Watchman Willie Martin Archive



��� THE FORWARD FIFTY

��� The millennium year may not have brought apocalypse, much

��� less the messianic age, but it did usher in a new era for American

��� Jews. The year 2000 will long be remembered for the first‑ever

��� nomination of a Jew to a major‑party presidential ticket,

��� sweeping away the last barrier to full participation by Jews in

��� American society. It was not merely that a Jew could now aspire

��� to the highest office in the land and win acceptance from the

��� voters, if not the Electoral College. An Orthodox Jew showed

��� that he could wear his faith comfortably on his sleeve and win

��� acceptance, on his own terms, as a leader in the broader society.

��� The changing nature of Jewish involvement in America

��� inevitably changes the meaning of Jewish leadership. Until

��� recently, we were accustomed to seeing a Jewish leader as

��� someone who stood tall within the confines of Jewish

��� communal activity, defined narrowly. By the nature of things,

��� Jewish leaders were generally leaders of Jewish institutions, but

��� they were � with few exceptions � hardly leaders of Jews.

��� The Forward Fifty this year includes a small but growing number

��� of individuals who exercise leadership in the broader society,

��� and do so as Jews. Our list includes government officials,

��� lawmakers, authors and even a few entertainers whose

��� prominence in the broader society, coupled with their

��� unabashedly Jewish styles and agendas, made them forces in

��� Jewish life in a manner and on a scale that few traditional

��� Jewish leaders can aspire to.

��� The Forward Fifty is not based on a scientific survey or a

��� democratic election. Names are suggested by readers and by the

��� Forward's own staff. The compilation is a journalistic effort to

��� illuminate some of the individuals likely to be in the news in the

��� year ahead, and to record some of the trends in

��� American‑Jewish life in the year that has passed.

��� Membership in the Forward Fifty does not mean the Forward

��� endorses what they do or say. We've chosen these people

��� because they are doing and saying things that are making a

��� difference in the way American Jews view the world and

��� themselves, for better or worse. Not all of them have made their

��� mark within the traditional framework of Jewish community

��� life, but all of them have consciously pursued Jewish activism as

��� they understood it, and all of them have left a mark.

��� Barely one‑third of our Fifty are women, which reflects the state

��� of gender relations within our community. On the other hand,

��� this year's list includes a husband and wife, a father and

��� daughter, two famous brothers and two gentlemen named Steve

��� Cohen.

��� 1. Joseph Lieberman

��� In July he was just one of 100 members of the United States

��� Senate, familiar to those who follow these things as a man of

��� firm, centrist convictions, a defender of traditional morality and

��� the only Orthodox Jew in the upper chamber. By the middle of

��� August, though, Mr. Lieberman, 58, was one of the most familiar

��� faces in America. The selection of the affable Connecticut

��� lawmaker as a running mate gave Vice President Gore a

��� double‑digit lift in the polls and set off a coast‑to‑coast wave of

��� Liebermania. Suddenly everyone in America was talking about

��� the rules of Sabbath observance, the history of American‑Jewish

��� opportunity and even the divisions within Orthodox Judaism. In

��� choosing Joe Lieberman, Mr. Gore had chosen not just a

��� politician who was Jewish, but a public servant who lived his

��� Judaism daily, wore it on his sleeve and made it part of his

��� public and political identity. They didn't capture the White

��� House, but they did capture the popular vote, demonstrating

��� that Americans were indeed ready to have a Jew sitting a

��� heartbeat from the presidency. American Jews would never be

��� able to look at themselves and their country in quite the same

��� way.

��� 2. Deborah Lipstadt

��� Many consider her a heroine worth of her biblical namesake,

��� after she successfully defended herself this year in a libel suit

��� against Holocaust denier David Irving in Britain's High Court.

��� The 10‑week trial culminated in a scathing decision against Mr.

��� Irving, and marginalized the so‑called historian for his suspect

��� research. Mr. Irving brought suit against Ms. Lipstadt and her

��� British publisher, Penguin Books, alleging that she damaged his

��� academic reputation in her 1994 book, "Denying the Holocaust:

��� The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory." A professor of

��� history at Emory University in Atlanta, she had called Mr. Irving

��� "one of the most dangerous spokesmen in the service of

��� Holocaust denial" because he challenged the scope of the

��� Holocaust and disputed the number and manner of Jewish

��� concentration camp deaths. In the trial, watched by millions

��� worldwide, Ms. Lipstadt and her legal team refused to

��� countenance a hearing on whether the Holocaust happened.

��� Instead they took the offensive, attacking Mr. Irving. In his April

��� ruling, the judge labeled Mr. Irving an anti‑Semite and a racist.

��� As Holocaust denial stands to gain a vast new audience on the

��� World Wide Web, the decision sets an important legal and

��� historic precedent. Ms. Lipstadt said she saw the victory not

��� merely as personal, but also as a blow "for all those who speak

��� out against hate and prejudice."

��� 3. Charles Bronfman

��� This scion of the Seagram beverage empire was long in the

��� shadow of his older brother Edgar, pursuing little‑publicized,

��� multimillion‑dollar initiatives in Jewish education, Israel

��� awareness and support for the peace process while Edgar tilted

��� with European leaders as head of the World Jewish Congress.

��� This year, however, Charles stepped into the light, becoming the

��� first chairman of the board of the new United Jewish

��� Communities. His plan was to broaden the reach of Jewish

��� welfare federations by bringing in some of his fellow

��� "megadonors" � multimillionaire philanthropists who create

��� their own Jewish programming, like Birthright Israel, which he

��� created with Michael Steinhardt. He also hoped to build

��� flexibility and innovation into the UJC by creating an

��� independent foundation to launch new projects in cooperation

��� with outside donors. His initial months have been rocky. The

��� organization, caught between a host of entrenched forces, has

��� resisted new visions. Mr. Bronfman admitted this fall that he

��� briefly contemplated walking away in frustration. But he vows

��� to fight on until his term ends next year, and he remains the

��� man to watch at the struggling UJC. He's now heading a task

��� force to develop a game plan for the organization's future. While

��� other megadonors support federations through substantial gifts,

��� only Mr. Bronfman invests so heavily through his personal

��� involvement.

��� 4. Rabbi Rachel Cowan

��� A top‑ranking innovator in the realms of Jewish spirituality,

��� healing and outreach to intermarried and unaffiliated Jews,

��� Rabbi Cowan is at the cutting edge of some of the hottest trends

��� in Jewish communal life. As director of Jewish Life Programs at

��� the Nathan Cummings Foundation, one of the nation's richest

��� Jewish family foundations, she's at the forefront of the

��� community's new power center, private philanthropy. A Jew by

��� choice, ordained at the Reform movement's Hebrew Union

��� College‑Jewish Institute of Religion, she has headed Cummings'

��� Jewish programs since their launch in 1989, coordinating grants

��� with projects from interfaith educational programming at the

��� Jewish Outreach Institute, to the New Age Elat Chayyim retreat

��� center, to Amos: The National Jewish Partnership for Social

��� Justice. Her role at Cummings is sure to be even more central

��� now that founding president Charles Halpern has stepped down

��� and Cummings trustees have hired Lance Lindblom to take the

��� helm. Mr. Lindblom, who is not Jewish, told the Forward he

��� "feels very lucky" to have Rabbi Cowan's long experience as a

��� resource.

