Algemeiner Unveils 9th Annual ‘J100’ List at Gala Featuring Enes Kanter Freedom, Sebastian Kurz and Pat Boone
The Algemeiner 2022 Gala
The Algemeiner unveiled its 9th annual “J100” list of the top 100 people “positively influencing Jewish life” on Tuesday night, at a lavish gala in midtown Manhattan.
The event took place 75 years after the United Nations’ General Assembly passed resolution 181, recommending the partition of Mandatory Palestine and the formation of the State of Israel — a milestone noted by Event Chair Dovid Efune.
“The Algemeiner is our answer to Kanye and Khamenei to Fuentes and Farrakhan,” Efune said. “Our pens are mightier than their swords.”
Honorees taking part in the event included Sebastian Kurz, former Austrian Chancellor, legendary singer Pat Boone, along with athlete and activist Enes Kanter Freedom
Kanter Freedom, a Turkish former NBA player and human rights activist, spoke of his memories of a child seeing those around him stomping and burning American and Israeli flags. Kanter said he refused to fall into easy stereotypes and, as he became older, came to see the depth and beauty of the Jewish faith.
His journey ultimately took him to Israel, where he lead basketball camps for Muslim, Jewish, Christian and Druze girls and boys.
“We always need fearless media outlets, fearless journalists who are going to go out and speak the truth,” Kanter Freedom said at the event. “Unfortunately, in my home country that’s what I’m facing right now. There’s no freedom of speech, no freedom of media. That’s why when I heard about The Algemeiner I realized: lets do it.”
Sebastian Kurz, also honored, recounted meeting with a Holocaust survivor as a young boy which instilled in him a sense of historical responsibility to the Jewish people and the state of Israel.
“I realized that my generation is probably one of the last generations that has the opportunity to meet directly with Holocaust survivors,” Kurz said. “Because of this, I decided we should have not only the responsibility to listen to Holocaust survivors but take these lessons to our hearts. I saw it as my duty that we as Austrians have a historic responsibility, and I tried to be as supportive as possible to the state of Israel and fight all forms of antisemitism in Austria. Not only the long-existing ones, but the newly important ones.”
Past Algemeiner gala honorees and participants have included the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, actors Sharon Stone, Sir Ben Kingsley and Jesse Eisenberg, human rights activist Garry Kasparov, the late entertainer Joan Rivers, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Czech President Miloš Zeman, the late TV host Larry King, and Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad.
Founded in 1972 as a Yiddish broadsheet by the late veteran journalist Gershon Jacobson, The Algemeiner today runs this website.