Neumann Named No. 6 of Top 50 Jewish Leaders

The November 13, 1998 issue of The Forward listed the “Top Fifty Jewish Leaders to Watch” for 1998. Tom Neumann, JINSA’s Executive Director, was number six on the list. The national Jewish paper, noted that when Tom Neumann “took a delegation of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs to Turkey in 1993, he was almost alone in the Jewish world in seeing the significance of the Anatolian nation. This month, Mr. Neumann ventured all the way to Africa’s horn on a new strategic mission – forging ties connecting Israel, America, and Ethiopia.

The November 13, 1998 issue of The Forward listed the “Top Fifty Jewish Leaders to Watch” for 1998. Tom Neumann, JINSA’s Executive Director, was number six on the list. The national Jewish paper, noted that when Tom Neumann “took a delegation of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs to Turkey in 1993, he was almost alone in the Jewish world in seeing the significance of the Anatolian nation. This month, Mr. Neumann ventured all the way to Africa’s horn on a new strategic mission – forging ties connecting Israel, America, and Ethiopia. ‘If you think Africa is important, then you have to understand that Ethiopia is important. It’s certainly got more commonality to Israel and the U.S. than most African countries,’ Mr. Neumann said, adding that he likes to think more broadly about the borders of the Middle East. Central to Mr. Neumann’s thinking is drawing together those countries that border the Islamic world and oppose extremism: Turkey, India, Ethiopia. This strategy has led Mr. Neumann to be one of the few advocates in the organized Jewish world for the effort to replace Saddam Hussein with the free, democratic opposition movement, the Iraqi National Congress.