The Jewish 100 : a ranking of the most influential Jews of all time

429 Pages·1994·6.16 MB·English

by  Shapiro

The
JEWISH
100
The
JEWISH
100
A Ranking of
The Most Influential
Jews of All Time
Michael Shapiro
Paumanok Books Edition - 2012
Copyright © 1994 by Michael Shapiro All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection
with a review.
Published by Paumanok Books Editorial Offices: 270 Madison Avenue, Suite 1501, New York, NY
10016
Queries regarding rights and permissions should be addressed to: Paumanok Books, 270 Madison
Avenue, Suite 1501, New York, NY 10016
Manufactured in the United States of America
ISBN-13: 978-1470014421, ISBN-10: 1470014424
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shapiro, Michael
The Jewish 100: a ranking of the most influential Jews of all time / by Michael Shapiro.
p. cm.
1. Jews—Biography. I.Title. II.Title:Jewishonehundred.
DS115.S465 1994
93-44621
920.0092924—dc20
CIP
Digital book(s) (epub and mobi) produced by Booknook.biz.
To Barnett, Annie, and Esther
Uncle Charlie and Aunt Jean
Sam and Jean
Benjamin, Gregory, Nathaniel, and Elena
I owe you my life and all my love
… but your name shall be Abraham; for the father of many nations have I made
you. And I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations from
you, and kings shall come out of you. And I will establish My covenant between
Myself and you and your seed after you throughout their generations for an
everlasting covenant, to be a God unto you and to your seed after you …
—Genesis 17:5
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
1 Moses
2 Jesus of Nazareth
3 Albert Einstein
4 Sigmund Freud
5 Abraham
6 Saul of Tarsus (Saint Paul)
7 Karl Marx
8 Theodor Herzl
9 Mary
10 Baruch de Spinoza
11 David
12 Anne Frank
13 The Prophets
14 Judas Iscariot
15 Gustav Mahler
16 Maimonides
17 Niels Bohr
18 Moses Mendelssohn
19 Paul Ehrlich
20 Rashi
21 Benjamin Disraeli
22 Franz Kafka
23 David Ben-Gurion
24 Hillel
25 John Von Neumann
26 Simon Bar Kokhba
27 Marcel Proust
28 Mayer Rothschild
29 Solomon
30 Heinrich Heine
31 Selman Waksman
32 Giacomo Meyerbeer
33 Isaac Luria
34 Gregory Pincus
35 Leon Trotsky
36 David Ricardo
37 Alfred Dreyfus
38 Leo Szilard
39 Mark Rothko
40 Ferdinand Cohn
41 Samuel Gompers
42 Gertrude Stein
43 Albert Michelson
44 Philo Judaeus
45 Golda Meir
46 The Vilna Gaon
47 Henri Bergson
48 The Baal Shem Tov
49 Felix Mendelssohn
50 Louis B. Mayer
51 Judah Halevy
52 Haym Salomon
53 Johanan ben Zakkai
54 Arnold Schoenberg
55 Emile Durkheim
56 Betty Friedan
57 David Sarnoff
58 Lorenzo Da Ponte
59 Julius Rosenwald
60 Casimir Funk
61 George Gershwin
62 Chaim Weizmann
63 Franz Boas
64 Sabbatai Zevi
65 Leonard Bernstein
66 Flavius Josephus
67 Walter Benjamin
68 Louis Brandeis
69 Emile Berliner
70 Sarah Bernhardt
71 Levi Strauss
72 Nahmanides
73 Menachem Begin
74 Anna Freud
75 Queen Esther
76 Martin Buber
77 Jonas Salk
78 Jerome Robbins
79 Henry Kissinger
80 Wilhelm Steinitz
81 Arthur Miller
82 Daniel Mendoza
83 Stephen Sondheim
84 Emma Goldman
85 Sir Moses Montefiore
86 Jerome Kern
87 Boris Pasternak
88 Harry Houdini
89 Edward Bernays
90 Leopold Auer
91 Groucho Marx
92 Man Ray
93 Henrietta Szold
94 Benny Goodman
95 Steven Spielberg
96 Marc Chagall
97 Bob Dylan
98 Sandy Koufax
99 Bernard Berenson
100 Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
From Abraham to the death of Simon Bar Kokhba in the tragic revolt against
the Romans of 135 C.E., the Jewish people exerted an influence on world
civilization more profound and lasting than any other ancient culture. Surely
other peoples added their own richness to humanity: Babylonian government,
Chinese invention, Egyptian architecture, Greek philosophy, literature, and
democracy, Hindu mysticism, Roman imperialism—all contributed much to the
forces of history.
Yet the Jews were a people capable of producing Moses and Jesus of Nazareth
and inspiring the Prophet of Islam. The beliefs of Christians and Muslims in one
God come directly from the Jewish S’hma (“Hear, O Israel, the LORD our GOD,
the LORD is One!”). Those words, first uttered in a desert almost devoid of life,
blossomed into the faiths of countless billions.
When the Romans massacred Bar Kokhba and his rebels, the survivors were
either sold into slavery or dispersed into the empire. Except for the flowering of
Jewish expression in pre-Inquisition Spain, no Jew, until Baruch de Spinoza in
the seventeenth century, was permitted to leave any mark on Western
civilization. Almost 1,600 years were spent in seclusion and bare survival. Jews
did not participate to any noticeable degree in the Italian Renaissance or the
Elizabethan Age. Nonetheless, during these centuries of hiding and Diaspora, a
succession of rabbis of genius and an observant people kept the Jewish religion
and culture intact.
Only when leaders such as Moses Mendelssohn and the Rothschilds pulled
themselves and their people out of the ghetto that was their lot in Europe (and
with the special help of Napoleon) did Jewry again participate in the
development of a world community. The period from the Enlightenment in the
late 1700s through the present day has witnessed the third greatest period of
Jewish culture and influence.
This book ranks the 100 most influential Jews of all time. In their areas of
human endeavor each of them worked a special influence on mankind. They
changed the way we live and think. Even the few who touched only the souls
and minds of Jews are important to us because of their defining presence on
Jewish identity.