Jerusalem Post's List of 50 Most Influential Jews, Mostly Trivial

IMHO, the Jerusalem Post's list of 50 most influential Jews is stuffed with names who really have no influence.  They are just celebrities.  Some I hadn't even heard of.  I think that the Jerusalem Post should have limited themselves to ten or eighteen.  That way they would have had been forced to choose quality rather than padding it to such a large quantity.

I do agree that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is today's most influential Jew in the world.  Whatever Bibi does and says is heard, commented and judged by the world.  My attitude towards our PM is full of ambivalence.  On one hand, I admire his intelligence and knowledge, but I'm very disappointed and upset with many of his policies.  Like the original Likud leader, Menachem Begin, he is best when pushed against the wall defending Israel and its right to exist.



Few people have Netanyahu's vast knowledge of Jewish History, yes especially now since his father Professor Benzion Netanyahu passed away.



How does someone like Natalie Portman deserve to be on the same list? Just because she speaks fondly of Israel and gave her son the name Alef doesn't make her an influential Jew.  Think about it.  She's a beautiful Jewish woman who lives and had a baby with a non-Jew, and duh, what's the point? 

Was the Jerusalem Post trying to be PC and put a certain percentage of  women on the list?

I would have had put Jonathan Pollard on the list rather than his wife Esther.  Pollard's continued incarceration in that American jail is a blight on the entire United States system of justice.  The fact that only a Jew could have received such an out of proportion punishment should be a warning for all Jews all over the world.

On the whole, I find their list far too American, too secular and too Leftist.  I can't see how most of the top ten are all that influential:

1. Binyamin Netanyahu
2. Jack Lew
3. Jill Abramson
4. Mark Zuckerberg
5. Sheryl Sandberg
6. Ruth Messinger
7. Jon Stewart
8. Michael Oren
9. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
10. Interview with Peter Beinart

The top ten should have been strong enough to stand on its own; having two from facebook is totally out of proportion to their influence as individual people.

Considering the demographics of World Jewry, I'd expect to see more Torah observant Jews.  Most of the Jews on this list most probably won't have Jewish grandchildren.  Their influence as Jews will be in history books at most and their Jewish identity no more than postscripts.

OK readers, who would be on your list of the top ten most influential Jews in the world today?  Would you also top it with PM Binyamin Bibi Netanyahu?  Would any of the others on the Jerusalem Post's list make it onto yours?