這世界誰說的算？ (3 of 4)

這世界誰說的算？ (3 of 4)

http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/Worlds-50-most-influential-Jews

World's 50 most influential Jews     By STEVE LINDE

05/21/2010 07:23

The Jerusalem Post's first annual list of those who are shaping the future.

The story is told, in several cultural variations, of a Jewish man spotting a friend reading an Arabic newspaper. “Moshe, have you lost your mind?” he says. 

“Well, I used to read the Jewish papers, but what did I find?” Moshe replies. “Jews being persecuted, Israel being attacked, Jews disappearing through assimilation, Jews living in poverty. So I switched to an Arab newspaper. Now what do I find? Jews own the banks, Jews control the media, Jews are all rich and powerful, Jews rule the world. The news is so much better!”

In what is planned as an annual media event, The Jerusalem Post has chosen the world’s leading 50 Jewish “movers and shakers” based on a range of criteria, including personal access to power, ability to exert influence and individual talent.

The Post’s list of the 50 most influential Jews in the world was not designed to feed the anti-Semitic stereotype that Jews control the world. Nor should it be construed as a source of religious or national pride, because while those on the list all identify themselves as Jews, Judaism and Israel are not necessarily central to their careers.

The candidates were chosen from all walks of life for their ability to fashion the face of the future. Many hold positions of power or prestige, while others are prominent personalities who exert extraordinary influence in Israel, the Jewish world or on the wider world stage.

They include an impressive array of high-powered politicians and business executives, top bankers and hi-tech giants, revered rabbis and media moguls as well as thinkers, musicians, movie makers, artists, writers,  trend-setters, sports people and comedians.

We sought a good mix of Israelis and non-Israelis, religious and secular, figures from across the political spectrum, men and women. We warmly congratulate those on the list, and thank those who responded to being chosen.

To those who were excluded, either deliberately or unwittingly, we apologize. We omitted New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key, for example, because although his mother is Jewish, he identifies himself as agnostic – and, with respect, how important is Wellington on the world map?

Our list is headed by Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu has become well known around the world for his political dexterity and eloquence in English. Heading a relatively stable coalition, his actions on the diplomatic track over the next year will inevitably have an enormous impact not only on the troubled Middle East but on the Jewish world at large.

In his response to being chosen by The Jerusalem Post and our Internet readership around the world on jpost.com as the most influential Jew in the world, Netanyahu told our reporter, Herb Keinon: “The fact that the Prime Minister of the State of Israel is viewed as being the world’s most influential Jew is a historic vindication of the miracle of Zionism.”

It may be no historic accident that the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, Barack Obama, recently approved a second term for Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chairman, and chose Jews to be his closest advisers: Rahm Emanuel, the tough White House chief of staff, David Axelrod, his savvy political adviser and Dan Shapiro, the top Middle East expert on the National Security Council.

He also happens to be friendly with several Jewish leaders, including Alan Solow and Lee Rosenberg, who are both on our list.

Second on the list is Bernanke, the man who holds the purse strings of the richest nation on the planet and is credited with steering the US out of a severe financial crisis. He is followed by Emanuel, who arguably has the most influence on the American president – and certainly has his ear whenever he needs it.

AS WE CELEBRATE Shavuot, when the Jewish people received the Torah on Mount Sinai from Moses, the most famous Jew in history, we can only pray that those on our list use their influence to better the world and help Israel and the Jewish people serve as a light unto the nations.

It is on Shavuot that we read the Book of Ruth, perhaps the most famous convert in the Bible. Ruth’s acceptance of Judaism is based on her acceptance of the Torah, and King David is believed to be her great-grandson. Jewish tradition has it that David, one of the greatest figures in the Bible, was born and died on Shavuot.

Coincidentally, two of our top 50 personalities are named Ruth – Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, and Prof. Ruth Arnon, a renowned Israeli biochemist credited with developing a drug against multiple sclerosis.

Considering their small numbers, Jews have fared disproportionately well in lists of the world’s most powerful and richest people, as well as in Nobel Prizes.

The world Jewish population is estimated at being 02. percent of the total populace – some 13.5 million, with just over 5.7 million in Israel, 5.6 million in the US, half a million in Russia and France, 280,000 in the UK and 200,000 in Germany.

Yet in Vanity Fair’s latest list of the 100 most powerful people in the world, 51 are Jews. Ten of the 50 people on this year’s Forbes’ annual billionaires list are Jewish. Of the 802 Nobel prizes handed out to date, 162 have gone to Jews.

In Michael H. Hart’s book, The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History, seven are Jews.

Jews have also featured prominently on Time’s annual list of the world’s 100 most influential people, and in 1999, the magazine named Albert Einstein person of the century.

