List of 'Top 144 Heroes of the Jewish People'

Released by Israeli Museum

Who made the cut? A sneak preview of the full list from Tel Aviv's Beit Hatfutsot museum.

Who made the ultimate list of Jewish luminaries compiled by Israel’s Beit Hatfutsot – The
Museum of the Jewish People?
Perhaps even more intriguing is who didn’t make the cut.
A new exhibition titled “Heroes – Trailblazers of the Jewish People,” scheduled to open
next month when the museum open its new wing, will showcase 144 top names in
disciplines ranging from epistemology through espionage, with lots in between.

It includes many of the usual suspects – Maimonides, Albert Einstein, Anne Frank,
Henrietta Szold, Theodor Herzl, Mark Spitz, Barbra Streisand, Sigmund Freud and Steven
Spielberg, to name a few.
But also some less consensual names. Ayn Rand, the right-wing philosopher and writer, and
Hannah Arendt (of “banality of evil” fame) are some examples. “We have no problem with
controversy,” says Orit Shaham Gover, the museum’s chief curator.
Aside from David Ben-Gurion, no Israeli prime minister, living or dead, made the list.
Those who might have expected a list of this sort to include literary luminaries like Saul
Bellow, Philip Roth or Amoz Oz will be disappointed. Although great efforts were invested
in making the list as inclusive and diverse as possible, Ashkenazi men clearly dominate the
selection.
A group of the 144 “heroes” – some cited individually and some in clusters, according to
discipline – will be showcased in special interactive exhibits designed for young museum
visitors. The museum had this target audience in mind, says Shaham Gover, when
compiling its list of inspirational Jewish figures. “We chose lots of people who used their
brains, because we wanted children to understand that to be a hero you don’t need be a
celebrity, but you do need to work hard,” she says. “That’s the hidden message here.”
Here is a sneak preview of the full list:
Athletes:
Mark Spitz
Esther Roth-Shahamorov
Agnes Keleti
Max Baer
Sandy Koufax
Emanuel Lasker
Judit Polgar
Tal Brody
Victor Perez
Harold Abrahams
Red Auerbach
Scientists:
Simcha Blass
Ada Yonath
Albert Einstein
Lise Meitner
Rosalind Franklin
Serg Haroche
Claude Cohen-Tannoudji
Baruj Benacerraf
Lev Landau
Richard Feynman
Niels Bohr
John von Neumann
Eldad Ha-Dani
Gregory Pincus
Jonas Salk
Cultural icons:
Moshe Safdie
Enrico Macias
Alber Elbaz
Albert Memmi
Patrick Modiano
Claude Lelouch
Gad Elmaleh
Woody Allen
Bob Dylan
Barbra Streisand
Frank Gehry
Daniel Libeskind
Ralph Lauren
Diane Von Furstenberg
Donna Karan
Michael Kors
Steven Spielberg
Stan Lee
Joel Coen
Ethan Coen
Jerry Seinfeld
Gustav Mahler
Ofra Haza
Felix Mendelssohn
Arik Einstein
Shoshana Damari
George Gershwin
Saleh and Daoud Al-Kawity
Habiba Msika
Amedeo Modigliani
Roy Lichtenstein
Chaim Soutine
Mark Rothko
Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro
Marc Chagall
Ibn Gabirol
Shmuel Yosef Agnon
Chaim Nachman Bialik
Franz Kafka
Shalom Aleichem
Clarice Lispector
Jacqueline Shohet Hahanoff
Leah Goldberg
Tristan Tzara
Heinrich Heine
Isaac Babel
Gertrude Stein
Nadine Gordimer
Elias Canetti
Yaqub Sanu
Layla Murad
Louis B. Mayer
Esther Victoria Abraham
Sergei Eisenstein
Nora Ephron
Dana International
Erez Biton
Souad Zaki
Thinkers:
Karl Marx
Sigmund Freud
Maimonides
Ayn Rand
Moses Mendelssohn
Hannah Arendt
Jacques Derrida
Claude Levi-Strauss
Martin Buber
Joseph Caro
Revolutionaries:
Baruch Spinoza
Theodor Herzl
Baal Shem Tov
Rosa Luxemburg
Betty Friedan
Leon Trotsky
Ze’ev Jabotinsky
Louis Brandeis
Yitzhak Sadeh
Eliezer Ben Yehuda
Ovadia Yosef
Leaders:
Moses
Judas Maccabeus
King David
David Ben-Gurion
Shmuel Hanagid
Joshua ben Nun
Benjamin Disraeli
Helen Suzman
Yehudah Hanasi
Henrietta Szold
Courageous Individuals:
Lydia Litvyak
Sarah Aaronsohn
Joseph Trumpeldor
Samson
Moshe Marzouk
Shmuel Azar
Alfred Dreyfus
Leopold Trepper
Nathan Elbaz
Eli Cohen
Jacob Antebi
Mickey Marcus
Bracha Fuld
Hannah Szenes
Anne Frank
Economics and business entrepreneurs:
Mayer Amschel Rothschild
Sergey Brin
Larry Page
David Sassoon
Dona Gracia Nasi
Helena Rubinstein
Mark Zuckerberg
Levi Strauss
Daniel Kahneman
Marcus Goldman
Gil Shwed
Paul Julius Reuter
Larry Ellison
Milton Friedman
https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/list-of-top-144-heroes-of-the-jewish-people-released-by-israeli-
museum-1.5386497