The figures.
Abraham Ikuro Teshima
He was born in Japan, observed no commandments, and was not Jewish, yet he founded a Zionist movement that swept up thousands. The mysterious businessman who made his love for Israel his life's work proved that Zionism has no geographical boundaries.
Abraham Aldema
The pioneer considered the happiest man in the Yishuv, yet he fought with uncompromising determination to make Hebrew take root everywhere.
Avraham Korkin
The officer and monk from Russia who was captivated by Judaism and led an entire community of Subbotniks into the fold of the Jewish people. The story of the courage and devotion of these righteous converts, who clung to the soil of the Galilee and paid a heavy price for their faith.
Edward Raphael Aghion
The Egyptian Jewish businessman behind the construction of the country's most famous villa, on Balfour Street in Jerusalem. The fascinating blend of Egyptian wealth and German architecture that gave rise to the Prime Minister's official residence.
Eduard Schulte
The prominent German industrialist who knew the Third Reich's most closely guarded secret and refused to stay silent. While everyone else turned a blind eye to evil, he risked his life to reveal the machinery of extermination to the world.
Odoardo Focherini
A devout Catholic journalist who became the director of an underground network that saved Jews from the clutches of the Gestapo. He paid with his life for acting as Italy's Schindler, proving that courage knows no boundaries.
Edvard Grieg
From the frozen fjords and snow-covered landscapes of the north came warm melodies filled with deep emotion. The composer who translated Norwegian folklore into classical music that has stirred hearts around the world for generations.
Oedipus
The prince who tried to escape his bitter fate, only to kill his father at a crossroads and marry his mother. The dark Greek myth of blindness and guilt that became a cornerstone of modern psychoanalysis.
Aharon (Jimmy) Shemi
The promising Palmach fighter who was killed by a bullet in Beit Shemesh, leaving behind letters and sketches that became one of the most moving memorial books of 1948.
Aharon Shidlovsky
One of the founders of Kinneret, he left his hoe behind to don a uniform in the Hebrew Legion, proving that building the country sometimes means trading the furrow for a rifle.
Auguste Piccard
A dynasty of adventurers who refused to stay on the ground and decided to find out for themselves where the world ends. The pioneering, record-breaking scientist who soared into the stratosphere in a balloon and paved the way for the conquest of space.
Otte Wallish
The man who designed the Declaration of Independence, the first coins and stamps of the state, without you even knowing who he was. Meet the brilliant designer who gave young Israel its visual identity and remained in the shadows.
Olga Sarah Fisher
A mother and her three daughters opened their home to persecuted refugees when doing so meant certain death. Their uncompromising courage led them to convert to Judaism at the end of the war and build their lives in Israel.
Oscar Wilde
“Biographies are nothing but other people’s laundry lists,” quipped the most brilliant and daring of Irish writers. Behind the razor-sharp cynicism and elegance lay a vulnerable soul who paid a heavy price for his freedom.
Orde Charles Wingate
The British officer who trained the Hebrew fighters, founded the Special Night Squads, and became the father of the military doctrine of the state-in-the-making.
Uri Avnery
A fighter in Samson's Foxes who became the terror of the Israeli establishment, a tireless advocate of peace, and a symbol of combative journalism. The story of "the regime's number-one enemy," who refused to be silent even when attempts were made on his life.
Isabel Pedro
Behind the quiet appearance of a European architect was one of the Mossad's boldest female agents. She infiltrated enemy countries, drew secret maps, and always came back to tell the tale.
Abie Nathan
The pilot who dared to fly alone to Egypt for peace, and sold all his possessions to save people starving around the globe. The Voice of Peace fell silent, leaving behind the legacy of a true Don Quixote who sacrificed everything for humanity.
Irma Lindheim
The stammering American millionaire who became one of the Zionist movement's most compelling speakers. She gave up a life of luxury in a grand estate to milk cows and live in a shack in the valley.
Eitan Naveh
The machine gunner who single-handedly covered his comrades at Ammunition Hill, running exposed through the trenches of death, and whose death made him a model of the paratroopers' heroism in Jerusalem.
