An Austrian-born journalist, activist and writer, Birnbaum coined the word “Zionism” in the late 19th century. Using the pseudonym Mathias Acher, he wrote about the sociopolitical culture of European Jewry and expanded on the ideas…
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…
One of the four “founding mothers” of modern Hebrew poetry, known as Rachel the Poetess or simply Rachel, Bluwstein was born in Russia and moved to Ottoman Palestine in 1909. She wrote most of her…
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 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…
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…
Born in Ukraine, Brenner emerged as the leading Hebrew literary figure in Palestine in the early 20th century. He joined the Bund, a Jewish socialist movement, as a young man and became a Zionist who…
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…
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…
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…
Haifa native Broza is one of Israel’s most successful and influential musicians, including Spanish-style guitar playing learned during his time in Madrid. His first hit was “Yihyeh Tov” (“It Will Be Good”) in 1977. He…
Born in Austria, philosopher Buber spoke at the Third Zionist Congress on behalf of education over propaganda to win Zionist support. He edited the Zionist weekly Die Welt for a year but left because he…
Bunche, an American diplomat, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950 for brokering the armistice agreements between Israel and four Arab neighbors in 1949. He served in 1947 with the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine,…
The 43rd U.S. president, Bush offered a vision for a two-state Israeli-Palestinian solution in June 2002 that inspired the “Roadmap for Peace” presented by the Quartet (the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia)…
The 39th U.S. president, Carter mediated the 1978 Camp David Accords and 1979 peace treaty between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. The treaty was the first between Israel and an…
Casspi was the first Israeli-born first-round NBA draft pick and player. He made his professional basketball debut for Maccabi Tel Aviv in 2005 at age 17. The Sacramento Kings drafted him 23rd overall in 2009,…
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…
Churchill visited Palestine in March 1921 as the British secretary of state for the colonies and declared that a Jewish national home would be a “blessing to the whole world.” In July 1922, after the…
Ciechanover shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2004 with Israeli Avram Hershko and Jewish American Irwin Rose for showing the role of the protein ubiquitin in breaking down other proteins in cells. He was…
As a special presidential counsel, Clifford opposed the pro-Arab State Department and urged President Harry Truman to maintain support for the U.N. partition of Palestine and to lift the arms embargo on Jewish forces heading…
As president, Clinton hosted the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords, helped Jordan and Israel achieve a peace treaty in 1994, and mediated the 1995 Oslo II agreement that recognized the Palestinian Authority. He brokered…
Israel’s most famous spy, Cohen infiltrated the Syrian government in the 1960s. Born in Egypt to Syrian Jewish parents, he applied his language skills to pretend to be businessman Kamel Amin Thaabet. He befriended top…
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…
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…
