- Theodor Herzl
Benjamin Ze'ev (Theodor) Herzl) (May 2, 1860 - July 3, 1904) was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist who founded modern political Zionism. Herzl was born in Budapest, Hungary, but his family moved to Vienna when Theodor was 18. There, he studied law, but he devoted himself almost exclusively to journalism and literature, working as a correspondent for the "Neue Freie Presse" in Paris, occasionally making special trips to London and Istanbul. - Henry Makow
Henry Makow, Ph.D., (born November 12, 1949 in Zürich, Switzerland) is a Jewish-Canadian non-fiction writer, the inventor of the board game Scruples, and the author of "A Long Way to go for a Date," the story of his courtship and marriage to a young Filipina. He believes that it is a good thing to maintain racial identity but would not let that prevent intermarriage. As a baby,he moved with his family to Canada, settling in Ottawa. - Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann November 27, 1874 – November 9, 1952) was a chemist, statesman, President of the World Zionist Organization, first President of Israel (elected February 1, 1949, served 1949 - 1952) and founder of a research institute in Israel that eventually became the Weizmann Institute of Science. - Azmi Bishara
Azmi Bishara is a Palestinian Christian who was a Member of the Israeli Knesset and leader of the Balad party from 1996 until resigning in April 2007. His resignation took place amidst news of a series of "serious" but "unspecified" criminal charges being laid against him by Israeli security services, which were later revealed to be treason and espionage. By resigning, Bishara lost his parliamentary immunity and has chosen to remain abroad, … - Tom Segev
Tom Segev (born 1945, Jerusalem) is an Israeli intellectual, journalist, and historian. Segev's parents fled Nazi Germany in 1935 and settled in Palestine. His father was killed in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. After his early education in Israel, he studied history at Hebrew University and then received a doctorate in history from Boston University in the seventies. Segev writes for Ha'aretz, a major Israeli liberal newspaper, and has published several books. - Avi Shlaim
Avi Shlaim (born October 31, 1945 in Baghdad) is an Israeli-British dual citizen and historian and identifies ethnically as an Iraqi Jew. He is considered a key member of a group of Israeli scholars known as the New Historians who put forward revised interpretations of the history of Zionism and Israel. He is a regular contributor to "The Guardian" newspaper. - Joseph Massad
Joseph Andoni Massad is an Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University. He is of Palestinian Arab descent from a Christian family. He became the center of a controversy over Anti-Zionism, antisemitism, and academic freedom in 2004 and 2005. - Ze'Ev Jabotinsky
Ze'ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky MBE (Hebrew: זאב ז'בוטינסקי, Russian: Зеэв (Владимир Евгеньевич) Жаботинский, 18 October, 1880 – 4 August, 1940) was a Zionist leader, author, orator, soldier, and founder of the Jewish Legion in World War I. - Moshe Sharett
Moshe Sharett, born Moshe Shertok (Hebrew: משה שרתוק was the second Prime Minister of Israel (1954-1955), serving for a little under two years between David Ben-Gurion's two terms. Born in Kherson, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire, Moshe Sharett emigrated to Palestine in 1908. His family was one of the founders of Tel Aviv. He was a member of the first graduating class of the Herzliya Hebrew High School. - Walter Laqueur
Walter Zeev Laqueur is an American historian and political commentator. He was born in Breslau, Germany (modern Wrocław, Poland), to a Jewish family. In 1938 Laqueur left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine. His parents, who were unable to leave, died in the Holocaust. He lived in Palestine/Israel 1938-53 and since then in the UK and USA. He wrote the foreword to Wilhelm Wulff's book "Zodiac and Swastika". - Nahum Goldmann
Nahum Goldmann was a Polish-born Israeli Zionist and founder and longtime president of the World Jewish Congress. - Arthur Balfour
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC (25 July, 1848 - 19 March 1930) was a British Conservative politician and statesman, and the Prime Minister from 1902 to 1905, a time when his party and government became divided over the issue of tariff reform. Later, as Foreign Secretary, he authored the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which supported the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. - Moses Hess
Moses (Moshe) Hess was a German Jewish philosopher and one of the founders of socialism. Hess was born in Bonn. He adopted the name "Moritz," but subsequently reverted to his birthname "Moses", thus re-claiming his Jewish identity. He was an early proponent of socialism, and a precursor to what would later be called Zionism. His works included "Holy History of Mankind" (1837), "European Triarchy" (1841) and "Rome and Jerusalem" (1862). - Jacob Schiff
Jacob Henry Schiff, born Jacob Hirsch Schiff (January 10, 1847 - September 25, 1920) was a German-born New York City banker and philanthropist, who financed, among many other things, the Japanese military efforts against Tsarist Russia in the Russo-Japanese War. From his base on Wall Street, he was the foremost Jewish leader in what became known as the "Schiff era," grappling with all major issues and problems of the day, … - Max Nordau
