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…
Born in Ukraine, Agron (originally Agronsky) immigrated to the United States. He wrote for Jewish newspapers and later for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. In 1918 he joined Britain’s Jewish Legion in Palestine. He dived into…
Aumann is an Israeli-American mathematician who shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics in 2005 for his game theory analysis of conflict and cooperation. His family escaped Germany two weeks before Kristallnacht. A Religious Zionist,…
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…
A computer scientist and tech entrepreneur, Berry has been a driver of innovation and received Ben-Gurion University’s 2012 Yakirat Ha’Negev award for excellence in technology. In 1996 she became the first female chief scientist at…
An early leader of German Zionism, Bodenheimer helped establish a Jewish bank in Ottoman Palestine and the Jewish National Fund, for which he was the first chairman. Bodenheimer corresponded with Theodor Herzl, attended the first…
A native of what is now Moldova, Dizengoff became a leader with Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) in Russia. He moved to Palestine in 1893 and managed a glass factory. He opposed the Uganda Plan…
Eshkol, Israel’s third prime minister, was a farm worker after arriving from Ukraine in 1914. He organized labor and became a Mapai and Jewish Agency leader. He raised money for arms and for immigrant absorption….
Named one of CNN’s “10 Most Powerful Women in Tech” in 2010, Fassberg immigrated from South Africa in 1975, rose to become CEO of Intel Israel and retired in 2016 after 33 years with the…
Feiwel was born in Moravia, now in the Czech Republic. He co-founded the Jewish People’s Voice in 1897 and the Jiidischer Verlag publishing house in Berlin in 1902 and served as the editor of Theodor…
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…
Born into an Orthodox family in Germany in 1812, Hess became interested in socialism, befriended Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and contributed to the Communist Manifesto. He recognized that German nationalism would inspire increased antisemitism….
Hurvitz, who was born in Jerusalem, in 1976 merged three companies, including one where he started working while attending the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, into Teva Pharmaceuticals. It became the world’s largest manufacturer of generic…
Kahn is a tech and media entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist, and one of Israel’s richest men. A native of South Africa, he immigrated to Israel in 1956. He founded Amdocs, the Aurec Group, Golden Pages and…
Kahneman is an author and emeritus professor of behavioral psychology at Princeton who shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2002 for his work on prospect theory, which explores how people make decisions under…
A native of Minsk in present-day Belarus, Kaplan was an active Socialist Zionist before immigrating to Palestine in 1919. He served as the treasurer of the Jewish Agency and a member of the Zionist Executive…
Belarus-born Katznelson co-founded the Histadrut labor federation and advocated for labor unity to uplift Jewish workers and small landholders. Immigrating to the Land of Israel in 1909, Katznelson became involved in labor councils. He helped…
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….
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…
Labor Party politician Sapir played a vital role in the development of the Israeli economy. Born in Poland as Pinhas Kozlowski, he immigrated to the Land of Israel in 1929. He served in the Cabinet…
Tel Aviv native Shechtman won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2011 for his discovery of quasicrystals, which are crystals whose atoms are not organized in repeating patterns. A materials science professor at the Technion,…
Yonath is the first Israeli woman to receive a Nobel Prize, sharing the chemistry prize in 2009 for work on ribosomes, which are crucial proteins in cells. She used X-ray crystallography to map ribosomes’ structure,…
