A politician, lawyer, diplomat and writer who immigrated from Ireland to Israel in 1935, Herzog was Israel’s sixth president. He led IDF military intelligence after the War of Independence. When the U.N. General Assembly passed…
Herzog has served as the 11th president of Israel since July 2021. His father, Chaim Herzog, also served as president, and grandfather Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog was the chief rabbi of Ireland. A Tel Aviv native,…
Though they may have played important roles in helping Israel achieve statehood, these 75 people deserve recognition for what they did after Israel’s Declaration of Independence on May 14, 1948. Everyone on this list either…
Hoenlein is transitioning out of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which coordinates support for Israel, after serving as the executive vice chairman since 1986. He handed the CEO position to William…
Born in Holland, Hoofien was the president of Bank Leumi L’Yisrael when it issued Israel’s first non-British currency. He arrived in Ottoman Palestine in 1912 to help run the Anglo-Palestine Bank, which financed land purchases…
Horowitz, who was born in Galicia and immigrated to Palestine in 1920, helped organize the state economy as the first director-general of Israel’s Finance Ministry. He founded the Bank of Israel in 1954 and was…
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…
As Jordan’s king, Hussein tried to annex the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem while ruling them from 1948 to 1967. He lost everything west of the Jordan River after he attacked Israel to support Egypt…
International, whose real name is Sharon Cohen, is a pop singer and former drag performer. She became Israel’s third Eurovision Song Contest winner with “Diva” in 1998. She released her first album in 1993, the…
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…
Many people, Jewish and non-Jewish, have played a part in the State of Israel’s creation, survival and development despite never themselves becoming Israeli. For good or bad, Israel would not be what it is today…
The first female speaker of the Knesset from 2006 to 2009, Itzik was a teacher who began her political career as the chair of the Jerusalem Teachers Union for five years. She was elected to…
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….
As a congressman from 1941 to 1953 and a senator from 1953 until 1983 for Washington state, Jackson was one of the leading pro-Zionist and pro-Israel voices in Congress. He wrote legislative amendments in 1970…
Jacobson and Harry Truman became close friends during World War I and partnered after the war in a failed haberdashery. In March 1948, Jacobson visited Truman, now the president, at the White House and persuaded…
The deputy national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Jacobson is the civil rights organization’s No. 2 official and its longest-serving professional. Since 1971, in roles that include international affairs, education, and marketing and communications, he…
The 36th U.S. president, Johnson increased U.S. economic and military support for Israel. Unlike Dwight Eisenhower in 1956, Johnson did not demand Israel’s immediate withdrawal from captured territory after the 1967 war. He outlined five…
Joubran, a Maronite Christian born in Haifa, was the first Arab with a permanent seat on the Israeli Supreme Court, serving from 2004 to 2017 after a temporary appointment in 2003. He was often on…
Morgenthau was the U.S. secretary of the Treasury under Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman from 1934 to 1945. He drove the creation of the War Refugee Board in 1944 to help Jews escape the Nazis…
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 lifelong resident of the Druze village of Daliyat al-Karmel, Kamal-Mreeh in 2017 became the first non-Jewish woman to anchor a Hebrew-language news program on Israeli television. In 2019, as part of Blue and White,…
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…
Kashua is a Palestinian-Israeli author and columnist born in Tira in Israel’s Arab Triangle. He attended the prestigious Israel Arts and Science Academy boarding school in Jerusalem. Writing mostly in Hebrew about being an outsider…