Max Simon Nordau, born Simon Maximilian Südfeld, Südfeld Simon Miksa in Pest, Hungary, was a Zionist leader, physician, author, and social critic. He was a co-founder of the World Zionist Organization together with Theodor Herzl, and president or vice president of several Zionist congresses. As a social critic, he wrote a number of controversial books, including "The Conventional Lies of Our Civilisation" (1883), … - Ilan Pappé
Ilan Pappé is an Israeli historian who used to teach at Haifa University. He has now taken a position at the University of Exeter in Britain. He is one of the "New Historians" who have re-examined and hold controversial views of the history of Israel and of Zionism. - Louis Brandeis
Louis Dembitz Brandeis was an American litigator, Supreme Court Justice, advocate of privacy, and developer of the Brandeis Brief. In addition, he helped lead the American Zionist movement. Justice Brandeis was appointed by Woodrow Wilson to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1916 (sworn-in on June 5), and served until 1939. - John Rose
John Rose is a British Trotskyist politician and a leading member of the Socialist Workers Party. He is of Jewish descent. He is best known as a speaker on Israel and Palestine and as a critic of Zionism. He teaches sociology at Southwark College and London Metropolitan University. He is the author of numerous books and articles including; *"Israel: The Hijack State - America's Watchdog In The Middle East", Bookmarks Publications, October 1986, … - Israel Zangwill
Israel Zangwill was an English-born Zionist, humourist and writer. Born to a Russian émigré who had escaped persecution and death in a Czarist military prison, he dedicated his life to championing the cause of the oppressed. Jewish emancipation, women's suffrage and Zionism (understood as a national liberation movement) were all fertile fields for his pen. Zangwill received his early schooling in Plymouth and Bristol. - Joseph Trumpeldor
Joseph Trumpeldor (b. December 1, 1880, d. March 1 1920, ,) was an early Zionist activist, notable for helping organize the Zion Mule Corps and bringing Jewish immigrants to Palestine. - Jacqueline Rose
Jacqueline Rose is a British academic who is Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of London. Rose is probably best known for her work on the relationship between psychoanalysis, feminism and literature. She is a graduate of St Hilda's College, Oxford and gained her higher degree (Mâitrise) from the Sorbonne and her doctorate from the University of London. - Simha Flapan
Simha Flapan (1911-1987) was an Israeli historian and politician, probably best known for his book "The Birth of Israel: Myths And Realities", published in the year of his death. The book has been considered crucial in the demythologizing of the story of the founding of the modern state of Israel. In this respect, he is generally considered one of the New Historians, although he was a generation older than most of the people identified with that label. - Shlomo Avineri
Shlomo Avineri is an Israeli political scientist. He is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. - Henry Morgentaler
Henry Morgentaler, M.D., LL.D.(hc), (born March 19, 1923, in Łódź, Poland) is a Canadian gynecologist and longtime abortion activist from Montreal. Morgentaler is a Holocaust survivor. After living through Auschwitz, he accepted a United Nations scholarship that was being offered to Jewish survivors. He went to medical school in Germany while living with a German family that was forced to house him under the programme. - Henrietta Szold
Henrietta Szold (December 21, 1860 - February 13, 1945) was a U.S. Jewish scholar and Zionist leader. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of a rabbi, she studied Talmud and established the first American night school, intended to provide English language instruction and vocational skills to Russian Jewish immigrants in Baltimore. Beginning in 1893, she worked for the Jewish Publication Society, a position she maintained for over two decades. - Eliezer Ben-Yehuda
Eliezer Ben‑Yehuda was principally responsible for the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language from its previous state as a liturgical language. Born Eliezer Yitzhak Perlman in Luzhki (Лужки), a shtetl which now lies in northern Belarus and was a part of the Vilnius Guberniya of Imperial Russia at the time. He began to study Hebrew and the Torah at age three, like many young Jewish boys in Eastern Europe. - Avraham Stern
Avraham Stern, alias Yair was the founder and leader of the Zionist militant organization later known as Lehi which was also known as the "Stern Gang". Stern was born in Suwałki, Poland, immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1925, and studied in the Hebrew Gymnasium in Jerusalem, and afterwards in the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus. He specialized in Classic languages and literature (Greek and Latin). - Ber Borochov