Elizabeth Eidenbenz
The Swiss teacher who established a maternity hospital in an abandoned building on French soil under occupation. There, under the watchful eyes of the Nazis, she saved hundreds of babies and mothers from deportation to the camps.
Ellis Kadoorie
The Jewish opium merchant from Baghdad who became a legendary tycoon in the Far East and donated a vast fortune from Hong Kong to Shanghai. The surprising will he left behind led to the founding of two agricultural schools that shaped Israel's generation of leaders.
Alice May Carey
The idealist who believed all denominations and religions could be united in a spiritual center in Jerusalem. Her dream came true for a brief historical moment, leaving a mark of hope on the city's landscape.
Alice von Battenberg
The wife of a Greek prince and mother of Prince Philip, she sheltered Jews in her home during the Holocaust and became one of the Righteous Among the Nations, buried in Jerusalem.
Eliezer Moshe Arkin
The Palmach fighter who was mortally wounded during the daring raid to blow up the British radar station on Mount Carmel, and stayed behind to ensure his friends could retreat.
Eliezer Sharon Sudit ('Beggar')
The Irgun fighter who blasted through the walls of Manshiyya's houses during the conquest of Jaffa and escaped from a British prison, later serving in some of the Mossad's boldest operations around the world.
Elisheva Bihovsky
The non-Jewish poet who bound her fate and soul to the Jewish people and to the poet Rachel, and paid for that choice with painful loneliness and dire poverty.
Alexei Maresyev
His plane was shot down in enemy territory, and he survived for weeks in the freezing snow, only to discover that he had lost both his legs. The Soviet pilot who refused to surrender learned to walk on prostheses and returned to the cockpit to shoot down fighter planes.
Alexander Zaid
Beyond the famous statue of the rider on horseback in the Sheikh Abreik hills lies a wild story of loneliness, unimaginable courage, and daily struggles for survival. Discover the legendary watchman who became a symbol of Jewish settlement and paid for it with his life.
Alexander Penn
The bohemian who burned through Tel Aviv nights with a shot of vodka, fervent communist ideology, and tempestuous affairs. How did the Soviet rebel become one of the greatest Hebrew poets of the homeland, whose songs we all still sing today?
Alma Rosé
The virtuoso violinist who fought for her friends' lives with a conductor's baton at Auschwitz. With every note her orchestra played in the inferno, she bought another moment of life and hope for 40 women.
Alphonse Ratisbonne
The Jewish convert, born into a wealthy banking family, who chose to devote his life to founding a church and an orphanage in Ein Kerem.
Electra
The rage, grief, and thirst for revenge that gave her no peace until her mother's blood was spilled for the death of her beloved father. The mythological princess who crossed every moral boundary and became a symbol of bloody family rupture.
Alter Schwartz
An ordinary man who clung with all his might to the soil of Gai Oni, enduring the indignity of hunger, as well as cold and deadly diseases. The heroic survival story of a stubborn pioneer whose steadfastness made Rosh Pina possible.
Amotz Zahavi
The zoologist who challenged the conventions of world science and explained why a peacock must carry a heavy, dangerous tail. The "Handicap Principle," born from observations in the Arava, became one of the greatest breakthroughs in our understanding of evolution.
Amnon Shamosh
How do you connect an ancient treasure mystery surrounding the Aleppo Codex to an unforgettable novel that moved an entire country? The writer born in Aleppo wove his life story into the beating heart of Israeli culture.
Asenath Barzani
Centuries before the world had heard of feminism, one woman in Kurdistan headed a yeshiva and ruled on matters of Jewish law. Meet the "Tanna'it" who combined Kabbalah, poetry, and spiritual leadership, and shattered every glass ceiling imaginable.
Ephraim Kishon
The Holocaust survivor who arrived in Israel without a word of Hebrew and taught an entire country how to laugh at itself. The phenomenon who turned Israeli bureaucracy into brilliant satire that conquered stages around the world.
Erich Hartmann
352 aerial victories made him the most successful and deadliest fighter pilot in the history of aerial warfare. The Luftwaffe's "Black Demon" made his enemies look to the skies in terror, and with secret admiration.
Erich Muller
The Zionist industrialist who brought European textile expertise to the young State of Israel and built the Ata factory with his own hands. The man who dressed the pioneers in simple khaki clothes and made those clothes a symbol of Sabra fashion and identity.