��� 5. Malcolm Hoenlein

��� As the professional head of a Jewish organization made up of

��� four dozen other Jewish organizations, he has what some call

��� the least appealing job in Jewish communal life, with 50

��� squabbling bosses to answer to. But Mr. Hoenlein, 56, doesn't

��� complain. The agency he has headed for 14 years, the Conference

��� of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, is

��� commonly recognized in Washington and around the world as

��� the all‑but‑official voice of organized American Jewry on Israel

��� and international affairs. Mr. Hoenlein has made the most of it,

��� turning himself into an essential player on issues from

��� counterterrorism to peace talks to democracy in Central Asia. An

��� Orthodox Jew with right‑leaning personal sympathies, he's often

��� accused of manipulating his agency's procedures � or lack of

��� them � to stake out positions to the right of the community's

��� consensus. This year, with Labor ruling in Jerusalem and

��� American Jews more divided than ever, Mr. Hoenlein has at

��� times seemed to occupy himself with side issues, such as

��� promoting Israeli tourism (even that got him in trouble when he

��� touted "eternally united" Jerusalem while Prime Minister Barak

��� was talking about dividing it) and the struggle to free 10 Jews

��� jailed for spying in Iran. Still, for all his critics' carping, Mr.

��� Hoenlein remains at his post, seemingly immovable. Now that

��� renewed Palestinian violence has left the Left flatfooted and the

��� Likud primed to return to power, Mr. Hoenlein's hawkish

��� leanings may yet prove dead center.

��� Politics

��� Stuart Eizenstat

��� The signing in Berlin last July of the complex, $4.8 billion

��� agreement to compensate Nazi‑era slave‑laborers � the largest

��� Holocaust‑restitution pact since the original German reparations

��� agreement of 1952 � was not merely a watershed in the struggle

��� for justice for Nazism's victims. It was also a capstone to a

��� remarkable career in American public service. Deputy Treasury

��� Secretary Stuart Eizenstat, who signed the pact for the United

��� States, has been Washington's pacesetter on Holocaust

��� restitution since the administration entered the fray in 1995. For

��� Mr. Eizenstat, 57, it was just the latest in a series of turns as

��� pointman on Jewish affairs, going back to 1977, when he joined

��� the Carter White House as domestic policy chief. In the Clinton

��� administration he's been undersecretary of commerce,

��� undersecretary of state as well as number‑two at the Treasury

��� Department. In every post, he's been the administration's

��� leading voice for Jewish causes. Besides Holocaust restitution,

��� he's played a decisive role in such historic measures as the

��� creation of the Justice Department's Nazi‑hunting Office of

��� Special Investigations, the establishment of the U.S. Holocaust

��� Memorial Museum and the creation of America's

��� refugee‑admissions program, which allows victims of persecution

��� � including Soviet Jews � to enter America outside normal

��� immigration quotas. Without fanfare or publicity, he has served

��� as America's de facto minister for Jewish rights for 12 of the last

��� 24 years. The outcome of this year's presidential race may have

��� brought this distinguished career to a close for now, but we

��� suspect we haven't heard the last of him.

��� Ari Fleischer

��� As spokesman for the Bush presidential campaign, Mr. Fleischer

��� was the articulate voice of a candidate often derided for his

��� "fuzzy speech." Now this graduate of New York's B'nei Jeshurun

��� nursery school and Westchester's Mount Kisco Hebrew School is

��� expected to become White House press secretary. Mr. Fleischer,

��� together with campaign policy director Joshua Bolten, who is

��� also expected to stay on, is among a handful of Jews in Mr.

��� Bush's inner circle. Former communications director of the

��� House Ways and Means Committee and onetime press secretary

��� to Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico, he's active in a group

��� of Jewish congressional staffers who study with the Lubavitch

��� chasidic movement's Washington representative, Rabbi Levi

��� Shemtov. In general, Mr. Bush fared poorly among Jewish voters

��� and was subject to intense scrutiny, partly stemming from his

��� father's poor reputation among Jews. The new president may

��� have some fences to mend, and Mr. Fleischer will be called on to

��� help.

��� Robert Wexler

��� Elected in 1996 to represent Florida's 19th congressional district,

��� after a decade in the state legislature, Mr. Wexler quickly

��� established himself as a force on Capitol Hill, sponsoring

��� high‑profile investigations into the poor conditions at the F.B.I.

��� crime lab and the high price of matzo in south Florida. By the

��� fall of 1998, the congressman from Boca Raton was emerging as a

��� national figure, the only House member to attend the signing of

��� the Wye Accords and one of President Clinton's most articulate

��� defenders during the House impeachment hearings. Smart,

��� telegenic � he's become a permanent fixture on the cable

��� news‑and‑chat circuit � and Jewishly aware (he's a graduate of

��� the Wexner Heritage adult Jewish learning program), Mr.

��� Wexler, now 39, is poised to become one of the most important

��� Jewish voices in Washington. What secured his inclusion in this

��� year's Forward Fifty, however, was his passionate defense of

��� voting rights in his Palm Beach County district, home of the

��� infamous butterfly ballot. In the coming year we predict he will

��� be playing an increasingly visible role as a voice of the Jews of

��� South Florida, America's third‑largest Jewish community.

��� Stephen Goldsmith

��� This mild‑mannered former mayor of Indianapolis is one of

��� President‑elect Bush's few Jewish confidants, having served as

��� domestic policy adviser during the campaign. Mr. Goldsmith, 54,

��� is the likely choice to head a new, federal Office of Faith‑Based

��� Action that would push initiatives to increase the role of

��� religious institutions in aiding the poor. In this post, he will find

��� himself on the forefront of implementing Mr. Bush's

��� "compassionate conservatism," an ideology of which Mr.

��� Goldsmith and a Jewish convert to Christianity, Marvin Olasky,

��� were the major architects. He's also likely to find himself in the

��� firing line of liberal Jewish organizations dedicated to

��� maintaining the status quo on the separation of church and

��� state. Just like a certain Democratic vice‑presidential candidate,

��� Mr. Goldsmith will force American Jews to think about the

��� ideological conflicts produced by their commitment to helping

��� the less fortunate and their zealous defense of an impenetrable

��� church‑state wall.

��� Jane Harman

��� Having translated her losing 1998 California gubernatorial bid

��� into a congressional win in 2000, Ms. Harman, 55, is very much

��� the comeback kid. In one of the most hotly contested and

��� expensive races in California, the polished Harvard Law grad

��� squeaked by Republican incumbent Steve Kuykendall to snatch

��� the seat she held from 1992 until 1998 in California's 36th

��� District. In her earlier stint in the House, the energetic,

��� policy‑minded Mrs. Harman � whose swing district in the South

��� Bay of Los Angeles encompasses major aerospace and defense

��� concerns � served on the Committee on National Security and

��� the Congressional Caucus on Anti‑Semitism. A former Regents

��� professor of public policy and international relations at the

��� University of California at Los Angeles, Ms. Harman, who

��� worked in the Carter White House and has spent the last two

��� decades steeped in politics, promises to be a leader in a powerful

��� posse of Jewish women the House.

