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…
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….
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…
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…
John Ruskay, 1946-
Ruskay was the executive vice president and CEO of UJA-Federation of New York from 1999 to 2014, giving him influence over millions of dollars a year allocated within Israel. He remains a consultant to nonprofits…
Charles and Lynn Schusterman, 1935-2000 and 1939-
Charles Schusterman, born in the Soviet Union, and wife Lynn, a Missouri native, used their Oklahoma oil wealth to launch the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies. The foundation is deeply involved in Israeli and…
CIE’s Leadership Series
The Leadership series is a biographical collection of ebooks on a diverse set of individuals who have influenced Israel’s history, politics, and culture. The first six ebooks in this series are: David Ben-Gurion, Shimon Peres, Golda Meir, Ilan Ramon, Netta Barzilai, and Naomi Shemer.
Anita Shapira, 1940-
Shapira is a historian of Zionism and modern Israel and a professor emerita at Tel Aviv University. Her books include 2012 National Jewish Book Award winner Israel: A History and biographies of Berl Katznelson, David…
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…
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…
Yosef Sprinzak, 1885-1959
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…
Impassioned Zionist Max Nordau- the case for a Jewish state
Context and perspective are key elements in understanding history. Zionism emerged in the 19th century because there was a unique Jewish identity built around belief, Torah, ritual, and community concern for one another. And second, the presence of wretched anti-Semitism. Nordau gave an impassioned speech about the Jewish condition at the First Zionist Congress in 1897 in the late 19th century making the case for a Jewish national home. Nordau energized the audience and the Zionist movement.
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…
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…
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…