Erich Mendelsohn
The legendary architect who fled the Nazis, leaving behind the largest architectural practice in Europe. The genius who brought modernism to Palestine and designed some of the most magnificent buildings in the Middle East.
Erich Jacob Yaroslavsky
The spiritual physician and revolutionary who brought the message of homeopathic medicine to the landscapes of a dawning Land of Israel. The dreamer who built a unique health resort with his own hands, decades ahead of his time.
Arik Regev
The commander of the Jordan Valley Brigade, who led pursuits of terrorists from the front during the forgotten War of Attrition and lost his life on the border with Jordan.
Aristides de Sousa Mendes
The Portuguese diplomat who defied his government's orders and signed thousands of life-saving visas in just a few days. He lost his position, wealth, and good name in order to save tens of thousands of refugees from extermination.
Ernst Leitz II
The man behind the legendary Leica cameras turned his life's work into a brilliant rescue operation. He smuggled dozens of Jewish employees abroad under the cover story that they were business representatives.
Boris Schatz
The man who came from the Bulgarian tsar's court to create a Hebrew culture from scratch, and fought abject poverty to establish "Bezalel." Dive into the story of a tenacious prophet of art who saw Jerusalem's sands as the creative capital of the East.
Ben-Zion Israeli
The daring pioneer who undertook dangerous smuggling missions in Arab countries to bring prized date-palm offshoots to the Land of Israel, and with his own hands transformed desert wasteland into a green source of livelihood.
Bentwich
The British aristocracy that traded a life of comfort in London for building the legal and cultural institutions of the Land of Israel. A distinguished dynasty whose legacy reached into the fiercest disputes between the government and the Attorney General.
Baruch Katinka
The daring engineer who oversaw the construction of the Hejaz Railway in the heart of the desert under Ottoman rule. The adventures of the Iron Man and the visionary who laid the transportation foundations of a rising Land of Israel.
Bruria Kaufman
The brilliant mathematician who worked closely with Albert Einstein in his final years and solved equations that captivated the world. The researcher who left the pinnacle of American academia to help build the Weizmann Institute and Israeli science.
Bertrand Piccard
His grandfather conquered the skies, his father plunged into the depths, and he decided to circle the Earth without a drop of fuel. The psychiatrist and pilot who carried on the family tradition and completed the longest flight in aviation history.
Bracha Fuld
A young Haganah member killed by British gunfire on the streets of Tel Aviv while securing an operation to bring in illegal immigrants, she became a symbol of the struggle for free immigration.
Batya Makov
The independent, determined woman who proved that initiative and hard work are not the preserve of men alone. She amassed her fortune with her own two hands and became one of the most influential figures in the early days of settlement.
Joe Alon
A daring fighter pilot and one of the founders of Hatzerim Air Base, he escaped the horrors of the Holocaust as a child and was murdered in a mysterious shooting at the entrance to his home in Washington, in a case that continues to intrigue the intelligence world to this day.
John Henry Patterson
The Protestant British officer and ardent Zionist who proudly took command of the Jewish battalions during the First World War.
Gino Bartali
The Tour de France champion who rode his bicycle with forged documents hidden inside its steel frame. He played the part of an athlete out training, while quietly saving hundreds of lives.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Romanian communist leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej rises to power amid a fierce struggle with Anna Pauker and the upheavals of the postwar era.
Gad Frumkin
The only Jewish judge on the Mandate Supreme Court, forced to navigate between strict British rule, the Arab population, and the Jewish national struggle. Step into the shoes of the jurist torn between loyalty to the law and the call of his people’s conscience.
Gideon Mer
The professor from Rosh Pina who injected himself and his family with the malaria virus to save tens of thousands of settlers. The relentless war against the deadly swamps that transformed settlement in the region and made the establishment of the state possible.
Gotthilf Wagner
One of the leaders of the Templer movement, which sought to prepare the land for the coming of the Messiah, but over the years he came to openly support the Nazis.
Gunter Friedlaender
The pharmacist who fled Europe with a bold scientific vision and established a small pharmaceutical factory in Jerusalem. How did his modest workshop become an international pharmaceutical corporation that put Israel on the map?
