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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…

Biographies|October 17, 2022

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…

Biographies|October 17, 2022

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…

Biographies|August 11, 2022

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…

Biographies|August 11, 2022

Berthold Feiwel, 1875-1937

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…

Biographies|August 11, 2022

Israel Friedlander, 1876-1920

A Ukrainian-born scholar, Friedlander was a commissioner for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. He became a U.S. Zionist leader and wrote books including “Past and Present: A Collection of Jewish Essays.” He was a…

Biographies|August 11, 2022

Emma Gottheil, 1862-1947

Gottheil attended the Second Zionist Congress, where Theodor Herzl invited her to translate his speech into French, Italian and English. In the United States she organized women’s study groups that were the precursors of Hadassah….

Biographies|August 11, 2022

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…

Biographies|August 11, 2022

75 Founders of the State of Israel

These 75 people helped establish the foundations for a Jewish state in the Land of Israel between the start of the 19th century and independence in 1948. Those involved in the work of Zionism in the…

Biographies|June 28, 2023

Ze’ev Jabotinsky, 1880-1940

A journalist born in Odesa, Jabotinsky organized self-defense units and fought for Jewish rights in Russia. He attended most Zionist Congresses from 1903 to 1933. He co-founded the Zion Mule Corps in World War I….

Biographies|August 11, 2022

Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, 1795-1874

Born in Prussia, Kalischer was an early proponent of the resettlement of the Land of Israel to strengthen the Jewish people. He contributed to Hebrew journals and wrote on the need for Diaspora Jews to…

Biographies|August 11, 2022

Abraham Isaac Kook, 1865-1935

Kook was born in Latvia and was one of the fathers of Religious Zionism. As a rabbi in London, he rallied popular support for the Balfour Declaration. After he immigrated to Palestine in 1919, Kook…

Biographies|August 11, 2022

Yehudah Leib Levin, 1844-1925

A Belarus native, Levin was a Jewish Enlightenment poet who wrote in Hebrew on socialist themes. Concerned with Jewish lives in Russia, Levin wrote one of his most famous poems, “Daniyel be-gov ha-arayot” (“Daniel in…

Biographies|August 11, 2022

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…

Biographies|August 11, 2022

Bernie Marcus, 1929-2024

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….

Biographies|October 17, 2022

Samuel Mohilever, 1824-1898

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…

Biographies|August 11, 2022

Isaac Jacob Reines, 1839-1915

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…

Biographies|August 11, 2022

Natan Sharansky, 1948-

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…

Biographies|September 23, 2022

Abba Hillel Silver, 1893-1963

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…

Biographies|October 17, 2022

Chaim Weizmann, 1874-1952

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…

Biographies|August 31, 2022

Stephen Wise, 1874-1949

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…

Biographies|October 17, 2022

Avraham Yitzhak, 1972-

Yitzhak, who moved to Israel at age 19, was the first Ethiopian immigrant to earn an Israeli medical degree, having started his studies in Ethiopia, and to serve as an IDF combat surgeon. He was…

Biographies|September 23, 2022