Born in Israel, Netanyahu, as Minister of Foreign Af- fairs and Minister of Finance, initiated major reforms of the Israeli economy that were credited in making Israel a techno- logical powerhouse. He became Israel’s youngest Prime Minister in 1996. He expanded Israel’s relations with Africa and the Gulf States and changed Israel’s global image from […]

Born in Ukraine, Sharansky is a human rights activist and author. As a refusenik in the Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s, he spent nine years in Soviet prisons. He served as Chairman of the Executive for the Jewish Agency from June 2009 to August 2018. Sharansky currently serves as chairman for the Institute […]

Born in Palestine, Sharon was an Israeli general and politician who also served as the Prime Minister of Israel. He was considered the greatest field commander in Israel’s history, and one of the country’s greatest ever military strategists.

Born in Hungary, Szenes was a poet and a Special Operations Executive (SOE) member. She was one of 37 Jewish SOE recruits from Mandate Palestine parachuted by the British into Yugoslavia during the World War II to assist anti-Nazi forces and ultimately in the rescue of Hungarian Jews about to be deported to the German […]

Born in Poland, Anielewicz was an underground activist fighting the Germans during World War II. As a leader of his youth movement, he organized cells and youth groups. When the Nazis ordered the deportation of the Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the extermination camps, he was the commander of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. He […]

Born in Palestine, Dayan was an Israeli military leader, leading the Jewish State to many victories. He fought for his nation’s survival while knowing no fear. He was also a politician who became a crusader for peace.

Born in Lithuania, Bergson was a leader in the effort to promote Zionism to save the abandoned Jews of Europe during the Holocaust; while the American Jewish establishment was mostly silent and critical of his efforts. He established the Emergency Committee for the Rescue of European Jewry, which worked to educate the general public and […]

Born in Belarus (Russia). At the University of Warsaw, he organized a self-defense group of Jewish students to counter harassment by anti-Semites on campus. He be- came a disciple of Jabotinsky and after arriving in Pales- tine, he became the leader of the Irgun (an underground Zionist paramilitary organization). On February 1, 1944, he proclaimed […]

Born in Ukraine, Rabbi Schneerson led the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. He took an insular Hasidic group that almost came to an end with the Holocaust and transformed it into one of the most influential movements in religious Jewry, with an international network of over 5,000 educational and social centers. He helped save Jewish children in France […]

Born in Ukraine, Meir was a pioneer, visionary, risk-taker, indefatigable fundraiser, and eloquent advocate. An ac- tivist of the first order, she was one of the founders of the Jewish state, and was the Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974.

Born in Poland, Ben-Gurion was the head of the Jewish Agency in 1935, and later president of the Jewish Agency Executive. He was the de facto leader of the Jewish community in Palestine, and largely led its struggle for an in- dependent Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine. On May 14, 1948, he declared Israel’s independence […]

Born in Ukraine, Jabotinsky founded the Jewish Self-Defense Organization in Odessa. During World War I, he co- founded the Jewish Legion of the British army. He also established several Jewish organizations in Palestine, including Betar, Hatzohar, and the Irgun. As the Holocaust loomed, he demanded that Jews be armed, believing that strong Jews are the […]

Born in the United States, Szold was a visionary leader who founded Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. Under her direction, Hadassah became the largest and most powerful Zionist group in the United States, fundraising and setting up hospitals, food banks, nursing schools, and social work programs.

Born in Hungary, Herzl was a visionary leader who saw that Jewish nationalism (Zion- ism) was the only realistic way to protect Jews from anti-Semitism. The father of mod- ern political Zionism, Herzl formed the Zionist Organization and promoted Jewish im- migration to Palestine in an effort to form a Jewish state.