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Leaders in 'Tikkun Olam'

Top ten Jewish people to bring about change in the world, arranged alphabetically

Aliza BelmanInbal

Director of International Development at Tel Aviv University, PhD in International Development Administration, Israel


“The government could do much more in order to pave the way for Israeli companies to future markets: in Asia, in Africa, and in Latin America”

Dr. Aliza Belman Inbal has a vision: to turn Israel into the center of solutions for Third World health, food and potable water problems. She established the program for international development at Tel Aviv University and is currently working with government bodies, the private sector and the voluntary sector to realize her vision. Belman Inbal helped set up the Israel Branch of the Society for International Development to raise awareness and train Israelis to work in developing countries, along with DevTechHub – an organization that helps Israeli companies reach
Third World markets.

She uses Israeli knowledge and technology to help improve the lives of millions of poor people the world over. Belman Inbal has worked in the Foreign Service and served as a diplomat in Africa, and has held a senior position in the World Bank.

Founder of Human Rights Watch, Publisher, 80, USA

“Human Rights Watch, which I headed for 20 years, has recently
been issuing reports that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state”

Robert Bernstein learned about the severe implications of oppression of human rights at the hands of governments after visiting communist Moscow during the ’70s. As a publisher at Random House, he heard about authors who could not publish their writings because of government prohibitions. As a result, he first established the Fund for Free Expression, which became Human Rights Watch. Bernstein helmed Human Rights Watch for 20 years, during which he made the organization and the term “human rights” an international motif that influences the actions of states and their leaders.

Today, the organization has footings in more than 70 countries, though it ceased to be loyal to its original goals and became anti-West and hostile toward Israel. Bernstein has remained true to his original values. In recent years, in part due to HRW’s hostility toward Israel, Bernstein has not hesitated to publicly attack the organization he himself founded. As an alternative, he founded a new organization two years ago called Advancing Human Rights.

On the professional level, Bernstein was a publisher of important books and writers, including William Faulkner, James Michener and Dr. Seuss.

Executive director of UNICEF,74, USA

“It is very hard for a person from the United States to understand hunger in the Third World”

Despite being born and raised as a Christian, for a great many years, Anthony Lake felt an attraction to Judaism. Newspaper articles and rumors attributed a Jewish background to him, but it took until he married Julie Katzman, in his 60s, for him to take the plunge and convert. Lake, who is considered a very practical man, has had a rich career. He served as an advisor to Democratic presidents, including Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, alongside being a lecturer at Georgetown University and an author.

Since taking on the role of the sixth director of UNICEF, Lake has been responsible for providing aid to children in more than 190 countries and territories. He oversees a budget of over $3 billion, which is used for providing aid services, healthcare and
education for those same children.

CEO of American Jewish World Service, 73, USA

“My strong drive toward social justice to me had direct links to core Jewish values”

As a liberal political leader, Ruth Messinger is known as a staunch opponent of the death penalty. Messinger is also known as the one who wanted to advance public education and create compromises between real estate developers and social activists in the areas she oversaw. Messinger is active in the American Democratic Party. In the past, she ran for mayor of New York City but lost the race to Rudy Giuliani. 

Since 1998, she has served as the president and CEO of the American Jewish World Service, an organization whose goal is to bring justice – in a Jewish vein. In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina and the Indonesian tsunami hit, Messinger was ranked among the 50 most influential American Jews.

Rabbi, social activist, founder and director of Tevel b’Tzedek, 45, (USA) Israel

“As a society, it’s essential that we know not who has to lead us, but where we want to get to in accordance with our moral vision”

One thing that can be said for Rabbi Micha Odenheimer is that he was among the first people to take the Jewish value of “tikkun olam” and funnel it toward social activism within the Jewish nation, and later toward remote countries around the world. Odenheimer grew up in California and studied at Yale. In 1984, he was ordained and was the student of the “dancing rabbi,” Shlomo Carlebach. Since moving to Israel in 1988, Odenheimer has been involved in social activism. He founded the Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews, which is involved in absorbing immigrants from Ethiopia to Israel. In 2006, he founded Tevel b’Tzedek, which sends young Israelis on volunteer missions around the world. The central goal of the organization is “to create a community of leading activists, Israelis and Jews, who act out of the understanding of the effects of globalization. To renew and strengthen the connection between Israel, the Jewish world and weaker populations in the developing world.”