Dov Ber Berochov (1881-1917) was a Marxist Zionist and one of the founders of the Labor Zionist movement. He was born in the town of Zolotonosha, Ukraine, under the Russian Empire. As an adult he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party but was expelled for his Zionist beliefs. Subsequently, he helped form the Poale Zion party and devoted his life to promoting the party in Russia, Europe, and America. When the Russian social democrats came to power, … - Arthur Ruppin
Arthur Ruppin (1876-1943) was a Zionist thinker and leader. He was also one of the founders of the city of Tel Aviv, and a pioneering sociologist credited as being "The Father Of Jewish Sociology", directing Berlin's Bureau for Jewish Statistics and Demography from 1902 to 1907. In 1926, Ruppin joined the faculty of Hebrew University in Jerusalem and founded the sociology department. A building there is now named in his honor. - Nahum Sokolow
Nahum Sokolow was a Zionist leader, author, translator, and a pioneer of Hebrew journalism. Born to a rabbinic family in Wyszogród, Russia (now Poland), Sokolow began writing for the local Hebrew newspaper, "HaTzefirah", when he was only seventeen years old. He quickly won himself a huge following that crossed the boundaries of political and religious affiliation among Polish Jews, from secular intellectuals to anti-Zionist Haredim, … - Abba Hillel Silver
Abba Hillel Silver was a U.S. Rabbi and Zionist leader. Born Abraham Silver in Lithuania, son and grandson of Orthodox rabbis, he was brought to the US as a child of nine. A Zionist from his youth he made his first speech at a Zionist meeting at age fourteen. Educated in the public schools and after-school Jewish schools of New York City's Lower East Side, he left after high school to attend the Hebrew Union College and the University of Cincinnati. - Nathan Birnbaum
Nathan Birnbaum (16 May 1864 - 2 April 1937) was Austrian journalist, Jewish philosopher, the founder of a Jewish nationalist organisation "Kadimah" ten years before Theodor Herzl became the leading spokesman of the Zionist movement. Birnbaum is credited for coining the term "Zionism". Sometimes he used the pseudonyms 'Mathias Ascher' or "Mathias Acher". - Yehoshafat Harkabi
Yehoshafat Harkabi (1921-1994) was chief of Israeli military intelligence from 1955 until 1959. He is known primarily for his gradual development from uncompromising hardliner to a PLO state. Following his military career Harkabi served as a visiting professor at Princeton University and as a guest scholar at the Brookings Institute. - Yitzhak Ben-Zvi
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi ((November 24, 1884 - April 23, 1963) was a historian, Labor Zionist leader, and the second and longest serving President of Israel. Born in Poltava, Ukraine, Ben-Zvi was the eldest son of Zvi Shimshelevitz, who later took the name Shimshi. He was active in the Jewish self-defense units organized in Ukraine to defend Jews during the pogroms of 1905, and joined the Poalei Zion (Workers of Zion) Zionist political party. - Ran Cohen
Ran Cohen (born 20 June 1937) is an Israeli politician and Knesset member for Meretz-Yachad. He is a resident of Mevaseret Zion and married with four children. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, Cohen was 13 years old when he immigrated to Israel through Iran. He grew in Kibbutz Gan Shmuel, where he absorbed Socialist and Zionist ideologies. During his military service he rose to the rank of Colonel (Aluf Mishne). - Joel Teitelbaum
Grand Rabbi Joel (Yoel) Teitelbaum, (born 1887, died August 19, 1979), known as Reb Yoelish or the Satmar Rav (or Rebbe), was a prominent Hungarian Hasidic rebbe and Talmudic scholar. He was probably the best known Haredi opponent of all forms of modern political Zionism. - Berl Katznelson
Berl Katznelson (1887 - 1944) was a Labour Zionism philosopher. He is regarded as one of the intellectual personalities behind the rise of modern Zionism which led to the establishment of the modern State of Israel. He was born in Bobruysk, Belarus, and dreamed of emigrating from his early youth. In Belarus, he was a librarian in a Hebrew-Yiddish library and a teacher of Hebrew literature and Jewish history. - Raleb Majadele
Raleb Majadele (also spelt Ghaleb Majadele, born 5 April 1953 in Baqa al-Gharbiyye) is an Israeli politician. He has been a Member of the Knesset for the Labor Party since mid-2004, and is the first Muslim Arab to be appointed as a Minister in the Israeli cabinet. On January 10, 2007, Labor chairman Amir Peretz declared his intention to appoint him as Minister of Science, Culture and Sport, … - Brit Shalom
Brit Shalom (lit. "covenant of peace";, "Tahalof Essalam"; also called the Jewish-Palestinian Peace Alliance) was a group of Jewish intellectuals, founded in 1925. The original "Brit Shalom" sought a peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Jews, achieved by a Jewish renunciation of the Balfour Declaration. It supported the establishment of a bi-national regime under the British Mandate, where both Jews and Arabs would enjoy equality. - Per Ahlmark
Per Axel Ahlmark (born January 15, 1939, Stockholm) is a Swedish writer and former leader of the Liberal People's Party. He received his BA in Political Science at the University of Stockholm in 1964. Ahlmark was the leader of the Swedish Liberal Youth of Sweden 1960-1962 and a member of the Board of the Liberal People's Party 1960-1978. He served as a Member of the Riksdag from 1967 to 1978 and as Leader of the Liberal People's Party from 1975 to 1978.
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