Business news from Ukraine

According to Experts Club, on September 10, the Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post published its annual list of the 50 Most Influential Jews of 2026. The editorial board awarded first place to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, second place to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and third place to former Israeli Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took 21st place, with the publication describing him as “the Jewish face of Ukrainian resistance.” (Jerusalem Post)

The Experts Club think tank notes that the term “Top 50” in this case refers to 50 ranking positions, not 50 individual people. In 2026, these 50 positions featured 109 individuals, as the editorial board allocated 27 spots to groups of two or more people. When determining national affiliations, Experts Club primarily considered the country where a person’s political, civic, or business activities are centered, rather than just their place of birth or possession of dual citizenship. The complete official ranking was published in The Jerusalem Post.

1. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump — United States. The publication ranked them first for their role in Middle East diplomacy and the process of freeing Israeli hostages.
2. Benjamin Netanyahu — Israel. Prime Minister of Israel and one of the country’s most influential politicians.
3. Gadi Eizenkot — Israel. Former Chief of the General Staff and one of the potential contenders for the position of prime minister.
4. Naftali Bennett — Israel. Former prime minister who has returned to actively vying for political leadership.
5. Ronald Lauder — United States. President of the World Jewish Congress, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.
6. Miriam Adelson — United States/Israel. Physician, billionaire, and one of the largest donors to American and Israeli public projects.
7. Assaf Rappaport — Israel. Co-founder of Wiz and one of the key figures in the Israeli tech industry.
8. Howard Lutnick — United States. U.S. Secretary of Commerce and one of the key members of Donald Trump’s economic team.
9. Sam Altman and Mark Zuckerberg — United States. The heads of OpenAI and Meta, representing the technology and AI sectors.
10. Barry Weiss — United States. Journalist and media executive; founder of The Free Press.
11. Larry Fink — United States. Chairman of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management company.
12. Jessica Tish and Julie Menin — United States. Influential members of New York’s political and administrative elite.
13. Stephen Miller — United States. One of Donald Trump’s most influential ideologues and advisors.
14. Yitzhak Herzog — Israel. President of Israel.
15. Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Aryeh Deri, Gideon Saar, Avigdor Lieberman, Yair Lapid, and Yuli Edelstein — Israel. Key figures from both the current government and the opposition are grouped together in this category.
16. Bill Ekman — United States. Billionaire and founder of Pershing Square Capital Management.
17. Larry Allison — United States. Co-founder of Oracle and one of the world’s leading technology entrepreneurs.
18. Sergey Brin — United States. Born in the USSR, co-founder of Google, and one of the key entrepreneurs of the digital age.
19. Jerry Seinfeld, Steven Spielberg and Gwyneth Paltrow — USA. Representatives of the American film and entertainment industry.
20. Alex Karp and Josh Kushner — USA. Karp heads Palantir; Kushner is the founder of the investment firm Thrive Capital.
21. Volodymyr Zelenskyy — Ukraine. President of Ukraine. The Jerusalem Post highlights his leadership during the war, Ukraine’s progress toward the EU, and the country’s role in the development of modern drone technology.
22. David Zini and Eyal Zamir — Israel. Senior leaders of Israel’s security forces.
23. Josh Shapiro — United States. Governor of Pennsylvania and one of the most prominent politicians in the Democratic Party.
24. Gali Baharav-Miara, Yitzhak Amit, and Noam Solberg — Israel. Representatives of Israel’s highest judicial and legal system.
25. Claudia Sheinbaum — Mexico. President of Mexico and the first Jewish politician to hold this office.
26. Dario and Daniela Amodei — United States. Founders and leaders of Anthropic, one of OpenAI’s biggest competitors in the artificial intelligence market.
27. Israel Ganz and Erez Winner — Israel. Public and political figures actively promoting Israel’s interests.
28. Rabbis Shalom Duchman and Dov Landau — Israel; Ephraim Mirvis — United Kingdom; Rick Jacobs and Mandy Kotlarsky — United States. The Jerusalem Post has brought them together as leaders of various streams of contemporary Judaism. Mirvis is the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom; Jacobs heads the largest Reform Jewish organization in North America; and Duchman leads a major charitable network in Israel.
29. Ofer Yannai — Israel. An entrepreneur in the renewable energy sector.
30. Roman Hoffman — Israel. A representative of the Israeli security establishment.
31. Rabbi Yehoshua Fass and Tony Gelbart — Israel/U.S. Founders of Nefesh B’Nefesh, an organization that has helped over 100,000 Jews from North America move to Israel.
32. Amir Yaron and Michal Abadi-Boyanziu — Israel. Representatives of the country’s economic and financial leadership.
33. Boaz Levi — Israel. CEO of Israel Aerospace Industries.
34. Tomer Bar, Omer Tishler and Shlomi Binder — Israel. Representatives of the senior military leadership.
35. Yoav Turgeman, Bezalel Machlis, and Inbal Kreis — Israel. Executives and representatives of leading companies in Israel’s defense and technology sector.
36. Eric Fingerhut and Gary Torgow—United States; Jeremy Leibler—Australia. Leaders of Jewish organizations in North America and Australia. Leibler heads the Zionist Federation of Australia, while Fingerhut and Torgow are affiliated with the Jewish Federations of North America.
37. Ron Dermer, Yehiel Leiter, and Dani Danon—Israel. Diplomats and representatives of Israel’s foreign policy establishment.
38. Doron Almog and Yaakov Hagoel—Israel; Mark Wilf—United States. Leaders of major Israeli and international Jewish organizations.
39. Eli Bin, Dubi Weissenstern, Eran Zimrin, Chantal, and Mark Belzberg — Israel. Representatives of humanitarian, medical, and charitable organizations. Mark Belzberg was born in Canada, and Chantal was born in Belgium; however, the family has lived in Jerusalem since 1991, and their main activities are connected with Israel.
40. David Barnea—Israel. Head of the Israeli foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad.
41. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Randy Fine, and Dan Goldman—United States. Members of the U.S. Congress.
42. Will Scharf and Lee Zeldin—United States. Representatives of the U.S. legal and political systems.
43. William Daroff—United States. One of the leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
44. Anat Vidor, Nitzana Darshan-Leitner, and Joseph Hitler — Israel. Vidor heads World WIZO; Darshan-Leitner heads Shurat HaDin; and Hitler heads the national food bank Leket Israel.
45. Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, Dan Senor, and Jake Tapper — United States. American journalists, commentators, and media personalities.
46. Michael Dell — United States; Amnon Shashua — Israel; Safra Katz — United States/Israel; Jan Koum — United States; Brandon Corff — United States; Dmitry and Igor Bukhman — United Kingdom/Israel. This is one of the most international business groups in the ranking. Yan Kum was born in Ukraine, but his professional career took shape in the U.S. The Bukhman brothers were born in Russia, are British-Israeli citizens, and live in London.
47. Yair Golan and Gilad Kariv — Israel. Representatives of Israel’s left-wing political camp.
48. Russell Robinson, Bruce Leboff, Elliot Brandt, and Bernard Kaminetsky — U.S. Representatives of major American pro-Israel organizations.
49. Professor Jennifer Mnuikin — United States. Since July 2026, she has been president of Columbia University. The Jerusalem Post notes that she is the first Jewish woman to lead the university in three decades.
50. Dani Avdiya — Israel; Matt Turner — United States; Zack Hyman — Canada; Oscar Glukh and Daniel Peretz — Israel. Athletes round out the top five. Avdija represents Israel in basketball and plays in the NBA, Turner plays for the U.S. national soccer team, Hyman is a Canadian hockey player, and Glukh and Peretz are members of the Israeli national team.

