list of israelis

This is a list of prominent Israelis (including Arab citizens of Israel). See also: list of Palestinians.

Historical figures

Politicians

See also: List of Israeli politicians

Chaim Weizmann - first President of Israel (1949-52)
David Ben-Gurion - first Prime Minister of Israel (1948-54, 1955-63)
Moshe Sharett - prime minister (1954-55)
Levi Eshkol - prime minister (1963-69)
Abba Eban - diplomat and Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel (1966-1974)
Golda Meir - prime minister (1969-74)
Yitzhak Rabin - assassinated prime minister (1974-77, 1992-95); Nobel Peace Prize (1994)
Menachem Begin - prime minister (1977-83); Nobel Peace Prize (1978)
Yitzhak Shamir - prime minister (1983-84, 1986-92)
Shimon Peres - prime minister (1984-86, 1995-96); Nobel Peace Prize (1994); leader of the Labour party
Benjamin Netanyahu - prime minister (1996-99)
Ehud Barak - prime minister (1999-01)
Moshe Katsav - current president (2000-)
Ariel Sharon - current prime minister (2001-); leader of the Likud party
Yossi Beilin - leader of the Yachad party & peace negotiator
Yosef Lapid - leader of the Shinui party
Effi Eitam - leader of the Mafdal party
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef - spiritual leader of the Shas party & rabbi

Military

Ron Arad - MIA navigator
Eli Cohen - Israeli spy
Moshe Dayan - military leader
Rafael Eitan - IDF chief of staff
Uziel Gal - designer of the Uzi submachine gun
Jonathan Netanyahu - leader of Operation Entebbe
Ilan Ramon - astronaut on Columbia flight STS-107
Avraham Stern - underground military leader
Israel Tal - general, father of Merkava tank

Activists

Uri Avnery - peace activist, Gush Shalom
Yael Dayan - writer, politician, activist
Uzi Even - gay rights activist
Nira Schwartz - TRW whistleblower, Wiener Award (2001)
Uri Savir, peace negotiator, Peres Center for Peace
Israel Shahak - political activist
Natan Sharansky - Soviet-era human rights activist
Mordechai Vanunu - nuclear whistleblower

Criminals

Yigal Amir - assassin of Yitzhak Rabin
Baruch Goldstein - massacred 29 Arabs in the Cave of the Patriarchs
Ami Popper - murdered 7 Arabs

Cultural Figures

Film, TV, and stage

See also: List of Israeli actors

Gila Almagor - actress
Yvan Attal - actor, director (Israeli-born)
Mili Avital - actress
Nir Bergman - director
Nina Brosh - model
Oded Fehr - actor
Eytan Fox - director
Uri Geller - tv personality, self-proclaimed psychic
Amos Gitai - director
Amos Kollek - director, writer
Dover Kosashvili - director
Daliah Lavi - actress
Rod Lurie - director, film critic (Israeli-born)
Arnon Milchan - producer
Ohad Naharin - choreographer
Joseph Pitchhadze - director
Natalie Portman - actress (Israeli-born)
Haim Saban - tv producer
Chaim Topol - actor
Keren Yedaya - director

Popular musicians

See also: List of Israeli musical artists

Chava Alberstein - singer/songwriter
Shlomo Artzi - singer/songwriter
Astral Projection - goa trance band
Eef Barzelay - founder of Clem Snide
Miri Ben-Ari - jazz & hip hop violinist
Mike Brant - French-language singer
David Broza - singer/songwriter
Avishai Cohen - jazz bassist
Arik Einstein - singer, actor, writer
Yuval Gabay - drummer for Soul Coughing
Aviv Geffen - singer/songwriter
Ofra Haza - world singer
Dana International - pop singer
Ishtar - vocalist for Alabna
Orphaned Land - oriental metal band
Infected Mushroom - psychedelic trance duo
Hadag Nahash - hip-hop group
Ahinoam Nini (Noa) - world singer
Esther Ofarim - singer
Guy Oseary - head of Maverick Records
Naomi Shemer - songwriter
Gene Simmons - bass player for KISS
Hillel Slovak - original guitarist for Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Nir Zidkyahu - drummer, briefly in Genesis

