Named, so they are not forgotten.

Shem

שֵׁם

After the Flood

The name from which Semite comes. Father of five houses.

Elam

עֵילָם

Table of Nations

Ancestor of the Elamites of the Iranian plateau.

Asshur

אַשּׁוּר

Table of Nations

Namesake of Assyria and of a people still living.

Arphaxad

אַרְפַּכְשַׁד

Table of Nations

The line that leads to Eber, Abraham, Israel, and Ishmael.

Aram

אֲרָם

Table of Nations

Father of the Arameans, whose tongue became the lingua franca of empires.

Eber

עֵבֶר

Table of Nations

The name behind Hebrew — Ivri, one who crossed over.

Abraham

אַבְרָהָם

c. 2nd millennium BCE

Father of many nations — honored in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Sarah

שָׂרָה

c. 2nd millennium BCE

Princess of the covenant; mother of Isaac.

Ishmael

יִשְׁמָעֵאל / إسماعيل

c. 2nd millennium BCE

Abraham’s firstborn; father of twelve princes, honored in Arab memory.

Isaac

יִצְחָק

c. 2nd millennium BCE

The child of the promise; father of Jacob and Esau.

Rebekah

רִבְקָה

c. 2nd millennium BCE

The Aramean matriarch who carried the line forward.

Jacob

יַעֲקֹב / יִשְׂרָאֵל

c. 2nd millennium BCE

Israel — the one who wrestled, and the name of a people.

Rachel

רָחֵל

c. 2nd millennium BCE

Mother of Joseph and Benjamin; the beloved of Israel.

Leah

לֵאָה

c. 2nd millennium BCE

Mother of six tribes, including Judah and Levi.

Joseph

יוֹסֵף

c. 2nd millennium BCE

The dreamer who fed nations and reconciled a family.

Moses

מֹשֶׁה / موسى

c. 13th century BCE

Prophet and lawgiver, honored across Shem’s house.

Miriam

מִרְיָם

c. 13th century BCE

The prophet who watched the river and led the song.

Deborah

דְּבוֹרָה

c. 12th century BCE

The woman who judged Israel under a palm.

Huldah

חֻלְדָּה

c. 7th century BCE

The prophet Josiah trusted to read the found book.

David

דָּוִד

c. 10th century BCE

Shepherd-king whose songs still open Jewish and Christian prayer.

Solomon

שְׁלֹמֹה

c. 10th century BCE

Builder of the Temple; name that became a byword for wisdom.

Esther

אֶסְתֵּר / הֲדַסָּה

c. 5th–4th century BCE

The queen who risked a throne to save her people.

Isaiah

יְשַׁעְיָהוּ

c. 8th century BCE

The poet of justice, comfort, and a peace among nations.

Job

אִיּוֹב

Wisdom tradition

The righteous sufferer whose questions were not a sin.

Ashurbanipal

Aššur-bāni-apli

r. 669–631 BCE

The king who gathered the library of Nineveh.

Hillel the Elder

הִלֵּל

c. 110 BCE – 10 CE

The teacher who said the law is love of neighbor — the rest is commentary.

Rabbi Akiva

עֲקִיבָא

c. 50–135 CE

The shepherd who became a pillar of the Oral Law.

Ephrem the Syrian

ܡܪܝ ܐܦܪܝܡ

c. 306–373

The harp of the Spirit — Syriac Christianity’s greatest poet.

Al-Khansa

الخنساء

c. 575–646

The greatest elegist of the Arabic tongue.

Saadia Gaon

סעדיה גאון

882–942

The mind that translated Torah into Arabic and defended reason.

Al-Kindi

الكندي

c. 801–873

The philosopher of the Arabs — a bridge of Greek thought into Arabic.

Al-Mutanabbi

المتنبي

915–965

The poet whose lines Arabs still quote as if they were proverbs.

Ibn al-Haytham

ابن الهيثم

c. 965–1040

The father of optics; a pioneer of the experimental method.

Rashi

רש״י

1040–1105

The teacher at the elbow of every student of Torah and Talmud.

Judah Halevi

יְהוּדָה הַלֵּוִי

c. 1075–1141

The heart of Hebrew poetry in Spain, and a philosopher of belonging.

Maimonides

רמב״ם / موسى بن ميمون

1138–1204

From Moses to Moses, none arose like Moses.

Ibn Rushd

ابن رشد

1126–1198

Averroes — the commentator who kept Aristotle talking to Europe.

Ibn Khaldun

ابن خلدون

1332–1406

The founder of a science of society, centuries early.

Doña Gracia Nasi

חנה נשיא

1510–1569

The woman who bought lives out of the Inquisition.

Glückel of Hameln

גליקל בת ר' יהודה לייב

1646–1724

The voice that made a Jewish woman’s inner life a public document.

Baruch Spinoza

ברוך שפינוזה

1632–1677

The lens-grinder who thought God and nature in one breath.

Moses Mendelssohn

משה מנדלסון

1729–1786

The Socrates of Berlin; a father of the Jewish Enlightenment.

Emma Lazarus

1849–1887

The voice on the Statue of Liberty — a Jewish welcome to the stranger.

Theodor Herzl

בִּנְיָמִין זְאֵב הֵרְצְל

1860–1904

The journalist who made a Jewish home a political fact in waiting.

Henrietta Szold

1860–1945

Founder of Hadassah; mother of Youth Aliyah.

Hayim Nahman Bialik

חַיִּים נַחְמָן בְּיַאלִיק

1873–1934

The national poet of a language brought back to the street.

Kahlil Gibran

جبران خليل جبران

1883–1931

The Lebanese voice that taught a century to speak of the soul in public.

Marc Chagall

מארק שאגאל

1887–1985

The painter who put the shtetl into the sky and left it there.

S. Y. Agnon

ש״י עגנון

1888–1970

Hebrew’s Nobel laureate of the lost town and the stubborn city.

Taha Hussein

طه حسين

1889–1973

The dean of Arabic letters; a blind scholar who demanded light.

Albert Einstein

אלברט איינשטיין

1879–1955

The mind that remade space and time, and then pleaded for peace.

Golda Meir

גּוֹלְדָּה מֵאִיר

1898–1978

The Milwaukee schoolteacher who became Israel’s prime minister.

Umm Kulthum

أم كلثوم

c. 1898–1975

The voice of the Arab world — Thursday nights that stopped a region.

Hannah Arendt

חנה ארנדט

1906–1975

The thinker who named the banality of evil and the need to begin.

Naguib Mahfouz

نجيب محفوظ

1911–2006

Arabic fiction’s Nobel voice; the chronicler of Cairo’s soul.

Jonas Salk

1914–1995

The man who would not patent a vaccine that ended a terror.

Leonard Bernstein

1918–1990

The conductor who made the concert hall a civic room.

Gertrude Elion

1918–1999

Nobel chemist who designed medicines by reason, not by accident.

Primo Levi

1919–1987

The witness who made memory exact, and therefore merciful.

Rosalind Franklin

1920–1958

The X-ray vision that made the double helix visible.

Elie Wiesel

אֱלִי וִיזֶל

1928–2016

The voice that taught a century that silence helps the tormentor.

Edward Said

إدوارد سعيد

1935–2003

The Palestinian who taught the West to watch its own gaze.

Mahmoud Darwish

محمود درويش

1941–2008

The poet of a homeland carried in the mouth.