Two Jews Make the Top 20 of Forbes' Annual 'Most Powerful People' List

Bernanke and Brin Nab 7th and 17th Spots

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Top Jews: Ben Bernanke, Sergey Brin trail behind Vladimir Putin in the Top 20 of Forbes’ ‘Most Powerful People” list.

By JTA

Published October 31, 2013.\

Ben Bernanke, the outgoing Federal Reserve chairman, was No. 7 on the Forbes annual World’s Most Powerful People list topped by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The only other Jewish person to make the Top 20 on the list released Wednesday was Google co-founder Sergey Brin at No. 17.

Putin displaced President Obama at No. 1; the U.S. leader dropped to second among the 72 people named. Rounding out the top 5 were Xi Jinping, general secretary of China’s Communist Party, Pope Francis and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Other Jews on the list included Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg at 24; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at 26; Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, at 27; and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg at 29.

Also, Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Space Exploration Technologies, at 47; Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, at 58; Jill Abramson, executive editor of The New York Times, at 68; and Janet Yellen, the incoming head of the Federal Reserve, identified on the list as the central bank’s vice chairman, at 72.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Hoseini-Khamenei was ranked No. 23.

13 Israelis Make Forbes Billionaires List

By Haaretz

Published March 08, 2012.

This year there are 13 Israelis on Forbes business magazine’s annual list of the world’s billionaires, which was released yesterday. Last year there were 16.

Top ranking among Israel’s billionaires went to Idan Ofer, the son of Sami Ofer of the Ofer Brothers group of companies. The elder Ofer, who died last June, took the top spot in last year’s Forbes list among Israel’s wealthiest. Idan Ofer ranked 161 on this year’s list, with a fortune reportedly estimated at $6.2 billion.

Beny Steinmetz, who currently lives in Switzerland and whose holdings include diamond interests, is ranked 169th worldwide with an estimated worth of $5.9 billion. The third wealthiest Israeli on the list is Idan Ofer’s brother, Eyal, at the 173th spot with $5.8 billion.

Other Israelis to make the Forbes list in descending order include Stef Wertheimer, whose Iscar firm sold a substantial interest in the company to American billionaire Warren Buffett; Shari Arison, of the Arison Group, whose interests include Bank Hapoalim; Hollywood film producer Arnon Milchan; Alexander Mashkevitch, who holds Israeli citizenship but lives in Kazakhstan; Gil Shwed of Check Point Software Technologies; Yitzhak Tshuva of the Delek Group; and Lev Leviev, whose interests include diamond industry holdings.

26% of Americans Think Jews Killed Jesus, Poll Says

Many Say Jews Control Media, Talk About Holocaust

By JTA

Published October 31, 2013.

Twelve percent of Americans harbor deeply anti-Semitic attitudes, according to a new poll conducted by the Anti-Defamation League.

The figure marks a decline of 3 percentage points from the last time the ADL took such a poll, in 2011, but approximately the same number as in an ADL poll in 2009. The latest ADL national telephone survey, of 1,200 adults, was conducted this month and has a margin of error of about 3 percent. The results were released Thursday.

“It is heartening that attitudes toward Jews have improved over the last few years and, historically, have declined significantly in America,” said Abraham Foxman, the ADL’s national director.

A 1964 ADL survey on the topic found 29 percent of American held anti-Semitic views.

In the latest survey, 14 percent of respondents agreed that Jews have too much power in the United States; 30 percent said American Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the United States; and 19 percent said Jews have too much power in the business world – all figures virtually unchanged from the 2011 survey.

The percentage of respondents who believe that Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus was 26 percent, down from 31 percent in 2011. Eighteen percent said Jews have too much influence over the news media and about one-quarter agreed that Jews talk too much about the Holocaust.

The survey was released on the first day of the ADL’s two-day centennial conference being held in New York.

Khan Yazdani Library

Thursday 31 October 2013