The Forward 50: 2008 Jews of the Year

By Jeremy Gillick The Forward has published its annual list of America’s 50 most important Jews: the Forward 50. Winners include Rahm Emanuel, Obama's newly appointed Chief of Staff, about whom you can read here. There's also Morris Allen, a Conservative Rabbi from Minnesota who helped re-invent kashrut as a moral rather than merely legal imperative, just as Agriprocessors, America's largest kosher meat producer, sunk deeper and deeper into sin, exploitation and eventually, bankruptcy. Jeremy Ben-Ami, founder of the new, liberal Jewish, Israel lobby group J-Street, is at the top of the list too. Although this choice is perhaps more a reflection of the Forward's editorial stance than of Ben-Ami's success, the creation of a viable alternative to AIPAC is, at the very least, a major symbolic accomplishment. And it could become much more than that. Here's what Moment...

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