IN A SHORT story by Philip Roth, a talent scout sends a letter to Einstein proposing that the renowned scientist host a weekly radio show to help reduce anti-Semitism.

“I would like them to know that the genius of all time is a Jew,” he writes. “The world must know and soon... that when it comes to smart, we are the tops.”

Four years ago, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt shook the Jewish world by writing a paper, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, on what they perceived as the exaggerated influence of the Jewish lobby.

After being named by the pair as a key member of the media wing of the Israel lobby, Mortimer Zuckerman – a former head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations – replied sardonically: “I would just say this: The allegations of this disproportionate influence of the Jewish community remind me of the 92-year-old man sued in a paternity suit. He said he was so proud, he pleaded guilty.”

Asked by reporter Greer Fay Cashman for his response on being chosen for our list, President Shimon Peres said that he tells both religious and non-religious Jews that the best example to follow is that of the Rambam (Maimonides), “who was great in his Jewishness and great in medicine without one contradicting the other.”

How much influence do Jews wield in the world, and how influential are those on our list? We leave you to judge.


1. Binyamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister of Israel

Serving his second year in his second term, Netanyahu, 60, is the first premier to have been born after the state’s creation. Netanyahu has arguably gone further than any of his predecessors in easing the plight of Palestinians in the West Bank and freezing settlement construction. In his seminal Bar-Ilan University speech last year, the Likud leader accepted the idea of a Palestinian state for the first time, and is currently overseeing proximity talks with the Palestinians that he hopes to galvanize toward a final settlement to the Middle East conflict.

Netanyahu’s ratings soared this month as Israel was accepted to be a member of the OECD.

Netanyahu responds:
The fact that the Prime Minister of the State of Israel is viewed today as being the world’s most influential Jew demonstrates the historic change that Zionism has brought about in the condition of the Jewish people.

A scattered, powerless people has been able to reassert its national life in its own sovereign state, in its ancestral homeland. From being mere spectators on the international stage, today the Jews control their own destiny and have returned as a people to the family of nations. Free, democratic and able to defend itself against threats and adversity, Israel doesn’t just survive, it flourishes. Today, within the State of Israel, the creativity and genius of the Jewish people are bursting forth in every area: in science; in technology; in entrepreneurship; in medicine; in the arts.

When Israel was established in 1948, only some 5% of the world’s Jewish population lived in the new state. Today, Israel contains the largest Jewish community in the world.

This honor awarded to the Prime Minister of the Jewish State is a testament to the profound transformation that has occurred in the reality of life for the Jewish People over the last 62 years.

2. Ben Bernanke
The chairman of the US Federal Reserve.

In announcing his second term until 2014, President Obama said Bernanke’s background, temperament, courage and creativity helped prevent another Great Depression. Time named him person of the year last year. Bernanke, 56, wrote his doctoral thesis at MIT in 1979 on “Long-term commitments, dynamic optimization, and the business cycle” and his thesis adviser was none other than Stanley Fischer, the current governor of the Bank of Israel.

3. Rahm Emanuel
White House chief of staff.

Emanuel is believed by some critics to be a key player in Barack Obama’s more critical stance on Israel – an adviser with the expertise to strongly influence the president. He is believed by others to be a crucial bulwark, limiting Washington-Jerusalem frictions.

His father, an Israeli doctor, caused a stir by telling Ma’ariv after his appointment by President Obama: “Obviously, he’ll influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn’t he? What is he, an Arab?” Known as a tough guy, Emanuel flew to Israel as a volunteer during the first Iraq war and is said to be the model for Josh Lyman on the popular TV series, “The West Wing.”

4. Sergey Brin
Founder of Google

Together with Larry Page, whose maternal grandmother was Jewish, the Russian-born Brin founded Google, the world’s largest Internet company, and they are often referred to as the “Google Guys.” Brin, 36, and Page, 37, met at Stanford, where they suspended their doctoral studies to start up Google in a rented garage.

The Economist calls Brin an “Enlightenment Man” who believes that “knowledge is always good, and certainly always better than ignorance” and in  the Google mantra, “Don’t be evil!” (Board chairman Eric Schmidt famously quipped that “Evil is whatever Sergey says is evil.”) The duo have visited Israel several times, once for the 80th birthday of Shimon Peres.

5. Shai Agassi
Founder of Better Place

Agassi, 42, has become a pioneer in alternative energy under the auspices of the company he founded in 2007.

After being endorsed by the Israeli government in 2008, Better Place has negotiated contracts on electric cars with more than two dozen countries. The Israeli entrepeneur was named by Time as the world’s most influential businessman in 2003 and one of its 100 most influential people last year.