��� Dov Hikind

��� Few among the rabble of demonstrators protesting outside the

��� Senate campaign headquarters of Hillary Rodham Clinton ever

��� made it inside the office door, but Mr. Hikind sure did. Playing

��� the campaign for all it was worth � or perhaps vice versa � the

��� Democratic state assemblyman from Boro Park drew the cameras

��� in an instant when he accused the first lady of being

��� pro‑Palestinian and anti‑Israel, just as he drew the cameras at

��� the end of the campaign by flirting at length with endorsing her.

��� Although the onetime deputy to Rabbi Meir Kahane ultimately

��� balked at making any endorsement in a race where the Middle

��� East loomed large, few got more face time with New York's

��� soon‑to‑be junior senator. His reputation as top political

��� spokesman for Boro Park Orthodoxy took a beating after his trial

��� for embezzlement. Last May, though, several New York City

��� mayoral candidates and Governor Pataki showed up at his first

��� fund‑raiser since his acquittal, another sign that the bearded

��� Brooklynite's star is back on the rise.

��� Eric Cantor

��� 2000 was Eric Cantor's year. A well‑liked representative in

��� Virginia's General Assembly since 1991, his election to the U.S.

��� House of Representatives has effectively doubled the Jewish

��� presence in the House Republican caucus � from one to two.

��� Seen as a rising star among Republicans, Mr. Cantor, 37, won in

��� a landslide victory on a conservative platform of limiting

��� government, cutting taxes and supporting school vouchers. He

��� garnered an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association. His

��� views may stand in stark contrast to those of the traditionally

��� liberal Jewish community, but his record shows a strong

��� commitment to Jewish causes, from championing Virginia‑Israel

��� trade ties, to securing funding for Virginia's Holocaust museum,

��� to ensuring his own children's education at a Jewish day school,

��� the Rudlin Torah Academy. His presence on Capitol Hill will not

��� only guarantee that a strong Jewish voice is heard when the

��� House majority caucus convenes; it will broaden and deepen the

��� discussion of Jewish values whenever Jewish lawmakers gather

��� to discuss shared concerns.

��� Stephen P. Cohen

��� For nearly two decades he's been the mystery man of Middle

��� East diplomacy, flying about in private jets to meet with

��� negotiators and heads of state at crucial moments, appearing

��� abruptly and disappearing just as suddenly. He's known to the

��� public mainly as the obscure expert who's constantly quoted in

��� Thomas Friedman's New York Times columns. His real role has

��� only rarely been published. But diplomatic insiders know Dr.

��� Stephen P. Cohen as the Middle East's indispensable

��� go‑between, the confidant who listens to all sides and explains

��� them to each other when nobody else can. A Canadian‑born,

��� Harvard‑trained social psychologist, he began his Middle East

��� work in the early 1970s, creating Israeli‑Arab "problem‑solving

��� workshops." Within a decade he was hosting private chats

��� between top leaders on both sides, first under the aegis of City

��� University of New York, later with support from liberal Jewish

��� philanthropists like Charles Bronfman and S. Daniel Abraham.

��� He's kept it up ever since, running a sort of international

��� group‑therapy program with a clientele including Shimon Peres,

��� Moshe Dayan, Anwar Sadat, Hosni Mubarak, Hafez el‑Assad,

��� Boutros Boutros Ghali and Yasser Arafat. Like most shrinks, he's

��� unlikely to see any sudden drop in demand for his services any

��� time soon. Just in case, he took on an even more formidable

��� challenge last year, joining with Israel's Yossi Beilin to set up a

��� transatlantic working group to rethink Israel‑Diaspora relations.

��� Community

��� Abraham Foxman

��� American Jewry's most visible, media‑savvy spokesman, the

��� national director of the Anti‑Defamation League managed again

��� this year to demonstrate repeatedly that he is one of the few

��� Jewish leaders with both the spine and political smarts to

��� deserve the title. He spoke out strongly for church‑state

��� separation even when it put him in the awkward position of

��� having to criticize Senator Lieberman shortly after the Jewish

��� icon was nominated to the vice presidency. Mr. Foxman, 60, also

��� knocked the Connecticut senator for offering to meet with

��� Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Taking on the

��� Democratic nominee at the height of Liebermania wave seemed

��� like chutzpah, but a subsequent poll found that it touched a

��� chord: American Jews strongly agreed with Mr. Foxman that the

��� senator was talking too much religion. On the down side, the

��� ADL's Denver office faced legal heat � and $10.5 million in

��� damages � when it took sides in a squabble between neighbors

��� and labeled the plaintiff an anti‑Semite. Mr. Foxman was

��� slammed by Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin after running

��� newspaper ads seemingly questioning Yasser Arafat's fitness as a

��� peace partner. And the organization faces a tough challenge

��� from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which is out to break ADL's

��� monopoly on tolerance‑training programs in New York. For all

��� that, Mr. Foxman remains the most recognizable and trusted

��� figure in Jewish organizational life.

��� Rabbi Marvin Hier

��� At a time when experts say anti‑Jewish sentiment and

��� discrimination are � or at least should be � fading as Jewish

��� organizing principles, the Los Angeles‑based Simon Wiesenthal

��� Center remains a highly visible outpost of anti‑anti‑Semitism.

��� Under the leadership of Rabbi Hier, 62, and his right‑hand man,

��� Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center continues to challenge the

��� Anti‑Defamation League for the title of American Jewry's top

��� "defense" organization. Like the ADL, Rabbi Hier's center

��� provides tolerance and diversity training to schools and

��� workplaces under pressure to change their images. This year he

��� upped the ante, snagging an important diversity‑training

��� contract with the police department of New York's Westchester

��� County, in the ADL's own backyard. The center's highly

��� publicized campaign against hate groups on the Internet � also

��� mimicking an ADL initiative � has been credited with forcing

��� policy changes at industry giants such as Yahoo and American

��� Online. Future plans include a Jerusalem clone of the center's

��� Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance, infuriating officials at Yad

��� Vashem, Israel's national Holocaust museum. Critics decry the

��� center's aggressive tactics, accusing it of fear mongering and

��� oversimplification. But Rabbi Hier remains a canny media

��� tactician. Case in point: The center has twice won an Academy

��� Award for best documentary, for "Genocide" in 1981 and "The

��� Long Way Home" in 1997.

��� Steven M. Cohen

��� Fifty‑two percent, 52%, 52%. The percentage of American Jews

��� marrying non‑Jews, according to the landmark 1990 National

��� Jewish Population Survey, was spoken like a mantra in the halls

��� and boardrooms of Jewish organizations throughout the 1990s,

��� and defined that decade's Jewish communal agenda as a crisis of

��� "continuity." Only one problem, said sociologist Steven M.

��� Cohen: The NJPS statistic was inflated by a poorly designed

��� questionnaire, and the real intermarriage rate was closer to 40%.

��� That's still nothing to crow about, but what's at stake isn't just

��� numbers. It's the way a community defines who belongs and

� ��who doesn't. Mr. Cohen, 50, who moved to Jerusalem in 1992

��� and now lectures at the Melton Center for Jewish Education at

��� The Hebrew University, has asked questions like those in more

��� than a dozen books and over 100 articles and monographs, most

��� recently the groundbreaking "The Jew Within," with Stanford

��� University's Arnold Eisen. When you hear a statistic on

��� assimilation, attitudes toward Israel or synagogue affiliation,

��� chances are it came from a Cohen study. For years the pollster

��� for the American Jewish Committee's annual survey of

��� American‑Jewish opinion, he's now the social scientist of choice

��� for, among others, the Andrea and Charles Bronfman

��� Philanthropies, the Jewish Community Centers Association, the

� ��Jewish Agency for Israel, the Nathan Cummings Foundation and

��� the Wexner Foundation. Last week the United Jewish

��� Communities, sponsor of the forthcoming National Jewish

��� Population Survey 2000, implicitly acknowledged Mr. Cohen's

��� critique of its researchers' methods when it appointed him senior

��� research consultant to the new study.