Gerhard Kurzbach
Why does a photograph of a Wehrmacht commander hang on the wall of a Holocaust survivor's home in Haifa? Discover the story of the officer who defied orders, hid hundreds of Jews, and paid for it with his life.
Dr. d'Arbella
The boy born into a Chabad family in Russia who studied medicine in Egypt and became the physician to the Sultan of Zanzibar, then tried to establish a colony in the Land of Israel.
Douglas Bader
He lost both his legs in a horrific accident, but refused to listen to the doctors who said he would never fly again. The British pilot who returned to the skies on metal legs and fought the Luftwaffe without a gram of fear.
Dov Klimker
The brilliant chemist who recognized industrial gold in the wine-making residues of the wineries in Zichron Yaakov and Rishon LeZion. The scientist who built the Hebrew chemical industry from nothing and turned agricultural waste into a thriving manufacturing enterprise.
Deborah Teitelbaum
The dedicated scientist who labored for years in the laboratory on the molecular research that led to the drug Copaxone. The researcher behind the great Israeli medical achievement that gave millions of people with multiple sclerosis around the world a new lease on life.
Deborah Omer
She brought Herzl, Ben-Gurion, and Sarah Aaronsohn into the hearts of children, yet carried a painful family secret within her. The fascinating story behind the national author who taught generations how to immerse themselves in the pages of history.
Dvora Kalfus Nehushtan
"The Irgun's number one female fighter" marched barefoot through the mud and took part in blowing up the British planes at Lydda, to clear the skies over the country for ships carrying immigrants.
Dubrovin
The Russian family of converts who traded their Volga estates for the swamps of the Galilee, and clung to the soil of Yesod HaMa'ala at the cost of grievous personal loss amid fever and the ravages of nature.
David (Dudu) Cherkaski
The charismatic commander Haim Hefer wrote about: "Tell me, is there another Palmach fighter like Dudu?" He fell in the assault on the Fortress of the 28 (Nabi Yusha).
David Wolffsohn
The man who raised the tallit and turned it into the national flag, and revived the ancient Hebrew currency - the shekel. Herzl's successor, who saved the Zionist movement from collapse and made its symbols part of our national identity.
Donato Manduzio
A single nighttime vision experienced by a simple Italian farmer led an entire village to abandon Christianity, undergo circumcision, and make aliyah. The mystical, unimaginable journey of Righteous Among the Nations who became Hebrew fighters in the heart of the Galilee.
Dona Gracia
The most powerful woman in 16th-century Europe, she ran an underground escape network for conversos. Centuries ahead of Herzl, she acquired land in Tiberias to establish an independent refuge for Jews.
Daniel Kahneman
The boy who hid from the Gestapo in Paris and became a researcher who exposed the blind spots and irrationality of the human mind. The Israeli psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics and forever changed the way we make decisions.
Dervish Korkut
The Muslim scholar from Sarajevo who rescued the rare Sarajevo Haggadah from right under the Nazis' noses. Together with his wife, he opened their home and provided safe shelter to a persecuted Jewish girl.
Pope Formosus
He had already been lying in his grave for nine months, but his bitter enemies refused to let him rest in peace. The most bizarre trial in history: the rotting corpse of a pope put on trial in a courtroom.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
One modest book, written by a determined woman, managed to ignite a bloody civil war. The author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" tore away the mask of hypocrisy from the institution of American slavery.
Baron Alfred Moritz Mond (Lord Melchett)
Until late in life, he was a British industrialist with no connection to his Jewish roots. Then a Zionist flame was kindled in him, leading him to invest his wealth in the land and leave his name there.
Hadassah Lampel
The brave signaler whose calm voice was the last sign of life from the burning half-track at Latrun, reporting under fire until her final breath.
Holman Hunt
The great British painter who was enchanted by the landscapes and people of the Land of Israel, and spent many years there with his close friend, immortalizing them on canvas.
Haile Selassie
The last Ethiopian emperor’s flight to Jerusalem is a fascinating chapter of history linking Addis Ababa and the Holy City.
Hilda and Richard Strauss
The Yekke from Nahariya who started with two cows in the backyard, a few liters of milk, and an uncompromising passion for quality. The remarkable success story of the modest couple who built one of Israel's giant food companies from nothing.