6. Dominique Strauss-Kahn
Head of the International Monetary Fund

Strauss-Kahn, 61, was professor of economics at the University of Paris, where he obtained his doctorate, and became a member of parliament for the Socialist Party in 1986. He was chosen as managing director of the International Monetary Fund in 2007 and is expected to run for president of France in 2012.

The IMF played a key role in the recent European decision to pass a trillion-dollar plan to aid Greece.

7. Shimon Peres
President of Israel

Peres, who is 86, arguably wields more power and prestige than any of his predecessors. After a career marked by controversy and confrontation, in which he gained the reputation of being a serial loser, Peres has finally emerged as a consensus figure admired not only by the outside world but by the majority of Israelis too.

He maintains a more than correct relationship with the prime minister, who appreciates the international credibility and access offered by the Nobel peace laureate, even as he asserts a greater Palestinian willingness for compromise than Binyamin Netanyahu believes exists.

Peres responds:
“I would like to discover ways to enter the New Age while being Jewish and modern at the same time. Traveling is not such a big deal today, and I imagine that many of the Jewish people who do not live in Israel can develop a way of life which they can share in two places. I would like to see a Jewish lifestyle which on the one hand is as old as the Ten Commandments and on the other is as modern as nanotechnology.”

8. David Axelrod
Senior White House Adviser

Barack Obama’s top political adviser helps the president craft and communicate his policy, and calmed tempers during the latest spat between the US and Israel.

Before entering the White House, Axelrod, 55, was a political writer for the Chicago Tribune and founded AKP&D Message and Media. He managed Obama’s presidential campaigns in 2004 and 2008.

In an Israel Independence Day address in Washington this year, Axelrod said: “Let’s not confuse the occasional dispute over policy with the fundamental relationship that has guided our two nations for so long and will continue to guide our two nations.”

Axelrod responds:
“My father was a Jewish immigrant who fled the pogroms and came to America in search of freedom and opportunity. I carry the memory of my family's miraculous journey with me every day.”

9. Alan Dershowitz
Law professor, Israel advocate

Dershowitz, 71, is an internationally respected jurist who has served as an attorney in several high-profile cases, including that of OJ Simpson. At 28, he became the youngest law professor in Harvard’s history. Married to a psychologist from Israel, Dershowitz has become famous for his eloquent advocacy for Israel and commentary on the Middle East conflict.

Dershowitz responds:
My career has generally been reactive to where I think the great crises of human rights are, and the unfair attacks. So in the 60s I was very active in the civil rights movement. I went down south. I spent my time defending lots of African Americans and other discriminated-against groups. Then in the late 60s and 70s I was very active in the anti-war, ant-Vietnam movement, defending lots of people who were prosecuted for their views on Vietnam – the Pentagon Papers case, the Chicago Seven case, those cases. In the mid-70s, I turned my attention to Soviet dissidents and Soviet Jews, because they were the ones who were mostly in need. And then when the world started to really turn against Israel, and particularly when the hard left started to turn so heavily against Israel, it was perfectly consistent with my career and my commitment to human rights to turn to Israel. The case against Israel has increased both in the court of public opinion and real courts. So I suspect I will be spending more and more time in Israel.

10. Elena Kagan
US Supreme Court nominee

Kagan, 50, is the first woman to be solicitor general of the US, and has just been named as Barack Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, where she would become the third woman and third Jew to sit on the court. Kagan, a liberal Democrat, was formerly the dean of the prestigious Harvard Law School and a professor at the University of Chicago, as well as serving as associate White House counsel under Bill Clinton.

A Democrat and supporter of Obama, she is capable of swinging the court to the left, while making key judicial decisions on the freedom of religion and choice.

11.  Alan Solow
Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations

Solow, 55, is a charismatic Jewish leader, top Chicago lawyer and friend of President Barack Obama.

Tablet Magazine calls him “the Go-Between” – the putative spokesman for American Jewry played a key role in resolving the recent crisis between the US and Israel.

Solow responds:
“This recognition by he Jerusalem Post in reality reflects the critical role played by the Conference, especially during a time period when we have seen transitions in the leadership of both the United States and Israel. Our goal as always, whether working publicly or in private (and we do both), is to promote the strongest possible relationship between two democratic allies. We have also been extremely active in raising public awareness and urging swift action to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability. To the extent that my work has made a contribution to these efforts, I am delighted. In my capacity as Conference Chair, I often interact with senior American and Israeli officials, and I have had the opportunity to meet with President Obama and advocate directly to him. I am pleased to report that our access to government officials in the United States and Israel is excellent.

It is certainly humbling to be included in such outstanding company. Moving forward, we will work relentlessly to make certain that a clear Jewish voice is heard where policy is made and implemented.”

>>>> 這世界誰說的算？ (4 of 4)