Famous Belarusians and their Wikipedia Links
*Everyone listed is Belarusian, and ALMOST everyone here is Jewish!
- Berl Katznelson
- regarded as one of the intellectual personalities behind the rise of modern Zionism...
- Chaim Weizmann
- was a chemist, Zionist leader, President of the World Zionist Organization and the first President of the State of Israel...
- David Sarnoff
- was a pioneer of American television and founder of the National Broadcasting Company...
- Eliezer Ben‑Yehuda
- was principally responsible for the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language...
- Irving Berlin
- Isaac Asimov
- author and professor of biochemistry, a highly successful and exceptionally prolific writer best...
- Kirk Douglas
- an American actor and film producer
known for his gravelly voice and his recurring roles as the kinds of
characters Douglas himself once described as "sons of bitches"...
- Lev Vygotsky
- was a Soviet developmental psychologist and the founder of the Cultural-historical psychology...
- Louis B. Mayer
- was an early film producer, most famous for his stewardship and co-founding of the Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer...
- Marc Chagall
- Among the celebrated Jewish painters of the 20th century, he is associated with the modern movements after impressionism...
- Maria Sharapova
- a professional tennis player and a former World No. 1. She is currently the second ranked player in the world. At the end of 2006, she was the world's highest-paid female athlete...
- Menachem Begin
- head of the Zionist underground group the Irgun, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the first Likud Prime Minister of Israel...
- Menachem Mendel Schneersohn
- also known as the Tzemach Tzedek was an Orthodox rabbi and the third Rebbe (spiritual leader) of the Chabad Lubavitch chasidic movement...
- Mendele Mocher Sforim
- "Mendele the book peddler," is the pseudonym of Sholem Yakov Abramovich, Jewish author and one of the founders of modern Yiddish and Hebrew literature...
- Shimon Peres
- is the 9th President of the State of Israel...
- Svetlana Boguinskaya
- called the "Belarusian Swan" and the "Goddess of Gymnastics" due to her height, balletic grace, and long lines...
- The Chofetz Chaim
- Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan is popularly known. Wrote about the mitzvot relating to correct speech and the prohibitions of slander...
- Wayne Gretzky
- professional ice hockey player who is currently part-owner and head coach of the Phoenix Coyotes...
- Yitzhak Shamir
- was Prime Minister of Israel from 1983 to 1984 and again from 1986 to 1992...
- Yulia Nestsiarenka
- Yuri Bandazhevsky
- former director of the Medical Institute in Gomel (Belarus), is a scientist working on sanitary consequences of the Chernobyl disaster.
He was the first to create an institute in Belarus, in 1989, specially
dedicated to scientific work on the 1986 Chernobyl disaster...