Helmut Kleinicke
The SS officer who was a cog in the machinery of war, but chose to sabotage it from within and save lives. The incredible story of a member of the Nazi Party who would eventually become a Righteous Among the Nations.
Helena Kagan
The doctor who fought epidemics, ignorance, and dire poverty to save Jerusalem's children. She treated everyone without distinction of religion or nationality, and became the mother of modern medicine in the Land of Israel.
Princess Jeanne Merkus
One was a writer and lover of Moshe Dayan, while the other was called the Dutch Joan of Arc, and their lives ran parallel
Henrik Ibsen
He dared to open the closed doors of the bourgeoisie and expose the polite lies beneath the surface. The Norwegian playwright who invented modern drama and made audiences in theaters shift uneasily in their seats.
Consul Finn
The third British consul in Jerusalem and one of the city's most prominent figures, he worked alongside his wife to protect its Jewish residents and provide them with continuous assistance.
Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel
He ascended to the seat of the Chief Rabbinate as a courageous decisor who was unafraid to confront the challenges of modernity and statehood. The Rishon LeZion who bridged tradition and openness, and embodied a rooted, tolerant, unifying Sephardic leadership.
Rabbi David Ben Shimon
He refused to accept the overcrowding and poverty of the Old City, and dared to venture into the open wilderness. This is how the determined leader guided his community into open spaces and built the second neighborhood outside the walls with his own hands.
Rabbi David Israel Tzairei (Al-Sharia)
They were daring pioneers who made the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee bloom, yet their story has almost entirely disappeared from the pages of history. Meet the community that fought stubbornly for its land just before it was nearly forgotten.
Rabbi Yehuda Meir Shapira
One brilliant idea of his succeeded in bringing millions of learners around the globe together around precisely the same page. The young rabbi who invented the "Daf Yomi" and founded the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva changed the world of Torah study forever.
Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld
Behind the austere appearance of the leader of the ultra-Orthodox community lay a worldview that shaped historic struggles. The fascinating figure of Rabbi Sonnenfeld reveals the deep roots of the rift between ultra-Orthodoxy and Zionism.
Rabbi Jacob Sapir
Long before the age of airplanes and the internet, one daring scholar set out on dangerous journeys to the far corners of the earth. Jacob Sapir's fascinating writings rescued the secret customs of remote Jewish communities from oblivion.
Rabbi Isaac Jacob Reines
A conservative in matters of Jewish law and a fearless revolutionary who founded the Mizrahi movement and the first yeshiva high schools. Meet the visionary who dared to combine sacred and secular studies, and incurred the wrath of the leading ultra-Orthodox rabbis of his generation.
Rabbi Isaiah Shapira
He grew up in a distinguished Hasidic court, yet chose to work the land with a hoe and bring heaven and earth together. This is the moving story of the "Pioneer Rebbe," who made the union of Torah and labor a passionate way of life.
Rabbi Israel Friedman Ben-Shalom
Imagine a Hasidic rebbe who wears both a shtreimel and a knitted kippah and guides enthusiastic members of Hashomer Hatzair: a brilliant historian who proved that it is possible to live between opposing worlds without giving up any part of one's identity.
Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan
His name appears on the signs of a university and educational institutions, and on street signs in cities everywhere - but what did he actually do? A journey into the life of the revolutionary rabbi who refused to choose between Torah and nationalism, and shaped the face of the state in the making.
Rabbi Moshe Zvi Neriah
He saw confused young people searching for a path and kindled a spark in them that set off a spiritual earthquake in Israeli society. The "father of the knitted-kippah generation" led an educational revolution that forever changed Religious Zionism in Israel.
Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer
Everyone is sure that Herzl invented the Zionist idea, but two of its great forerunners were actually rabbis. The rabbi who championed working the land and settling the country, and persuaded the leading figures of his generation that redemption depended on us.
Herman Kallenbach
The wealthy Jewish architect who gave up a life of comfort in South Africa and became Mahatma Gandhi's closest friend and financial supporter. The man who lived in a commune devoted to nonviolence and eventually found his final resting place in the soil of Kibbutz Degania.