��� Steven Bayme

��� Of all the recent transformations sweeping the American‑Jewish

��� landscape, none is more startling than the transformation of

��� American Jewish Committee from liberal voice of an

��� assimilationist Jewish elite into its current stance as a crusader

��� for old‑time religion, advocating Jewish day schooling and a

��� full‑bore war against interfaith marriage. The man behind the

��� transformation is AJCommittee's director of Jewish Communal

��� Affairs, Steven Bayme. Mr. Bayme, 50, has emerged in recent

��� years as the nation's most visible advocate of the

��� circle‑the‑wagons "inreach" approach toward intermarriage,

��� which opposes reaching out to welcome interfaith families. He

��� sees intermarriage as a disaster that could result in a net loss of

��� up to one million Jews in the next generation, and he's

��� marshaled the considerable resources of AJCommittee to his

��� cause, staging prestigious conferences and issuing publications

��� like last year's "Statement on Jewish Education," which put the

��� organization, once the champion of "Americanization" of Jewish

��� immigrants, squarely behind Jewish day schools as "the primary

��� if not sole solution" to assimilation. Himself a product of the

��� Modern Orthodox Maimonides High School in Boston, Mr.

��� Bayme looks to Orthodoxy as a model of a community willing to

��� "undergo any sacrifice and pay any price � financially, culturally,

��� or even familially [sic] � in order to provide quality Jewish

��� education for its young."

��� Steven Nasatir

��� Chief executive of the Jewish Federation of Greater Chicago

��� since 1979, Mr. Nasatir is a rare pillar of stability in a field swept

��� by change and uncertainty. While other cities' federations

��� struggle to redefine themselves against a landscape of change,

��� assimilation and crisis, Mr. Nasatir's Chicago machine just chugs

��� along, unchallenged in its traditional role as the central body of

��� organized Jewish life in the Windy City. In recent years Mr.

��� Nasatir turned down repeated appeals to move to New York and

��� take over the management of the United Jewish Communities,

��� and of the United Jewish Appeal before that � at one point

��� there were rumors that the organization would relocate to

��� Chicago if only Mr. Nasatir would agree to head it. Instead, the

��� national organization has emerged as a weak confederation,

��� largely beholden to the directors of the biggest local federations,

��� sometimes known to insiders as the "college of cardinals." That

��� leaves Mr. Nasatir, the dean of the college, to rule the roost

��� without having to leave home.

��� Barry Shrage

��� Officially, his title is president of Combined Jewish

��� Philanthropies, as Boston's Jewish federation is known.

��� Unofficially, Mr. Shrage, 54, is known as the Peck's Bad Boy of

��� the national Jewish federation scene. His criticisms of the

��� traditional structures of federated Jewish philanthropy,

��� particularly the Jewish Agency for Israel, have made him

��� enemies on both sides of the ocean. He led the successful

��� opposition to plans by the architects of the United Jewish

��� Communities to create a strong central body that could forge

��� national policies in social services, overseas aid or Jewish

��� education. His argument: that at a time of rapid change,

��� American Jewry needs a decentralized network of institutions

��� that can experiment with new ways of delivering services,

��� rather than imposing answers from above. His Boston federation

��� is a model of innovation, as even his detractors admit, pursuing

��� a host of new programs in federation‑synagogue cooperation,

��� social justice programming and even "universal adult Jewish

��� literacy." He's also led the way, despite his personal commitment

��� to Orthodoxy, in reaching out to interfaith families, investing

��� some $400,000 a year in that area alone.

��� John Ruskay

��� In his first year as chief executive of the nation's largest local

��� Jewish charity, UJA‑Federation of New York, Mr. Ruskay, 54,

��� has started more revolutions and shaken up more conventions

��� than anyone in memory. Insisting that Jews everywhere face

��� the same problems of identity and meaning, he's broken down

��� the old division between domestic and overseas work. Instead

��� he's set up entirely new divisions with names like "Jewish

��� caring" and "Jewish peoplehood," testimony to his spiritual roots

��� in Camp Ramah, the New Left and the chavurah movement. He

��� speaks of creating "inspired communities" and of bringing

��� federations and JCC's into that circle as "gateways." Federation

��� staffers and volunteers say they're not always sure exactly what

��� he's got in mind, but they're exhilarated at the pace of change in

��� the huge, hidebound institution. Whether he can turn the New

��� York federation around and make it a vital center for the

��� nation's largest Jewish community remains to be seen. If he

��� succeeds at one‑tenth of his plans, Jewish New York will never

��� be the same.

��� Hannah Rosenthal

��� A longtime Democratic party activist, Ms. Rosenthal left the

��� Midwest region of the U.S. Department of Health and Human

��� Services in October to take over the Jewish Council for Public

��� Affairs as it struggles to define itself within a recently

��� reorganized system of Jewish federations. Created by the

��� federation movement in 1944 (it used to be called the National

��� Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, or Njcrac), the

��� council served for years as a coordinating body for Jewish

��� "defense" agencies like the Anti‑Defamation League and

��� American Jewish Committee, helping them channel their

��� resources to the community‑relations committees of local

��� Jewish federations. The council often found itself debating topics

��� as far‑flung as gun control and the environment. But following

��� an agreement reached this September with the United Jewish

��� Communities, which pays its bills, the JCPA is to focus its

��� attention more narrowly on issues relevant to the federations.

��� The council might have been expected to be at the forefront of

��� the traditionally liberal Jewish community's inevitable

��� confrontations with a Republican administration. Instead, Ms.

��� Rosenthal and her colleagues will be grappling with the issue of

��� who speaks for the Jews.

��� Richard Joel

��� In 1991, when this former associate dean of the law school at

��� Yeshiva University took over Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish

��� Campus Life, he promised to revolutionize Jewish life on campus

��� by "maximizing the number of Jews doing Jewish with other

��� Jews." He changed the job description of Hillel directors to open

��� the door to non‑rabbis, helped move Jewish programming out of

��� the Hillel house and into frat houses and local bars, and

��� personally emerged as a top pundit on what ails America's

��� peripatetic Jewish youth. Any scrutiny he might have faced in

��� his 10th anniversary year (many say the Hillel makeover was

��� more sizzle than steak) disappeared when Hillel became the

��� largest service‑provider for Birthright Israel, sending unaffiliated

��� youngsters on free Israel trips that Mr. Joel calls the "most

��� effective arrow in our quiver of engagement." This summer he

��� was appointed to chair a special commission investigating a

��� decades‑long case of alleged sexual abuse by a youth leader at

��� the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. The

��� reputation of the O.U., and by extension all Modern Orthodox

��� congregations, hangs in the balance of the commission's findings,

��� released this week.

