Blaustein-Ben-Gurion Agreement on Israel-Diaspora relations. The agreement aimed to secure financial and political support for…
Dov Ber Borochov, 1881-1917
A socialist and Labor Zionist founder from Ukraine, Borochov emphasized the poor working conditions of Jews in the Diaspora. Pulling from Marxism, he combined economic theory with nationalism. At the Seventh Zionist Congress, in response…
Louis Brandeis, 1856-1941
The first Jew on the U.S. Supreme Court, Brandeis influenced many American Jews in the early 20th century to become Zionists. He persuaded President Woodrow Wilson, a close friend, to support the 1917 Balfour Declaration…
Selig Brodetsky, 1888-1954
Ukrainian-born Brodetsky engaged the Zionist movement as an undergraduate at Cambridge. He attended the Twelfth to Twenty-Third Zionist Congresses and served with the World Zionist Executive from 1928 to 1951. He was the president of…
Tal Brody, 1943-
New Jersey native Brody was a first-round NBA draft pick out of the University of Illinois in 1965, but after visiting Israel for the first time that summer for the Maccabiah Games, he decided to…
Charles Bronfman, 1931-
Bronfman, part of the Canadian Jewish family who built the Seagram beverage company, co-founded Birthright Israel, which brings young Jewish adults from around the world to Israel for a 10-day educational visit. His foundation, Charles…
Emanuel Celler, 1888-1981
Celler was New York’s longest-serving congressman, holding a House seat from 1923 to 1973. He read Herzl during World War I and became a Zionist. He attempted to assist fellow Jews by opposing the Immigration…
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…
Richard Crossman, 1907-1974
A leader of the Labor Party Zionists in the British Parliament, Crossman served on the 1944-1946 Anglo-American Palestine Commission, which aimed to set the number of Jews permitted into Palestine after World War II. He…
Lester Crown, 1925-
American billionaire Crown is a philanthropist who supports many Israeli causes, including Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science. He is dedicated to sharing Israel’s accomplishments with the world. He is a director…
Ted Deutch, 1966-
Deutch, a Democratic congressman from Florida since 2010, succeeded David Harris as the American Jewish Committee CEO on Oct. 1, 2022. In the U.S. House he introduced and supported legislation and resolutions to further U.S.-Israel…
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955
Einstein was a Zionist who wrote about the importance of Jewish nationalism in 1921. The physicist credited Zionism with strengthening the Jewish community, though he preferred a binational Palestine to partition. He raised money for…
Max Fisher, 1908-2005
Pittsburgh native Fisher, who made his fortune in Midwestern gas stations and real estate, advised Republican presidents from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush on the Middle East and Jewish issues. He helped persuade Nixon…
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…
