The Algemeiner unveiled its 10^th annual “J100” list of the top 100 people “positively influencing Jewish life” on Wednesday night at a gala in New York City.

The event took on special significance this year, coming nearly three weeks after Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel on Oct. 7 and massacred 1,400 people, mostly civilians — the deadliest single-day assault on Jews since the Holocaust. The resultant war between Israel and Hamas, the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group in control of Gaza, featured prominently in speeches throughout the gala.

“The Jewish state is at war. The Jewish people are at war,” said Gala Chair Dovid Efune. “It isn’t a war that we asked for. It was thrust upon us in the most brutal and heinous fashion.”

Beyond those murdered in Israel, Hamas injured thousands more and kidnapped over 200 hostages, taking them back to Gaza. The brutality of Hamas’ violence has shocked the world as new details have emerged of rape, torture, beheading, and the mutilation of bodies.

The gala featured testimony from survivors of the Oct. 7 pogrom who witnessed the atrocities up close.

“I somehow survived, but sadly so many others did not. As a survivor, I saw evil with my own eyes — pure antisemitism unleashed in the cruelest was possible,” said Natalie Sanandaji, who attended the music festival in Israel where Hamas killed over 260 people.

Moshe Lavi also spoke, describing the horrors of having his brother-in-law kidnapped by Hamas and taken to Gaza as a hostage.

“I’m their voice, but also the voice of thousands of Israelis who are currently missing their loved ones who are held hostage in the Gaza Strip by Hamas and their accomplices, who are waiting for them to come home,” he said, adding that he hoped not just the Jewish community but also the “entire peace-loving, life-affirming world will stand with us in our darkest hour.”

Honorees taking part in the event included actor Dean Cain, writer and pro-Israel activist Irit Tratt, and Natan Sharansky, the famed refusenik and international campaigner against antisemitism.

“We have no choice. We have to fight,” said Sharansky. “Israel changed in one day from the most polarized society to the most united society. For the first time that I have been in Israel, there is no left and right. There is no hatred towards the ultra-Orthodox and no hatred towards the anti-religious. Everybody feels we are one family. In two days, it was the quickest mobilization in the history of Israel.”

Among other speakers at the event was Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan, who said that international media bias against Israel could have a real-world impact on the Jewish state’s ability to combat Hamas. He also argued that every supporter of Israel had a role to play in this campaign.

“Israel needs you on the political frontline and the cyber frontline,” said Erdan. “We need you to work tirelessly so that the truth is seen and heard.”

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.