Moshe Mordechai Epstein (1866–1933) was rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Knesseth Yisrael in Slabodka, Lithuania and is recognized as having been one of the leading Talmudists of the twentieth century. He is also one of the founders of the city of Hadera.
Ingrid Mattson, is a Muslim religious leader, a professor of Islamic Studies and an interfaith activist. She is the London and Windsor Community Chair in Islamic Studies at Huron University College at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada. Mattson is a former president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and was described as "Perhaps the most noticed figure among American Muslim women" in a 2010 New York Times article.
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is a Jewish advocacy group established on November 11, 1906. It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy organizations and, according to The New York Times, is "widely regarded as the dean of American Jewish organizations". As of 2009, AJC envisions itself as the "Global Center for Jewish and Israel Advocacy".
Joseph Barondess was an American labor leader and political figure in New York City's Lower East Side Jewish community in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Known as the "King of the Cloakmakers", whose union he led, he carried himself like an actor, a career he had tried but failed at before he became a garment worker and union leader. In his heyday he was in great demand at public celebrations of all sorts; as one observer of the time noted, "It was almost a pleasure to die, knowing that Barondess would arrange the rites."
The American Jewish Congress is an association of American Jews organized to defend Jewish interests at home and abroad through public policy advocacy, using diplomacy, legislation, and the courts.
The Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago (JUF) is the central philanthropic address of Chicago's Jewish community and one of the largest not-for-profit social welfare institutions in Illinois. JUF provides critical resources that bring food, refuge, health care, education and emergency assistance to 500,000 Chicagoans of all faiths and millions of Jews in Israel and around the world, funding a network of 100+ agencies, schools and initiatives.
The Jewish Labor Committee (JLC) is an American secular Jewish organization dedicated to promoting labor union interests in Jewish communities, and Jewish interests within unions. The organization is headquartered in New York City, with local/regional offices in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles, and volunteer-led affiliated groups in a number of other U.S. communities. It was founded in 1934 in response to the rise of Nazism in Europe. Today, it works to maintain and strengthen the historically strong relationship between the American Jewish community and the trade union movement, and to promote what they see as the shared social justice agenda of both communities. The JLC was also active in Canada from 1936 until the 1970s.
Morris Winchevsky, also known as Ben Netz, was a prominent Jewish socialist leader in London and the United States in the late 19th century.
Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership is a private educational center in Chicago, Illinois. Spertus offers learning opportunities that are "rooted in Jewish wisdom and culture and open to all" although it is not affiliated with any single branch of Judaism. Graduate programs and workshops "train leaders and engage individuals in exploration of Jewish life." Public programs include films, speakers, seminars, concerts, and exhibits — at the institute's main campus at 610 S. Michigan Avenue, as well as in the Chicago suburbs and online.
Lev Grigorievich Toitman was a soldier in World War II. Toitman is known for the "foundation and revival of the local Jewish community" in Birobidzhan.
John T. Pawlikowski, O.S.M. is a Servite Friar priest, Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics, and Former Director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies Program, part of The Bernardin Center for Theology and Ministry, at Catholic Theological Union (CTU) in Chicago. He is currently in residence at Assumption Church in the River North section of Chicago.
Asher Lopatin is the Executive Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council/AJC, A Partnership for Community Relations and Jewish Advocacy. He is an American Modern Orthodox Rabbi and the rabbi of Kehillat Etz Chayim, a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Oak Park and Huntington Woods, MI. He is also the founder of the Detroit National Center for Civil Discourse which runs a Fellowship in Civil Discourse at Wayne State University, which began in September 2019. Previously, he was the President of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (2013-2018) and, before that, for 18 years, the spiritual leader of Anshe Sholom B'nai Israel Congregation in Chicago. He is a Rhodes Scholar and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Alan P. Solow, founder of Grover Strategies LLC, is a public affairs consultant, political advisor, not-for-profit activist and former lawyer. He is a former Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and was a national co-chair of the successful 2012 Obama-Biden re-election campaign.
Arnold Aronson was a founder of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and served as its executive secretary from 1950 to 1980. In 1941 he worked with A. Philip Randolph to pressure President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802, opening jobs in the federal bureaucracy and in the defense industries to minorities. A close associate of Randolph and Roy Wilkins, Aronson played an important role planning the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Justice. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998.
Sol Goldstein was a leader in the Chicago Jewish community, a Zionist activist and a philanthropist. He survived imprisonment by Nazi Germany in World War II, and later moved to the US.
Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus is an American rabbi. She is a founder and former president of the Women's Rabbinic Network, which was founded in 1976 by fifteen female rabbinical students.
J. B. S. Hardman, born Jacob Benjamin Salutsky, (1882-1968) was a Russian-born American political activist, radical journalist, and trade union functionary. Salutsky-Hardman was a proponent of radicalism as a Marxist thinker and a leader of the Jewish Socialist Federation of the Socialist Party of America (SPA). A brief stint in the American Communist movement ended in his expulsion in 1923.
At the end of the 20th century there were a total of 270,000 Jews in the Chicago area, with 30% in the city limits. In 1995 there were 154,000 Jews in the suburbs of Chicago. Of them, over 80% of the Jews in the suburbs of Chicago live in the northern and northwestern suburbs. In 1995, the largest Jewish community in the City of Chicago was in West Rogers Park. By 1995 the Jewish population within the City of Chicago had been declining, and it tended to be older and more well educated than the Chicago average. Jews in Chicago came from many national origins including those in Europe and Middle East, with Eastern Europe and Germany being the most common.
Nadine Epstein an American journalist and author.
The history of the Jews in Atlanta began in the early years of the city's settlement, and the Jewish community continues to grow today. In its early decades, the Jewish community was largely made up of German Jewish immigrants who quickly assimilated and were active in broader Atlanta society. As with the rest of Atlanta, the Jewish community was affected greatly by the American Civil War. In the late 19th century, a wave of Jewish migration from Eastern Europe brought less wealthy, Yiddish speaking Jews to the area, in stark contrast to the established Jewish community. The community was deeply impacted by the Leo Frank case in 1913–1915, which caused many to re-evaluate what it meant to be Jewish in Atlanta and the South, and largely scarred the generation of Jews in the city who lived through it. In 1958, one of the centers of Jewish life in the city, the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation, known as "The Temple" was bombed over its rabbi's support for the Civil Rights Movement. Unlike decades prior when Leo Frank was lynched, the bombing spurred an outpouring of support from the broader Atlanta community. In the last few decades, the community has steadily become one of the ten largest in the United States. As its population has risen, it has also become the Southern location of many national Jewish organizations, and today there are a multitude of Jewish institutions. The greater Atlanta area is considered to be home to the country's ninth largest Jewish population.
