About a month ago, my ten year old grandson asked for some books about
Israelis for Hanukkah. So I started the search, and was shocked to see
how few biographies exist for the ages of 10—15. I found a book by David
Adler on Golda Meir, one on Ariel Sharon written in 2006 by Norman
Finkelstein, and a book on Ilan Ramon. Then I looked at books with short
entries about a number of famous Jews in them and found that most of the
books were written about 20 years ago or longer. I put out a request for
book titles and details and I am including them on this entry as I found
that there is a huge interest in this topic as well as of famous Jews in
general. Most of the books below are about Americans, but most include
Israelis and other Jews—mostly from Europe. They are quite accessible to
youth but there is a strong need for updates to many.
*Jewish Heroes and Heroines:* Their Unique Achievements by Darryl Lyman,
1996
I like this book because it organizes the short biographies by topics
starting with:
Government and Military Service
Civil Rights, Feminism, and Jewish Activism
Law
Religion
Biological Sciences
Physical Sciences (a very large section)
Social Sciences
Technology
And 8 more categories, ending in Sports and Games
Unfortunately few are Israeli.
The Israelis including in this book are: Menachem Begin, David
Ben-Gurion, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Chaim Weitzman, Naomi Leibowitz,
Martin Buber, S. Y. Agnon, Yael Arad,
There are also very short paragraphs about the following Israelis:
Trumpeldor, Sharansky, Ida Nudel,Yonatan Netanyahu, Benjamin Netanyahu,
Yigal Alon, Miriam Ben-Porat, Tehilla Lichtenstein, Hannah Rachel, Eliezer
Lipa Sukenik, Joel Engel, Itzhak Perlman, Shulamit Ran, Josef Rosenblatt,
Naomi Shemer,
*A Voice Called: Stories of Jewish Heroism*, by Yossi Katz 2010, Gefen
Publishing
The 32 entries are between four and 12 pages long of which many area
Israeli
(The Table of Contents can be seen on Amazon)
*Extraordinary Jewish Americans* by Brooks, 1998
It starts with Haym Salomon and goes to Jerry Steinfeld. It looks to me
about a good compilation as a start. It would help if it were updated and
included people in the sciences and other areas too. The table of Contents
is also on Amazon.
* In the Promised Land: Lives of Jewish Americans*, by Doreen Rappaport.
2005
13 famous Jewish Americans and what they did that made a difference--it
includes Houdini, Jonas Salk and Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
*Golden Age of Jewish Achievement* by Steven Pease--this book was written
for Adults. The table of contents is also available on Amazon and names
are by topics. I think it mainly focuses on people in the US.
*Pride of Our People*: The stories of one hundred outstanding Jewish men and
women by David Gross, 1979 by Doubleday
It was reissued (1991)and cut down from 100 to 36 people.
*Great Jewish Men* by Slater, originally published about 1996 and
reissued/Updated in 2012
The entries are listed alphabetically by last name and the table of
contents is on Amazon.
Israelis include Agnon, Mordechai Anielewicz, (not Israeli but Kibbutz Yad
Mordechai is named for him), Begin, Ben-Gurion, Ben-Yehuda, Bialik, Ei
Cohen, Dayan, Teddy Kollek, Amos Oz, Rabin, Sharansky, Weitzman, Yigdal
Yadin.
Thumbnail sketches include these Israelis: Yaakov Agam, Ahad Ha-am, Yehuda
Amichai, Yitzkah Ben-Zvi, Abba Eban, Chaim Herzog, Binyamin Netanyahu,
Shimon Peres, Ariel Sharon, Adin Steinsatz, Ezer Weitzman
*Great Jewish Women* by Slater, originally published about 1996
reissued/updated in 2015
The entries are also listed alphabetically and the table of contents is on
Amazon.
Israelis include Sara Aronson, Shulamit Aloni, Yael Arad, Rahel Blewstein,
Nechama Liebowitz, Golda Meir, Hannah Rachel Verbemacher, Ida Nudel, Hannah
Senesh, and maybe one or two more I missed. There are also 28 pages of
thumbnail sketches at the end.
*The Jewish 100--A Ranking of the Most Influential Jews of all Time* by
Michael Shapiro, updated in 2000, by Carol Publishing group. (Included
Jesus and also others who didn't identify as Jewish or converted to
Christianity)
*Jewish Sports Stars*, (Past and Present) 2nd Revised edition by David
Goldman (Kar-Ben), organized by 9 sports
Jewish Comedy Stars: From Classic to Cutting Edge, by Norman Finkelstein
(Kar-Ben) (all from the U.S.)
I just found this book and think it is aimed for adults:
*A Chosen Calling: Jewish in Science in the Twentieth Century* (Medicine,
Science, and Religious in Historical context) HUC Press, by Noah Efron.
Does anyone know anything about it?
If one goggles specific topics, it is easy to come up with famous Israelis
or Jews in general in different sectors.
A great website of Jews in sports is: http://www.jewsinsports.org/
Here is where one can find a list of Israeli Nobel Prize Winners:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_Nobel_laureates
and of Jewish Nobel winners, 22% of the total:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laureates
And here is where one can find a list of famous American Jews by category:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_American_Jews#Academics
Here is one from the Jerusalem Post of famous Israeli innovators:
www.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Tech/Most-influential-Jewish-innovators-entrepreneurs-403767
Here is where I found a list of famous Ethiopian Israelis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_Ethiopian_Jews
And famous Jews or their descendants from the Arab world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jews_from_the_Arab_world
And slightly off topic but there is a new book about African American
basketball players who made Aliyah, and a number of them converted to
Judaism: Alley Oop to Aliyah!
I hope that this is a good starting point for many and will energize you to
look for more.
I do think it would be very important for someone to publish a thoughtful
compendium for youth of Israelis in modern times that have been important
in their fields and be sure that it is a diverse list
Dina Tanners
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