Ariel Sharon, 1928-2014CIE+
Sharon led IDF commandos in the 1950s, was a field commander in 1967 and drove the Sinai counteroffensive in 1973. As defense minister, he launched the First Lebanon War, which resulted in an 18-year occupation,…
Dan Shechtman, 1941-CIE+
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,…
Naomi Shemer, 1930-2004CIE+
Singer-songwriter Shemer was considered the “first lady of Israeli song.” She wrote “Jerusalem of Gold” (“Yerushalayim Shel Zahav”) for the 1967 Israel Song Festival, and it became the anthem for a united Jerusalem after the…
Reuven Shiloah, 1909-1959CIE+
Born in Jerusalem, Shiloah was the founding director of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency. His support of the British military during World War II included planning Hannah Senesh‘s mission. Before independence he obtained the Arab…
Abba Hillel Silver, 1893-1963CIE+
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…
Moshe Sneh, 1909-1972CIE+
Sneh was a left-wing Knesset member from 1949 to 1972, mostly with the Communist Maki party. Born in Poland, Sneh was a founder of the General Zionists in 1935 and a doctor with the Polish…
James Snyder, 1952-CIE+
Since 2020, Snyder has been the executive chairman of the U.S.-based Jerusalem Foundation, which raises money and seeks partnerships to support the efforts of the Jerusalem Foundation in Israel to develop Jerusalem into an ideal…
Michael Solomonov, 1978-CIE+
A multiple James Beard Award winner who leads several Israeli-themed restaurants in Philadelphia and writes cookbooks, Solomonov was born in Israel and raised in Pittsburgh. He worked in a bakery when he returned to Israel…
Yosef Sprinzak, 1885-1959CIE+
Originally from Moscow, Sprinzak was the first speaker of the Knesset, a position he held until his death. He was interim president after Chaim Weizmann died. After immigrating to Palestine during the Second Aliyah, Sprinzak…
Leonard Stein, 1887-1973CIE+
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…
Michael Steinhardt, 1940-CIE+
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…
Mark Sykes, 1879-1919CIE+
Sykes was a British diplomat who, with French diplomat François Georges-Picot, negotiated the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916. The pact called for dividing the Middle East territories of the Ottoman Empire after its defeat in…
Alon Tal, 1960-CIE+
One of Israel’s leading environmentalists, Tal is a member of the Knesset for Blue and White. A North Carolina native who made aliyah after college, he founded the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in 1996…
Pnina Tamano-Shata, 1981-CIE+
A lawyer and TV journalist, Tamano-Shata in 2013 became the first Ethiopian-born woman in the Knesset. She also is the first Ethiopian-born Cabinet member, serving as immigrant absorption minister since May 2020 under three prime…
75 Notable Israelis TodayCIE+
It’s impossible to pick 75 people to represent all aspects of a state of more than 9 million people, let alone to pick the 75 most important or most influential people, but these diverse 75…
Chaim Topol, 1935-2023CIE+
Born in Tel Aviv, Topol was an actor, singer and comedian best known for playing Tevye on the stage and screen in “Fiddler on the Roof.” He received Oscar and Tony nominations and won two…
Harry Truman, 1884-1972CIE+
The 33rd U.S. president, Truman had the United States vote for the U.N. partition plan for Palestine in November 1947 and made the United States the first country to recognize the State of Israel in…
Donald Trump, 1946-CIE+
The 45th and 47th U.S. president, Trump took steps in both terms to strengthen ties with Israel. He withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. He fulfilled a deferred 1995 law and moved the U.S….
Ephraim Urbach, 1912-1991CIE+
Urbach was a religion scholar and rabbi whose seminal work, The Sages, focused on the evolution of Jewish religious and social thought. A native of Poland, Urbach studied in Rome and Breslau before immigrating to…
Pope Paul VI, 1897-1978CIE+
Pope Paul VI’s visit to the Holy Land in 1964 served as de facto recognition of the State of Israel. It was the first time any pope left Italy in over a century. In 1965,…
David Vital, 1927-CIE+
Vital is an English-born historian of Zionism and diplomacy. His books include “The Origins of Zionism” and “A People Apart: A Political History of the Jews in Europe.” He worked in the Foreign Ministry and…
Robert Wagner, 1877-1953CIE+
As a U.S. senator from New York from 1927 to 1949, Wagner was a prominent Christian Zionist. He introduced unsuccessful legislation in 1939 to admit 20,000 Jewish refugee children from Germany. He co-wrote a congressional…
Raoul Wallenberg, 1912-1947CIE+
Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat who in 1944 saved thousands of Hungarian Jews, including future Congressman Tom Lantos, by providing protective passports and safe houses. He went missing in January 1945 and is believed to…
Zerach Warhaftig, 1906-2002CIE+
Belarus-born Warhaftig persuaded Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara to issue 3,500 visas for Jews fleeing Lithuania at the start of World War II, then escaped to Canada via Japan. He reached the Land of Israel in…