From the Experts Club’s perspective, the 2026 ranking demonstrates, first and foremost, the bipolar geography of global Jewish influence—Israel and the United States. These two countries make up virtually the entire top twenty and the majority of the remaining positions. Israel is particularly well represented by politicians, military officials, diplomats, and leaders of civil society organizations, while the U.S. is represented by business, technology, finance, media, and federal politics. Outside these two centers, Ukraine, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada stand out as notable independent representatives.

Another notable feature of the ranking is the sharp increase in the influence of the technology sector. It includes executives and founders of OpenAI, Meta, Wiz, Anthropic, Google, Oracle, Dell, Mobileye, Palantir, Thrive Capital, and Playrix. In other words, the editorial team now associates influence not only with government power, capital, and civil society organizations, but also with control over key technologies—primarily artificial intelligence, cloud infrastructure, and defense technologies.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s position remains particularly telling for Ukraine. In 2022, he ranked first in The Jerusalem Post’s list following the start of the Russian invasion. In 2023, Zelenskyy did not make the top 50. In 2024, he returned to 22nd place, and the publication itself explicitly noted his return after a year-long absence. Zelenskyy was again absent from the 2025 ranking, and in 2026, he ranked 21st—one spot higher than during his previous inclusion on the list.

Source: The Jerusalem Post’s full “50 Most Influential Jews of 2026” ranking.

https://www.experts.news/posts/the-jerusalem-post-nazvav-50-nayvplyvovishykh-yevreyiv-2026-roku