Alongside Odenheimer’s work on the ground, he also is involved in hasbara, doing public relations work on social topics; he writes frequently on human rights, poverty and globalization. He has covered events in third-world countries and has written about them for the Washington Post, the Times of London, the Guardian, The Jerusalem Post and Haaretz.

Attorney and human rights activist. Head of UN Watch in Geneva, 42, (Canada) Switzerland

Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Professor of economics, Author, 59, USA

“History is written by the rich, and so the poor get blamed for everything”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban KiMoon set up eight overarching goals for the coming millennium: reduce hunger; achieve good education all over the world; empower women; reduce child abuse; improve the health of pregnant women and those giving birth; fight disease and plague; ensure environmental sustainability; and develop global partnerships to advance progress. Jeffrey Sachs, one of the younger professors of economics turned out by Harvard, special advisor to Ban and Kofi Annan, was the life spirit behind hese recommendations. Sachs was also the director of the U.N.’s Millennium Project in the last decade.

Sachs served as a consultant in many developing countries, including helping them overcome financial crises. He accompanied Eastern European countries in the transition from closed communist markets to open capitalist economies. He specializes in environmental development, fighting poverty, erasing national debt and globalization. His books on these topics, including The End of Poverty and The Price of Civilization, were bestsellers.

Philanthropist, 75, USA

“I fell in love with Israel”

The Charles & Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation invests millions annually in pro-Israel activism. According to estimates, its donations to Taglit-Birthright, to the Reform Movement, to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Jewish educational and charity organizations in Israel and in the world come to some $25 million per year. Beyond her philanthropy, Schusterman established the Israel on Campus Coalition following the Second Intifada; it is an umbrella organization that unites some 30 Jewish organizations that do pro-Israel publicity on university campuses worldwide. She has a tendency to criticize Jewish tycoons who abstain from donating to Israel.

Nobel Memorial Prize laureate in Economic Sciences, 2001, Economics professor, 70, USA

“The financial sector uses its political power to ensure that market failures won’t be fixed”

Joe Stiglitz is one of the foremost economists in the world. He won a Nobel Prize for his research on “screening” (a method used by economic agents to get otherwise private information from others). But Stiglitz is also one of the harshest critics of globalization and capitalism in its current form.

His involvement in economic issues starts from an overall human viewpoint, and not from a state perspective. In this spirit, he maintained that the way the strong countries impose the open market on weaker countries is fueled by interests, and it harms the weaker countries and drives them into poverty. Stiglitz, who was vice president of the World Bank, also attacked the International Monetary Fund for lacking transparency and instead of helping countries in need, worried about American interests. “Instead of taking them out of the lowdown, the Fund drives them into recession,” he wrote.

Founder and chairman of IsraAID, Israel

“The true reward comes years after the aid, when the fruits of our labor turn us into a household name and the community sees us, the Israelis, as part of their family”

IsraAID is an Israeli and Jewish umbrella organization that provides international humanitarian aid. Shachar Zahavi initiated its establishment following the reduction in Israeli government funding to countries in distress. Dozens of Jewish and Israelin nonprofits and organizations are united under IsraAID; they are involved in extending help to populations and countries in distress – mainly following mass disasters, but not only. It is a private organization that works in coordination with Israel’s official services. The organization’s activity is also meant to deepen the positive attitudes toward Israel. Zahavi himself has received a number of prizes for his work, but he stays out of the spotlight.


THE SELECTION COMMITTEE:
• Ronny Adam, head of the International Organizations Department at the Foreign Ministry
• Esther Guluma, chair of Fairtrade International
• Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor

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