��� Margery Tabankin

��� When she left the powerful Hollywood Women's Political

��� Committee in 1997 and took over Steven Spielberg's Righteous

��� Persons Foundation, Ms. Tabankin underwent one of the most

��� talked‑about career changes in California philanthropy. As

��� longtime head of the political committee, she ruled the glittering

��� world of left‑liberal political fund‑raising in Tinseltown. At the

��� Spielberg foundation, formed with the profits from the 1993

��� blockbuster, "Schindler's List," she has been focused entirely on

��� the flip side of charity: giving money away. Mr. Spielberg set up

��� the foundation in 1994 with a mission of promoting Jewish

��� learning, advancing intergroup tolerance and "using arts and

��� media to engage broad audiences on questions of what it means

��� to be Jewish." Under Ms. Tabankin, what had been a predictable

��� list of grants to youth groups and rabbinic seminars has become

��� an innovative program combining youth, innovation and a

��� strongly liberal social‑justice bent. She signed onto last year's

��� initiative by Jewish family foundations to encourage "civil

��� discourse" within the Jewish community by denying funds to

��� groups that flout it. Together with program associate Rachel

��� Levin, she spearheaded the Joshua Venture, which seeds

��� innovative Jewish projects by young visionaries. She's also

��� funded a host of Jewish cultural initiatives, from documentary

��� films to an online Yiddish theater archive. The job has a term

��� limit: the foundation was set up to spend down its endowment,

��� which Hollywood sources say may take another three years.

��� With more than $55 million in grants to date, the foundation

��� and Ms. Tabankin aim to spark a revolution in Jewish life before

��� the money runs out. Not that she'll go begging: She also heads

��� the Barbra Streisand Foundation.

�� �Spirit

��� Anita Diamant

��� The West Newton, Mass., author may be what's called a "viral"

��� leader: Her influence is spread person‑to‑person and by word of

��� mouth. Her novel "The Red Tent," a revisionist feminist version

��� of the biblical tale of Dinah, was quietly released by St. Martin's

��� in 1997. Paperback publisher Picador sent copies to rabbis,

��� ministers and independent book group leaders, who

��� recommended it to their congregants and friends. By now "The

��� Red Tent" has sold over 400,000 copies, and as a favorite of book

��� discussion groups, may be the country's most widely studied

��� Torah "commentary." In addition, Ms. Diamant's five liberal

��� how‑to guides to Jewish observance, including "The New Jewish

��� Wedding" and "Saying Kaddish: How to Comfort the Dying, Bury

��� the Dead, and Mourn As a Jew," are essential resources for

��� heterodox Jews seeking a welcoming, non‑judgmental catalogue

��� of the range of Jewish traditions.

��� Rabbi Eric Yoffie

��� Two unfortunate transitions have left the president of the

��� Reform movement's Union of American Hebrew Congregations,

��� Rabbi Yoffie, 53, with an even more powerful presence atop

��� American Jewry's largest denomination. The obituaries for the

��� man Rabbi Yoffie succeeded four years ago, Rabbi Alexander

��� Schindler, who died in November, reminded readers how

��� Schindler guided Reform during a time of soaring intermarriage

��� and intergroup strife. Rabbi Yoffie continued Schindler's bold �

��� some say radical � approach to inclusion of intermarried

��� families, but coupled it with an embrace of more tradition and

��� spiritual prayer and ritual forms. When Rabbi Sheldon

��� Zimmerman, president of the movement's rabbinical seminary,

��� was forced to step down this month over allegations of sexual

��� misconduct, Rabbi Yoffie lost an important ally in his efforts to

��� fill a shortage of rabbis and train a cadre of them in his image.

��� The number of Reform synagogues grew to more than 900 this

��� year, although the news was largely overshadowed by the move

��� by Reform's rabbinical body to allow its rabbis to devise and

��� perform "appropriate Jewish rituals" of commitment for gay and

��� lesbian couples. "For the first time in history," Rabbi Yoffie said,

��� "a major rabbinical body has affirmed the Jewish validity of

��� committed, same‑gender relationships." It will take all of Rabbi

��� Yoffie's considerable skills to answer once again the question of

��� whether the move is a sign of Reform going its own way, or just

��� getting there ahead of everyone else.

��� Blu Greenberg

��� Known as the "mother" of Orthodox feminism, Blu Greenberg

��� gets the kind of reception among Modern Orthodox women that

��� others reserve for great rabbis: Crowds part as she walks into a

��� room. A writer ("Black Bread: Poems After the Holocaust," "How

��� to Run a Traditional Jewish Household" and "On Women and

��� Judaism: A View From Tradition"), she has spearheaded the two

��� International Conferences on Feminism and Orthodoxy and is

��� president of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance. In these

��� roles, she has prodded the conservative world of Orthodox

��� Judaism to envision new religious roles and responsibilities for

��� women in synagogues, rabbinic tribunals, schools and other

��� institutions. Married to Orthodox theologian Rabbi Irving

��� Greenberg (see below), her soft‑spoken leadership has inspired

��� an explosion of women's prayer and study within Orthodoxy.

��� She serves on the boards of the JWB Jewish Book Council, the

��� US/Israel Women‑to‑Women Dialogue Project, the Jewish

��� Foundation for Christian Rescuers, Hadassah Magazine, the

��� Jewish Women's Resource Center and more.

��� Rabbi Irwin Kula

��� With his shoulder‑length hair and an office adorned with

��� photographs of the Grateful Dead, the Conservative‑trained

��� Rabbi Kula has carefully cultivated an image of Jewish boomer

��� cool. Beyond image, though, the 42‑year‑old president of

��� CLAL‑The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership is

��� among the few leaders challenging institutions to imagine how

��� Judaism might adapt to what he calls "an era of unprecedented

��� freedom, power and affluence." As successor to CLAL's founder,

��� Irving "Yitz" Greenberg, Rabbi Kula continues to work within

��� the Jewish establishment, teaching pluralism and leadership

��� training to young rabbis and lay leaders around the country.

��� More recently, he has begun reaching out to unaffiliated Jews

��� with a message of Jewish universalism that takes seriously the

��� spiritual energies percolating on the margins of Jewish life.

��� Oprah has paid attention, inviting him twice this year as a guest

��� on her program, and so has Silicon Valley: Rabbi Kula gave the

��� closing talk at the tenth TED conference, a high‑power new

��� media pow‑wow, and was written up in Fast Company

��� magazine as a "spiritual counselor" of the New Economy.

��� Rabbi Avi Weiss

��� He still shows up for the occasional street protest, like the

��� demonstrations this summer for the freedom of 10 imprisoned

��� Jews in Iran. But after years of globe‑hopping protests against

��� Kurt Waldheim in Austria, the Catholic convent at Auschwitz

��� and more, Rabbi Weiss, 56, says the golden age of Jewish

��� activism is over. The Jewish struggle has become one of the

��� soul, not the body politic. In recent months the former militant

��� has emerged as one of the premier proponents of Modern

��� Orthodoxy. Together with a fellow moderate, Rabbi Saul

��� Berman, he has staked out a position on the left flank of

��� Orthodoxy, waging a rear‑guard action against the yeshiva heads

��� and fellow rabbis who have become increasingly wary of secular

��� culture and interaction with non‑Orthodox Jews. A leading

��� advocate of women's rights in Orthodoxy � he sponsors

��� women's prayer groups and started a quasi‑rabbinic "synagogue

��� intern" program for women at his Hebrew Institute of Riverdale

��� � he is the driving force behind Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, a

��� Modern Orthodox seminary that currently enrolls seven

��� full‑time rabbinical students. His overall goal is to raise up a new

��� generation of disciples to pursue a welcoming religiosity that he

��� calls "Open Orthodoxy."

��� Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum

��� Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum is not most people's image of a

��� bridge‑builder. Leader of the Satmar chasidic sect since the death

��� in 1978 of his uncle, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, who founded the

��� sect in Romania in the 1920s, the Satmar rebbe remains a fierce

� ��opponent of Zionism and non‑Orthodox Judaism. And yet, in his

��� two decades as rebbe he has led America's most reclusive

��� chasidic movement to a far more tolerant stance toward the

��� world around it. The community, once adamantly opposed to

��� higher education, is now allowing young men to enroll in

��� vocational courses, such as computer networking. It has become

��� far less pugnacious in its stance toward Israel and Zionism. The

��� rebbe also appears to have scaled back his movement's

��� sometimes violent feuding with the smaller but more visible

��� Lubavitch community and healed some of the internal breaches

��� that split his own community after his predecessor died without

��� a son. Under Rabbi Teitelbaum the Satmar community, the

��� largest faction in the complex world of chasidism is increasingly

��� emerging as a religious and political force to be contended with,

��� within Orthodoxy and in the broader community.

��� Rabbi Shira Stern

��� As co‑president of the Reform movement's 275‑member

��� Women's Rabbinic Network, Rabbi Stern was the lead promoter

��� of one of this year's most controversial Jewish initiatives, the

��� decision of the Central Conference of American Rabbis to

��� support rabbinic officiation at gay and lesbian commitment

��� ceremonies. "This is not a women's issue or a gay or lesbian

��� issue. This is a human rights issue," Rabbi Stern told reporters as

��� the Reform rabbis voted on the resolution at their March

��� convention. "For Jews who have no choice in the matter of

��� sexual identity, we as leaders of the movement must provide

��� them with the religious framework in which to celebrate their

��� union." Having adopted the decision, the movement now must

��� develop liturgies for such ceremonies, Rabbi Stern said. The

��� daughter of violinist Isaac Stern, Rabbi Stern is also a staunch

��� proponent of abortion rights who has shared publicly the story

��� of her own anguished decision to abort an anencephalic fetus.

��� She directs the Joint Chaplaincy Program of Middlesex County

��� in New Jersey.

��� Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman

��� and Ron Wolfson

��� The hot topic this year on the Jewish "renaissance front" was

��� Synagogue Transformation � and the professionals most

��� responsible for putting the issue on the map are Rabbi Lawrence

��� Hoffman and Ron Wolfson. Rabbi Hoffman, one of the Reform

��� movement's leading liturgical scholars, and Mr. Wolfson, a vice

��� president at the Conservative movement's University of Judaism

��� in Los Angeles, have pushed ahead with Synagogue 2000, a

��� transdenominational project that works with congregations to

��� improve member services, incorporate liturgical and

��� programming innovations and develop marketing campaigns.

��� Their formula is heavy on spirituality, music and constant

��� institutional reevaluation.

��� Tamara Cohen

��� Offering women a starring role in Jewish festivals has turned

��� Ma'yan, the Jewish Women's Project of the JCC on the Upper

��� West Side, into a blockbuster, and its program director, Tamara

��� Cohen, 29, into a leading spokeswoman for feminism. The

��� project began by gathering women for a feminist Passover seder

��� in Manhattan six years ago, drawing a crowd of 200. By 1999 the

��� seder drew 1,500 women with the help of folksinger Debbie

��� Friedman. This year 34 Ma'yan seders took place nationwide.

��� "We didn't start the idea of a feminist seder, but we've been

��� committed to making it mainstream in Jewish life," said Ms.

��� Cohen, the daughter of Middle East activist Stephen P. Cohen

��� (see above). Accoutrements of the Ma'yan seder include a

��� women‑centered Haggada, edited by Ms. Cohen, and a cup

��� dedicated to Moses' sister, Miriam � a play on the cup offered to

��� Elijah the prophet. Ma'yan is working to incorporate feminist

��� ceremonies into all major life‑cycle events, said Ms. Cohen,

��� including a new Sukkot compilation completed last fall. Ms.

��� Cohen edits Ma'yan's quarterly journal, "Journey," which

��� publishes new rituals and chronicles feminist activism. She is

��� also spiritual leader of the Greater Washington Coalition for

��� Jewish Life in Washington, Conn., and a leader of Jews for

��� Racial and Economic Justice.

��� Lay Leadership

��� Rabbi Irving Greenberg

��� With his appointment by President Clinton to chair the United

��� States Holocaust Memorial Council, "Yitz" Greenberg may finally

��� have the platform he's been waiting a lifetime to find. As

��� founding president of CLAL‑The National Jewish Center for

��� Learning and Leadership, he championed interdenominational

��� and interfaith dialogue before they were fashionable, and long

��� after others had given up. A maverick proponent of Modern

��� Orthodoxy, a trained historian and a daring theologian, Rabbi

��� Greenberg has written persuasively about the Holocaust both in

��� its Jewish particularity and its human universality. He is widely

��� considered uniquely qualified to steer the Holocaust Council and

��� the museum in Washington past the internal struggles and

��� political missteps of its founding generation, and to shape Jewish

��� memory into the new century. Even without the council

��� chairmanship, he wields formidable influence as president of

��� Michael Steinhardt's Jewish Life Network, helping to steer the

��� iconoclast philanthropist's largesse towards day schools, higher

��� education and community service.

��� Belda Lindenbaum

��� Belda Lindenbaum says she remembers all too well the look she

��� has seen among young women praying at Orthodox synagogues

��� and yeshivot: "Catatonia" was how she described it at the last

��� International Conference on Feminism and Orthodoxy, of which

��� she was a major supporter. Seeing this lack of involvement in

��� prayer as stemming from neglect of the young women's Jewish

��� education, Ms. Lindenbaum, a wealthy New Yorker, has set

��� about making sure that women have top‑notch institutions for

��� Torah learning on a par with those for men. She is president of

��� the board of Drisha, a Manhattan institute for women's Torah

��� study, and founded Midreshet Lindenbaum, a program in Israel

��� at which many Americans study for a year or more after high

��� school. She also funds an Israeli program to train women as

��� "pleaders" in rabbinical courts and another permitting them to

��� study Torah while in the army. Such opportunities are changing

��� the face of Orthodoxy, where status comes from Torah

��� knowledge.

��� Michael Steinhardt

��� This 60‑year‑old retired hedge‑fund operator continues to

��� operate in the eye of North American Jewry's roughest storm:

��� battling intermarriage and assimilation and offering young

��� Americans a positive reason to be, and marry, Jewish. A

��� full‑time philanthropic entrepreneur, he uses his money and

��� clout to bring together groups of fellow philanthropists and

��� incubate programs such as the Partnership for Excellence in

��� Jewish Education, which provides seed‑money for new Jewish

��� day schools; Birthright Israel, the Israel‑travel program for

��� teenagers that has captured the communal imagination in the

��� last year, and Makor, the innovative Gen‑X Jewish culture

��� center on New York's West Side (which he reportedly is

��� preparing to hand over to the 92nd Street YM‑YWHA). The

��� question that exercises his critics and admirers alike is whether

��� he can discipline his restless imagination and learn to stay with

��� his brainchildren until they're on their feet.

