Who knew the biracial, Jewish, Canadian rapper Drake is more influential than U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor? Drake beats Cantor on the Jerusalem Post’s new list of the world’s 50 most influential Jews.
Lists like these (Forward 50, JTA’s weekly Friday Five, Newsweek’s top 50 rabbis, our recent top 12 Jewish mothers list) inevitably raise hackles, but this one — provided without explanation — is particularly perplexing.
Ruth Messinger, the president of the American Jewish World Service, is ranked at No. 6, ahead of Cantor, "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart, Israeli President Shimon Peres and Sheldon Adelson, the casino mogul whose money fueled Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign and who bankrolls one of Israel’s largest dailies, Yisrael Hayom.
Here are another few head-scratchers: Comedian and satirist Sacha Baron Cohen beats the commander of Israel’s Air Force, Amir Eshel (I guess the pen really is mightier than the sword). Mayim Bialik (No. 30) beats George Soros (No. 38). Two of the top five on the list are from Facebook, but Sergey Brin of Google doesn’t appear on the list at all. J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami gets No. 15, but AIPAC’s leader doesn’t make the top 50.
I could go on, but I’ve got a shopping list to do (No. 1: milk).
Here’s the Jerusalem Post’s Top 10:
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. Peter Beinart
No word on the criteria for the list, except that it was compiled by a four-person committee who reluctantly named Bibi No. 1.
Full list here.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