Classical musicians

Daniel Barenboim - conductor and pianist
Paul Ben-Haim - composer
Bart Berman - pianist
Gary Bertini - conductor
Yefim Bronfman - pianist
Miriam Fried - violinist
Ivry Gitlis - violinist
Matt Haimovitz - cellist
Ofra Harnoy - cellist
Eliahu Inbal - conductor
Joseph Kalichstein - pianist
Yoel Levi - conductor
Mischa Maisky - cellist
Shlomo Mintz - violinist
Itzhak Perlman - violinist
Shulamit Ran - composer
Gil Shaham - violinist
Noam Sheriff - composer
Josef Tal - composer
Yoav Talmi - conductor
Pinchas Zukerman - violinist

Writers

Shmuel Yosef Agnon - author, Nobel Prize in Literature (1966)
Natan Alterman - poet
Yehuda Amichai - poet
Aharon Appelfeld - author
Hayyim Nahman Bialik - poet
Max Brod - author, composer & friend of Kafka
Orly Castel-Bloom - author
Leah Goldberg - poet
David Grossman - writer
Batya Gur - author
Emile Habibi - author
Amira Hass - journalist & author
Etgar Keret - author
Ephraim Kishon - satirist
Hanoch Levin - playwright
Aharon Megged - author
Sami Michael - author
Uri Orlev - author, Hans Christian Andersen Award (1996)
Amos Oz - author & journalist
Rachel - poet
Meir Shalev - author & journalist
Anton Shammas - author
Avraham Shlonsky - poet
A.B. Yehoshua - author

Artists

Yaacov Agam - kinetic artist
Michael Arad - architect
Ron Arad - designer
Mordecai Ardon - painter
Yigal Azrouel - fashion designer
Ralph Bakshi - animator
Alber Elbaz - fashion designer
Leah Gottlieb - fashion designer (Gottex swimsuits)
Nahum Gutman - painter
Ranan Lurie - political cartoonist
Michal Rovner - photographer
Reuven Rubin - painter
Moshe Safdie - architect
Elie Tahari - fashion designer
Ronit Zilkha - fashion designer

Academic figures

Computing and mathematics

Amir Ban & Shay Bushinsky - programmers of Deep Junior
Moshe Bar - creator & main developer of openMosix
Yehoshua Bar-Hillel - machine translation
Eli Biham - differential cryptanalysis
Abraham Fraenkel - ZF set theory
Abraham Lempel & Jacob Ziv - LZW compression; Richard W. Hamming Medal (1995)
Michel Love - probabilist (born in 1907 Palestine)
Joel Moses - MIT provost & writer of Macsyma
Judea Pearl - artificial intelligence, philosophy of action
Ilya Piatetski-Shapiro - representation theory; Wolf Prize in Mathematics (1990)
Amir Pnueli - temporal logic; Turing Award (1996)
Michael Rabin - nondeterminism, primality testing; Turing Award (1976)
Adi Shamir - RSA encryption, differential cryptanalysis; Turing Award (2002)
Saharon Shelah - logic; Wolf Prize in Mathematics (2001)
Ehud Shapiro - Concurrent Prolog, DNA computing pioneer
Avi Wigderson - randomized algorithms; Nevanlinna Prize (1994)
Doron Zeilberger - combinatorics

There have also been at least 6 Israeli winners of the Gdel Prize in theoretical computer science: Shlomo Moran (93), Yoram Moses (97), Moshe Vardi (00), Uriel Feige & Shmuel Safra (01) and Nir Shavit (04).

Physics and chemistry

Yakir Aharonov - Aharonov-Bohm effect; Wolf Prize in Physics (1998)
Jacob Bekenstein - black hole thermodynamics
David Deutsch - quantum computing pioneer; Paul Dirac Prize (1998)
Joshua Jortner & Rafi Levine - molecular energy; Wolf Prize in Chemistry (1988)
Ephraim Katzir - immobilized enzymes; Japan Prize (1985)
Mordehai Milgrom - Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND)
Yuval Ne'eman - the "Eightfold way"
Asher Peres - quantum theory
Giulio Racah - spectroscopy
Nathan Rosen - EPR paradox
Nathan Seiberg - string theory
Dan Shechtman - quasicrystals; Wolf Prize in Physics (1999)
Chaim Weizmann - acetone production

