Director Steven Spielberg, singer/actress/director Barbara Streisand and composers Irving Berlin and Leonard Bernstein are among the 18 initial inductees of the Nation Museum of American Jewish History’s Hall of Fame, which opens in Philadelphia in November, 2010.
The other honorees from the arts are author Isaac Bashevis Singer and poet Emma Lazarus.
The group also includes Albert Einstein, Golda Meir, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, Mordecai Kaplan, Sandy Koufax, Estee Lauder, Isaac Leeser, Jonas Salk, Rose Schneiderman, Menachem Menel Schneerson, Henrietta Szold and Isaac Mayer Wise.
“The 18 finalists represent a consensus between the public vote and the Museum’s historians and curatorial staff. We wanted the public’s input on who should be recognized for their accomplishments in a major museum exhibition, and they made excellent choices,” the museum’s president and CEO Michael Rosenzweig said.
The international public voting was conducted during a one month period this summer during which more than 209,000 voters from 56 countries selected the 18 first honorees from a list of 218 possible candidates.
