LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Mark Zuckerberg and Benjamin Netanyahu head The Jerusalem Post’s second annual list of the world’s 50 Top Jews.
Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, adds his No. 1 finish in the Post survey to his Person of the Year award from Time magazine. He is followed by Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister.
American names include U.S. Reps. Eric Cantor (No. 13), Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (14) and Gabrielle Giffords (26), who was seriously injured in a shooting in January. One slot behind Giffords is Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show." Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman (24), writers Nora Ephron (33) and Jeffrey Goldberg (35), and actresses Natalie Portman (38) and Sarah Silverman (49) also appear.
Five rabbis were relegated to the lower part of the list — 39 to 43 — with Rabbi Richard Jacobs, president-elect of the Union for Reform Judaism, as the only non-Israeli.
The list leans heavily toward Israeli personalities, with some of the other choices widely unknown even among avid students of Jewish macherdom.
Few “Jeopardy!” contestants may be able to identify Orna Barbivai (44), the first female general in the Israeli army; Job Cohen, head of the Dutch Labor Party (46); or Ivan Glasenberg (47) and Bertie Lubner (48), two wealthy South African businessmen.
Completing the list: Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli in 50th, though readers of the Sports Illustrated swimming suit issue, whose cover she graced in 2009, were said to have lobbied for a higher ranking.
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