18 Jewish Americans Included in "Only In America" Hall of Fame

A while back, we blogged about the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia taking votes on the first 18 luminaries inducted into its Only in America Gallery. Recently, the results of this vote were revealed.

And they are...

Isaac Bashevis Singer
Barbra Streisand
Irving Berlin
Leonard Bernstein (pictured... can you tell he was one of my votes?)
Steven Spielberg
Estee Lauder
Sandy Koufax
Albert Einstein
Jonas Salk
Rose Schneiderman
Louis Brandeis
Mordecai Kaplan
Isaac Leeser
Menachem Mendel Schneerson
Isaac Mayer Wise
Emma Lazarus
Henrietta Szold
Golda Meir (She immigrated from Kiev to Milwaukee in 1906, and lived there for 15 years before leaving for Palestine)

As museum director and CEO Michael Rosenzweig points out, it is interesting to note that many of these people were born outside of the United States, emphasizing the importance of the immigrant narrative in American Jewry. The gallery will be part of the museum's core exhibition when it opens on Independence Mall in 2010. And don’t worry, if one of your favorites didn’t make the “Top 18”, the museum says it will choose a different group of 18 Jewish Americans to be featured in the exhibit in the future.