��� Edgar Bronfman

��� After two decades at the helm of the World Jewish Congress,

��� Mr. Bronfman has few worlds left to conquer. Last July his

��� five‑year campaign against Swiss banks ended in triumph when

��� a U.S. court approved a $1.25 billion settlement for Holocaust

��� victims and their heirs. A separate negotiation with German

��� companies to compensate Nazi‑era slave laborers ended, also in

��� July, with a $4.8 billion settlement. He played a controversial

��� role in this fall's elections, sponsoring a gala Holocaust

��� restitution banquet that honored first lady‑turned‑Senate

��� candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton for what many said was a

��� minimal role in the campaign. But Mr. Bronfman, 71, has been

��� showing signs of restlessness with the political hurly‑burly. In a

��� 1996 speech he called for the Jewish community to cut back on

��� politics and refocus on spiritual nourishment. This fall he acted,

��� joining with two other multimillionaires, including Michael

��� Steinhardt, to launch an $18 million initiative for "Synagogue

��� Transformation and Renewal," or STAR. Addressing STAR's

��� inaugural conference in Chicago, Mr. Bronfman described his

��� disappointment with High Holy Day services, which led him to

��� hire Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg to lead davening in his Upper East

��� Side apartment. He also described how he'd moved Havdalah,

��� the Saturday‑night end‑of‑Sabbath ritual, to Sunday night to

��� accommodate his weekend schedule. Slack‑jawed reactions from

��� the assembled rabbis suggested that Mr. Bronfman may have

��� humbled the Swiss, but he had yet to master negotiations with

��� his fellow Jews.

��� Morton Klein

��� The current intifada came as no surprise to Morton Klein, 53, the

��� pugnacious national president of the Zionist Organization of

��� America. The Philadelphia‑based activist and his allies were

��� often marginalized for their relentless campaign to expose

��� Palestinian incitement, which allies of Israel's Labor government

��� saw as aimed at delegitimizing talks with Yasser Arafat. In recent

��� months, however, Prime Minister Barak and some of his main

��� backers here have started to sound like Mr. Klein when talking

��� about the Palestinians' failure to curb a culture of hatred in their

��� schools, media and political rhetoric. Still, there's a wide gap

��� between being "right" and being effective: For all of Mr. Klein's

��� efforts, the Barak government is still aiming for a sweeping

��� compromise with the Palestinians � even after three months of

��� violent intifada � and the American government is still backing

��� the compromise plans. Mr. Klein, who once worked as a

��� biostatistician with Nobel laureate Linus Pauling and assumed

��� the top spot at the then‑sleepy ZOA in 1993, has lined up a

��� powerful network of congressional contacts. Keep an eye on

��� whether the conservative Mr. Klein is just as persistent with his

��� criticisms of President‑elect Bush if he fails to move the

��� American Embassy to Jerusalem and of a Likud prime minister if

��� he carries on with the peace process.

��� Barbara Dobkin

��� This New York philanthropist is still the top banana when it

��� comes to funding Jewish feminist causes, such as Ma'yan: The

��� Jewish Women's Project of the JCC of the Upper West Side. But

��� now the establishment is starting to catch on. In many ways her

��� activism by example is responsible for the women's foundations

��� popping up at federations and other Jewish organizations. She

��� put up $1 million to launch a program for recruiting women to

��� break the glass ceiling at big‑city Jewish federations. Through

��� this investment in the maiden project of the Trust for Jewish

��� Philanthropy, Ms. Dobkin could end up playing a major role in

��� selecting several top women executives at big‑city federations.

��� Not a bad display of muscle‑flexing for a trained social worker.

��� Justice

��� Judah Gribetz

��� Few people can simultaneously win the respect of Holocaust

��� survivors, lawyers and judges � especially when the matter at

��� hand is an allocation plan for the $1.25 billion Swiss banks

��� settlement � but Mr. Gribetz is the kind of guy to pull it off.

��� When federal Judge Edward Korman named him "special master"

��� to oversee the massive allocation plan in 1999, everyone from

��� Edward Fagan, the controversial class action lawyer, to

��� Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau praised the

��� choice. Long involved in Jewish issues and city politics, Mr.

��� Gribetz, a partner at Richards & O'Neill, former deputy mayor,

��� consulting member of the New York Community Trust and past

��� president of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New

��� York, seemed an inspired choice. And so it appears. While some

��� survivors groups had vociferously lobbied Mr. Gribetz to move

��� more swiftly in drafting the plan, when he presented the fruits

��� of two years' labor this fall, few had substantive criticism of the

��� proposed allocations. Indeed, the most frequently heard cry

��� about the intricate allocation plan was still "when," not "what."

��� Now as before, the question is whether Mr. Gribetz will be able

��� to push the plan through all the legal hoops in time for aged

��� survivors to see their fair share.

��� Amy Beth Dean

��� Called one of the "most innovative figures in Silicon Valley" by

��� The New York Times, Amy Beth Dean heads the South Bay

��� AFL‑CIO Labor Council, a federation of 110 northern California

��� unions at ground zero of the New Economy. Ms. Dean, 37, took

��� her first job with the garment workers' union after college,

��� thinking she would stay for a year before graduate school.

��� Instead she's made the labor movement her life's work and in

��� 1995 became the youngest person to lead a major metropolitan

��� labor council. Always committed to the Judaism of her Chicago

��� family, for whom religion was inseparable from social activism,

��� Ms. Dean was a Fellow of the Wexner Heritage Foundation from

��� 1996 to 1998. In 1997 she helped found the Interfaith Council on

��� Religion, Race, Economic and Social Justice, a coalition of 30

��� religious, labor and community organizations that's won for the

��� San Jose area the nation's highest "living wage" and universal

��� health‑care access for children under 18. Ms. Dean challenges

��� New Economy shibboleths by insisting information workers

��� deserve the same workplace protections won by the labor

��� movement for a previous era's industrial workers. "I've realized

��� that a movement for serious power and social justice must be

��� led by labor," Ms. Dean told the Forward, "but you also need a

��� spiritual component."

��� Nancy Kaufman

��� Nancy Kaufman has become nationally known for advocating a

��� classically Jewish social justice agenda within an increasingly

��� conservative federation establishment. As executive director of

��� the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of Greater

��� Boston, she helped pilot The Greater Boston Jewish Coalition for

��� Literacy, a program that has since been adopted by some 25

��� cities across the nation. "She has transformed the agency to

��� focus on social justice and linking the greater Boston Jewish

��� community to its roots in the urban core," said Alan Ronkin, her

��� associate director. "This transformation has caught on nationally

��� as a model for Jewish community relations."

��� Stephen Flatow,

��� Arline Duker,

��� Devorah Halberstam,

��� Daniel Gross

��� Four families victimized by terrorism turned their tragedies into

��� appeals for international justice, and people listened. New

��� legislation this year will allow Stephen Flatow, 52, whose

�� �daughter Alisa was killed in a 1995 bus bombing by Iranian

��� backed terrorists, to collect damages in his lawsuit against Iran.