Biology and medicine

Israel Aharoni - discovered the Syrian hamster
Aaron Ciechanover & Avram Hershko - ubiquitin system; Lasker Award (2000), Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2004)
Moshe Feldenkrais - invented Feldenkrais method used in movement therapy
Gavriel Iddan - inventor of capsule endoscopy
Doron Lancet - smell, origin of life
Alexander Levitzki - cancer research; Wolf Prize in Medicine (2005)
Leo Sachs - blood cell research; Wolf Prize in Medicine (1980)
Michael Sela & Ruth Arnon - developed Copaxone; Wolf Prize in Medicine (1998)
Meir Wilchek - affinity chromatography; Wolf Prize in Medicine (1987)
Ada Yonath - structure of ribosome
Amotz Zahavi - Handicap Principle

Social sciences

Aharon Dolgopolsky - linguist: Nostratic
SN Eisenstadt - sociologist: multiple modernities
Haim Ginott - psychologist: child psychology
Eliyahu Goldratt - business consultant: theory of constraints
Elhanan Helpman - economist: international trade
Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky - behavioural scientists: prospect theory; Nobel Prize in Economics (2002)
Benjamin Mazar & Yigael Yadin - archaeologists
Benny Morris & Avi Shlaim - historians: New Historians
Erich Neumann - analytical psychologist: development, conciousness

Entrepreneurs

High-tech

Beny Alagem - founder of Packard Bell
Safra Catz - president of Oracle
Idan & Yerach Feigenbaum - founders of SpeedBit (developers of Download Accelerator)
Eli Harari - founder of SanDisk
Yoav Hollander - founder of Verisity
Morris Kahn - founder of Amdocs
Daniel M. Lewin - founder of Akamai Technologies
David Perlmutter - mobile platforms manager of Intel (developed Centrino wholly in Israel)
Zack Rinat - founder of NetDynamics, Model N
Robert Rosenschein - founder of GuruNet, answers.com (Israeli-based)
Gil Schwed - founder of Check Point
Zeev Suraski & Andi Gutmans - founders of Zend Technologies (developers of PHP)
Arik Vardi, Yair Goldfinger, Sefi Vigiser & Amnon Amir - founders of Mirabilis (developers of ICQ)

Other

Avi Arad & Isaac Perlmutter - owners of Marvel Comics
Ted, Micky & Shari Arison - founder/owners of Carnival Corporation
Eli Hurwitz - head of Teva Pharmaceuticals
Lev Leviev, Benny Steinmetz - diamond tycoons
Mordecai Meirowitz - inventor of the Mastermind board game
Joseph, Ralph & Avi Nakash - founders of Jordache
Sammy & Yuli Ofer - shipping magnates
Ron Sommer - ex-CEO of Deutsche Telekom
Stef Wertheimer - industrialist

Sports

Basketball

Micky Berkowitz - Maccabi Tel-Aviv
Tal Brody - Maccabi Tel-Aviv
Tal Burstein - Maccabi Tel-Aviv
Amit Tamir - University of California, PAOK Thessaloniki

Football

Yossi Benayoun - Maccabi Haifa, Racing Santander
Eyal Berkovich - Maccabi Haifa, Southampton, West Ham, Celtic, Man City, Portsmouth
Haim Revivo - Maccabi Haifa, Celta Vigo, Fenerbahe, Galatasaray
Ronnie Rosenthal - Maccabi Haifa, Liverpool, Tottenham
Mordechai Spiegler - Maccabi Netanya, Paris St. Germain
Pini Zahavi - UK-based super-agent

Other

1972 Olympic wrestling team - see Munich Massacre
Alex Averbukh - pole vaulter (european champion: 2002)
Isaac Berger - US-based weightlifter (olympic gold: 1956; silver: 1960, 1964)
Galit Chait & Sergei Sakhnovsky - ice skaters (world championship bronze: 2002)
Gal Fridman - windsurfer (olympic gold: 2004, bronze: 1996; world champion: 2002)
Boris Gelfand, Emil Sutovsky, Ilya Smirin - chess Grandmasters (top 30 rankings)
Baruch Hagai - wheelchair athlete (multiple paralympic golds)
Esther Roth-Shachamarov - track & field (5 asian game golds)
Anna Smashnova - tennis player (9 WTA career titles)
Ariel Zeevi - judoka (european champion: 2000, 2003, 2004; olympic bronze: 2004)