THE FORWARD FIFTY

�� 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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