��� Another campaigner for the legislation, Arline Duker, 53, lost her

��� daughter Sara in a 1996 attack by apparent Iranian‑funded

��� terrorists in Israel. Both families say it isn't about the money, but

��� about making state sponsors of terrorism accountable for their

��� crimes. Accountability was also the mission of Devorah

��� Halberstam, 44, whose son Ari was slain by a Lebanese‑born

��� gunman on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994. After six years of

��� investigations, pressed by Mrs. Halberstam and her allies, the FBI

��� announced this month that the killing was an act of terrorism,

��� not simple "road rage." And Daniel Gross, 33, a former

��� advertising executive, now works full time for the gun control

��� group Pax, after his brother Matthew suffered brain damage as

��� one of seven people shot by a Palestinian gunman atop the

��� Empire State Building in February 1997 (the shooter killed

��� himself). Mr. Gross told a reporter earlier this year of the power

��� that comes when ordinary citizens see violence as something

��� that "goes from being a seemingly random, high‑profile tragedy

��� to something that could affect them personally."

��� Media

��� Samuel Freedman

��� With a single book on Jewish affairs, this former New York

��� Times writer and Columbia University School of Journalism

��� professor framed the Jewish communal debate for this year and

��� possibly for years to come. "Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the

��� Soul of American Jewry" painted a portrait of a community in

��� near‑constant conflict: feminists versus traditionalists, peaceniks

��� versus right‑wingers on Israel, ultra‑Orthodox Jews against just

��� about everybody. Although many reviewers said Mr. Freedman's

��� portrayal was darker than reality and found only rancor where

��� others saw healthy debate, most acknowledged that he asked a

��� key question that must be addressed by proponents of Jewish

��� "continuity" and "renaissance": Is there hope for a secular, ethnic

��� Jewish culture, or has an "Orthodox model" of religious

��� belonging and learning, ritual scrupulousness and Jewish day

��� schooling triumphed?

��� Cynthia Ozick

�� �As a writer of fiction, literary criticism and political commentary,

��� Ms. Ozick is a Pilot pen‑wielding triple threat. "Quarrel and

��� Quandary," her 12th book, hit shelves this fall to the acclaim of

��� critics who hailed it as her best book of essays yet. Now 72, Ms.

��� Ozick continues to hold her own among literary giants and is

��� still one of the only Jewish‑American women fiction writers to

��� be ranked alongside Philip Roth and Saul Bellow. (The three are

��� the focus of one chapter in "The Modern Jewish Canon: A

��� Journey Through Language and Culture," by Ruth Wisse, Ms.

��� Ozick's only competitor for the title of greatest living Jewish

��� belle‑lettrist). Although claiming to "resist the political" in the

��� "Forethought" to her book, Ms. Ozick is also known for her

��� right‑of‑center advocacy on Jewish matters from the Holocaust

��� to Israel. She said it was "astounding" that the trial in England

��� this year against Holocaust revisionist David Irving did not

��� capture Jewish interest, and in her book she voices disgust at

��� the commodification of Anne Frank. A long‑time critic of the

��� Palestine Liberation Organization, she said in October that Jews

��� should "unashamedly defend themselves in any way they can."

��� Jon Stewart

��� In a year when late‑night comedy programming became a major

��� source of the electorate's understanding of the presidential

��� campaign � a Pew Research Center poll in February found that

��� 28% of all Americans, and 47% under the age of 30, got campaign

��� news from late‑night talk shows � Jon Stewart became the

��� medium's Ted Koppel. Following a spotty career in stand‑up and

��� short‑lived TV shows, the 38‑year‑old comic scored big as host of

��� "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" on cable TV's Comedy

��� Central. Mr. Stewart captured the college set with a dead‑on

��� nightly satire of the news and off‑kilter interviews with real

��� newsmakers. Born Jon Stewart Leibowitz in Trenton, N.J., he

��� sometimes refers to Christians as "you people" and once

��� introduced Senator Lieberman as the "the man who wants to

��� build that bridge to the 59th century." If Adam Sandler is a

��� post‑boomer Jerry Lewis, then Mr. Stewart is Generation X's

��� Mort Sahl or Lenny Bruce: a comedian who unapologetically

��� filters his political satire through a Jewish sensibility.

��� Michael Dorf

��� Defying reports that secular Judaism is dead and that only the

��� religious model has staying power, impresario Michael Dorf, 38,

��� continues to champion a brand of Jewish cultural expression

��� that owes more to Second Avenue than the Second Temple. The

��� founder of the Knitting Factory, a New York‑based music club

��� and record label known for musical experimentation, Mr. Dorf

��� has pioneered new Jewish music with his offshoot label, JAM, or

��� Jewish Alternative Movement. Artists such as Frank London and

��� Uri Caine have found a home on the label for their in‑your‑face

��� avant‑garde Jewish music, which manages to be both irreverent

��� and traditional. Every December the Knit, as hipsters call it,

��� hosts a Jewish Music Festival. In August, Mr. Dorf brought his

��� vision west with the launch of the Knitting Factory Hollywood,

��� and he plans to conquer Europe next year, opening a Berlin

��� location. At the Knitting Factory's "Cyber‑Seder," where

��� musicians perform interpretations of traditional Passover songs

��� for a Webcast "attended" by thousands of computer users, Mr.

��� Dorf succeeds where many others have failed � at turning an

��� ancient tradition into something edgy and hip.

��� Yossi Abramowitz

��� The Jewish Internet and Yossi Abramowitz, 36, have become

��� synonymous, and as the Internet is everywhere these days, so is

��� Mr. Abramowitz. Founder, editor and publisher of the

�� multimedia, Boston‑based Jewish Family & Life!, Mr.

��� Abramowitz started the year with a bang when his web site for

��� teenagers, Jvibe.com, launched its popular sex forum,

��� Jvibrations. At a time when web sites nationwide are going

��� belly‑up, Mr. Abramowitz keeps attracting contracts from the

��� Jewish non‑profit sector. In addition to JFL's webzine lineup,

��� including GenerationJ.com, JewishFamily.com and

��� InterfaithFamily.com, he debuted his latest project,

��� BirthrightIsrael.com, which aims to be the premier source of

��� information for alumni of the popular Israel trips. He's now

��� launching a new venture with the Jewish Education Service of

��� North America, Jskyway, offering distance‑learning for day

��� school teachers.

��� Dr. Laura Schlessinger

��� Liberals hate the idea, but "Dr. Laura" (her degrees are in

��� physiology and counseling) may have the largest audience of

��� anyone who claims to speak from and for Jewish tradition. A

��� Jew by choice and self‑described follower of Orthodoxy, Dr.

��� Laura often invokes the Hebrew scriptures in her "tough love"

��� stands against premarital sex, divorce, single parenting,

��� abortion, feminism and, most notoriously, homosexuality. It was

��� the last that stalled the Dr. Laura phenomenon � which

��� includes a syndicated television talk show, a radio program

��� syndicated to more than 500 stations and 20 million listeners in

��� the United States and Canada, a syndicated newspaper column

��� and such best‑selling advice books as "The Ten Commandments:

��� The Significance of God's Laws in Everyday Life," written with

��� Rabbi Stuart Vogel. Repelled by Dr. Laura's classification of

��� homosexuality as a "biological mistake" and "deviant sexual

��� behavior," civil rights and gay rights groups protested to

��� Paramount Television for carrying the show. Advertisers such as

��� Proctor & Gamble dropped their sponsorship of the show, and

��� Canadian broadcasters reversed their decision to air "Dr. Laura."

��� The show, which in September aired daily in the afternoons, has

��� recently been bumped to the wee hour of 2 a.m. in major cities

��� such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

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