Recent Articles

List of Israelis

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

Historical Figures

Politicians

See also: Politics of Israel

• Chaim Weizmann - first president of Israel (1949-1952)
• David Ben-Gurion - first prime minister of Israel (1948-1953)
• Abba Eban - diplomat and foreign minster of Israel (1966-1974)
• Golda Meir - prime minister (1969-1974)
• Menachem Begin - prime minister (1977-1983); Nobel Peace Prize (1978)
• Yitzhak Shamir - prime minister (1983-1984, 1986-1992)
• Yitzhak Rabin - assassinated prime minister (1974-1977, 1992-1995); Nobel Peace Prize (1994)
• Shimon Peres - prime minister (1977, 1984-1986, 1995-1996); Nobel Peace Prize (1994)
• Benjamin Netanyahu - prime minister (1996-1999)
• Ehud Barak - prime minister (1999-2001)
• Ariel Sharon - prime minister (2001-)

Military

• Ron Arad - MIA navigator
• Eli Cohen - Israeli spy
• Moshe Dayan - military commander
• Uziel Gal - designer of the Uzi submachine gun
• Jonathan Netanyahu - leader of Operation Entebbe
• Avraham Stern - underground military leader

Activists

• Uri Avnery - peace activist
• Amira Hass - journalist
• Nira Schwartz - TRW whistleblower, Wiener Award (2001)
• Natan Sharansky - Soviet-era human rights activist
• Mordechai Vanunu - Nuclear whistleblower

Infamous

• Yigal Amir - assassin of Yitzhak Rabin
• Baruch Goldstein - mass-murderer

Cultural Figures

Artists

• Yaacov Agam - painter
• Ron Arad - designer
• Ralph Bakshi - animator
• Leah Gottlieb - Gottex swimsuits
• Ranan Lurie - political cartoonist
• Moshe Safdie - architect
• Elie Tahari - fashion designer
• Ronit Zilkha - fashion designer

Popular Musicians

• Astral Projection - goa trance band
• Mike Brant - French-language singer
• Avishai Cohen - jazz player
• Ofra Haza - world singer
• Dana International - pop singer
• Orphaned Land - oriental metal band
• Ahinoam Nini (Noa) - world singer
• Esther Ofarim - singer
• Gene Simmons - bass player for KISS
• Hillel Slovak - original guitarist for Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Classical Musicians

• Daniel Barenboim - conductor and pianist
• Gary Bertini - conductor
• Miriam Fried - violinist
• Ivry Gitlis - violinist
• Matt Haimovitz - cellist
• Ofra Harnoy - cellist
• Eliahu Inbal - conductor
• Joseph Kalichstein - pianist
• Yoel Levi - conductor
• Mischa Maisky - cellist
• Shlomo Mintz - violinist
• Itzhak Perlman - violinist
• Shulamit Ran - composer
• Gil Shaham - violinist
• Yoav Talmi - conductor
• Pinchas Zukerman - violinist

Film, TV & Stage

• Yvan Attal - French-based actor/director
• Uri Geller - tv personality & self-proclaimed psychic
• Arnon Milchan - film producer (Pretty Woman, Fight Club)
• Ohad Naharin - choreographer
• Natalie Portman - actress
• Haim Saban - TV produer
• Chaim Topol - actor

Writers

• Shmuel Yosef Agnon - author; Nobel Prize in Literature (1966)
• Yehuda Amichai - poet
• Aharon Appelfeld - author
• Hayyim Nahman Bialik - poet
• Max Brod - author & friend of Kafka
• Leah Goldberg - poet
• Emile Habibi - Israeli Arab author
• Ephraim Kishon - satirist
• Uri Orlev - author; Hans Christian Andersen Award (1996)
• Amos Oz - author and journalist
• Anton Shammas - Israeli Arab author
• A.B. Yehoshua - author

Academic Figures

Computer Science & Mathematics

• Yehoshua Bar-Hillel - machine translation
• Eli Biham - differential cryptanalysis
• Adolf Fraenkel - set theory, Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms
• Abraham Lempel & Jacob Ziv - LZW compression; Richard W. Hamming Medal (1995)
• Joel Moses - MIT provost & writer of Macsyma
• Judea Pearl - artificial intelligence, philosophy of action
• Ilya Piatetski-Shapiro - representation theory; Wolf Prize in Mathematics (1990)
• Amir Pnueli - temporal logic; Turing Award (1996)
• Michael Rabin - nondeterminism, primality testing; Turing Award (1976)
• Adi Shamir - RSA, differential cryptanalysis; Turing Award (2002)
• Saharon Shelah - logic; Wolf Prize in Mathematics (2001)
• Ehud Shapiro - DNA computing pioneer
• Avi Wigderson - randomized algorithms; Nevanlinna Prize (1994)
• Gödel Prize in theoretical computer science: Shlomo Moran (93), Yoram Moses (97), Moshe Vardi (00), Uriel Feige? & Shmuel Safra (01), Yoav Feund? (02) and Nir Shavit (04).