Jewcy Radicals Wiki

You've seen our list of twelve Jewcy radicals. Now we want to know who you think should have made the list. Add your favorite radical(s) to the list below, and tell us what's so radical about them. (To learn how to edit this page, read our Welcome to the Jewcy Wikis.)

1) Leyla Zana: Brilliant Kurdish leader and parliamentarian in Turkey, arrested for bogus charges of being affiliated with the PKK. The EU made her release a requirement for considering Turkey's application for inclusion in the supranational body. She was also the first politician to defiantly speak Kurdish in parliamentary session in Ankara: "I shall struggle so that the Kurdish and Turkish peoples may live together in a democratic framework." For this she was denounced as a "separatist" and "terrorist." In 1995 she won the Sakharov Prize for her human rights work.

2) Bei Dao: exiled Chinese poet who was an inspiration to Tiananmen Square protestors and other Chinese freethinkers. Dao returned to China this year, but can't find info on how it's going for him. Dao got cut from the Jewcy radicals list. For shame!

3) Irshad Manji: another wildly brave Muslim feminist. We could probably have a list of just Muslim feminist radicals.

4) Israel Shahak: Unfortunately he died in 2001 at age 62, but this Hebrew University professor of chemistry was one of Judaism's most ruthless iconoclasts. No one has taken a more brutally frank look at some of the insane superstitions and disgraceful bigotries in the Jewish tradition. Just as Muslim self-critics are beloved by Islamophobes, Israel Shahak is beloved by Jew-haters. Someone needs to expand this entry, anyone. Christopher Hitchens, where are you??!!

5) Yitzhak Rabin: Paid the highest price as cost of forcing a paradigm shift in Israel's handling of its existential political dilemma: how to relate to the Palestinians. Nominated by Hillel. Check out the Rabin-prompted discussion over at the "Who are the Radicals of the Jewish World" forum post.

6) Rosalind Franklin: should have shared the 1962 Nobel Prize with Watson, Crick and Wilkins for the elucidation of the structure of DNA.