Jeffrey Goldberg

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The Philo-Semite Twenty-Five

19 Dec 2008 04:20 pm

I know, I promised fifty, but this is hard. The list might very well grow to fifty -- keep your suggestions coming -- but for now, here are twenty-five top philo-Semites. A couple of notes: I did not include Kabbalah goofballs such as Madonna, despite demands from numerous readers. More seriously, I did not include Righteous Gentiles, non-Jews who saved Jews during the Shoah. That is a special category that represents something much greater than simple affinity for,  and support of, Jews. Some of you might question the presence of Malcolm Gladwell on the list; he is there because he is the greatest philo-Semite I know personally; because he introduced me to my wife, with whom I have had numerous baby Jews; and because he inspired this list. There are numerous others whose inclusion will provoke criticism, I'm sure. Criticize away!

Here is the preliminary list, presented in no special order.

1) Winston Churchill
2) W.H. Auden
3) Orde Wingate
4) Harry Truman
5) Maurice Blanchot
6) Cyrus the Great
7) Johannes Brahms
8 James Carroll
9) Henry "Scoop" Jackson
10) Dennis Leary
11) Rembrandt van Rijn
12) Paul Johnson
13) Daniel Patrick Moynihan
14) Denis MacShane
15) Vladimir Nabokov
16) George Eliot
17) George Orwell
18) Emile Zola
19) George Washington
20) Sir Walter Scott
21) Thomas Cahill
22) Pete Townshend
23) Mark Twain
24) William Butler Yeats
25) Malcolm Gladwell


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