Yigael Yadin, 1917-1984
Yadin was a military commander and an archaeologist. He led the Negev campaign against the Egyptians in the War of Independence and served as the second IDF chief of staff from 1949 to 1952. He…
A.B. Yehoshua, 1936-2022
A part of the new wave of Israeli authors, Yehoshua wrote short stories, novels and plays, including “The Lover,” “The Tunnel” and “A Tale of Two Zionists.” He received international literary awards ranging from the…
David Yellin, 1864-1941
Yellin co-founded and led the Hebrew Language Committee and the Teachers Union. He also founded a Hebrew teachers college now named after him. He helped modernize Hebrew and published a dictionary in 1920. He held…
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…
Ada Yonath, 1939-
Yonath is the first Israeli woman to receive a Nobel Prize, sharing the chemistry prize in 2009 for work on ribosomes, which are crucial proteins in cells. She used X-ray crystallography to map ribosomes’ structure,…
Ovadia Yosef, 1920-2013
Born in Baghdad, Yosef in 1984 founded Shas, an Orthodox Sephardi political party. He exerted authority within the party and backed government funding for the poor and Orthodox. An important Talmudic scholar, he served as…
