Orientalist scholar Lewis, a London native who finished his academic career at Princeton, influenced American foreign policy and the West’s attitudes toward the Middle East. He backed U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan. His “Lewis…
Lewis served as the U.S. ambassador to Israel from 1977 to 1985, second in tenure to Walworth Barbour. He played an important part in brokering Israeli-Egyptian peace and provided the on-site U.S. response to the…
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…
Home Depot co-founder Marcus has devoted much of his philanthropy to Israel and to organizations supporting Israel. Examples within Israel include the Israel Democracy Institute and Magen David Adom’s underground blood storage facility in Ramle….
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…
A longtime resident of Alabama, Mitchell was the president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee from 1990 to 1992 and AIPAC’s chairman from 1993 to 1996. As an activist and philanthropist for Jewish and…
Born in Lithuania and ordained at the Volozhin yeshiva, Mohilever was a founder of the Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) movement in Russia and served as its president in the 1880s. He helped launch Religious…
A Lithuanian Orthodox rabbi born in Belarus, Reines was one of the earliest leaders of Religious Zionism, supported an unsuccessful effort to establish a settlement mixing Torah and labor in the early 1890s, and founded…
The CEO of the Jewish National Fund (JNF-USA) since 1997, Robinson has led programs to raise billions of dollars for Israeli infrastructure beyond trees, including reservoirs, the revival of Be’er Sheva, and the sustainable development…
Working in the Defense Department, with the National Security Council or in the State Department under every president from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama, Ross helped shape U.S. Middle East policy. He helped get Israel…
Ruskay was the executive vice president and CEO of UJA-Federation of New York from 1999 to 2014, giving him influence over millions of dollars a year allocated within Israel. He remains a consultant to nonprofits…
Lithuanian-born Schapira was a math professor at the University of Heidelberg. He first proposed creating what became the Jewish National Fund to purchase and develop land in Palestine. At the First Zionist Congress in 1897…
Serving from 1973 to 1996 as the president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Schindler aligned the Reform movement with Zionism. Going back to the mid-19th century, Reform had emphasized Jewish religion over peoplehood….
Charles Schusterman, born in the Soviet Union, and wife Lynn, a Missouri native, used their Oklahoma oil wealth to launch the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies. The foundation is deeply involved in Israeli and…
Sharansky, a physicist and writer, was a Soviet refusenik imprisoned in a Siberian labor camp from 1977 to 1986. Upon his release, he joined his wife, Avital, in Israel. He became an activist for immigrant…
Silver, a child immigrant to New York from Lithuania, was a leading American advocate and fundraiser for Zionism and headed the U.S. Zionist establishment in the late 1940s. He rallied support for a Jewish state…
Context and perspective are key elements in understanding history. Zionism emerged in the 19th century because there was a unique Jewish identity built around belief, Torah, ritual, and community concern for one another. And second, the presence of wretched anti-Semitism. Nordau gave an impassioned speech about the Jewish condition at the First Zionist Congress in 1897 in the late 19th century making the case for a Jewish national home. Nordau energized the audience and the Zionist movement.
A British lawyer, Stein was stationed with the army in Jerusalem and Cairo and was part of the pre-mandate British administration of Palestine. He published a 1922 pamphlet titled “The Truth About Palestine” to counter…
Billionaire New York philanthropist Steinhardt’s extensive donations to Jewish causes include co-founding Birthright Israel with Charles Bronfman and launching a network of Hebrew-language charter schools. He chaired the board of Tel Aviv University and endowed…
Weinberg is the founder and chairman emerita of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, fulfilling a vision she shared with her late husband, Larry, a former AIPAC president. In 1973 she became the first…
Weiss is an author and activist who led the movement to free Soviet Jewry; ultimately, more than 1 million immigrants moved as the Soviet Union crumbled. He served as spy Jonathan Pollard’s personal rabbi and…
Weizmann, a native of Russian-controlled Poland, was the first president of Israel. In England during World War I, he used his chemistry skills to develop a synthetic process for making acetone and thus made relationships…
A native of Hungary who immigrated to the United States as a toddler, Wise co-founded the New York Federation of Zionist Societies in 1897 and the Federation of Zionist Societies in 1898 and launched the…
