Jewish success is rooted in God and community leadership. B'nai B'rith adds a third element: the world's largest family.

The state of Israel is a technological and military powerhouse today. The Jewish diaspora maintains communities worldwide, some of them very strong. Chabad Lubavitch is growing on every continent.

Israel's security presence is felt throughout the world, as over the past two thousand years, religious authorities, political figures, and community heads of the Jewish community were frequently targeted during periods of state-sanctioned persecution or communal violence.

The group of "Ten Rabbis", including Akiva and Haninah ben Teradyon, were executed by the Roman Empire. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel I was beheaded by the Romans during the destruction of the Second Temple. Rabbi Haninah ben Teradion: Burned alive wrapped in a Torah scroll. Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha, the Kohen Gadol was flayed alive, as well as Rabbi Judah ben Baba. Also Simon bar Kokhba, the leader of the Bar Kokhba revolt, was killed during the final siege of Betar. Eleazar ben Simon and other Zealot leaders perished during the First Jewish-Roman War and the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem.

As the Roman Empire became Christian (Byzantine), legal and physical persecutions of Jewish leadership intensified. Mar Zutra II, the Jewish Exilarch in Sassanid Babylonia who led a revolt against Persian persecution was captured and executed (crucified). Byzantine Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos issued decrees for forced conversion, leading to the death of numerous Jewish communal and rabbinical leaders across the empire. Philo of Alexandria, the prominent philosopher and community leader was insulted by Emperor Caligula to plead for the protection of Alexandrian Jews following a violent pogrom. Titus Flavius Clemens was executed for "drifting into Jewish customs".

During the First Crusade, the Jewish communities of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz were destroyed, and community leaders/rabbis who guided their people were murdered. In addition, the "Jewish Plato", Shlomo ibn Gabirol experienced significant persecution and hardship during his life. Maimonides was forced to flee Spain and later Morocco due to persecution by the Almohad Caliphate, which demanded conversion to Islam. Nahmanides was forced into a public dispute in Barcelona. Despite winning the debate, he was forced into exile by the king of Aragon under pressure from the Church.

Naphthalene Busnach, the leader of the Jewish community in Algiers, was murdered during a period of riots and anti-Jewish violence, and Rabbi Isaac Aboulker - the Chief Rabbi of Algiers - was beheaded. Menahem Beilis was the subject of a notorious blood libel trial in Kiev, which was orchestrated by the Tsarist government to incite anti-Jewish sentiment. Licoricia of Winchester, one of the most prominent female Jewish financiers in medieval England, was imprisoned by King Henry III to extort funds before being murdered.

Following the Alhambra Decree, many leaders were forced to convert. Spain and Portugal targeted Jewish leaders, with figures like Rabbi Isaac Aboab forced to flee Spain for Portugal, and Isaac Abravanel forced to flee from Portugal to Spain. Shabbetai Tzvi, a Sephardic rabbi and kabbalist who claimed to be the Messiah, was imprisoned by the Ottoman authorities and forced to convert to Islam to avoid execution.

Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jewish army captain was falsely accused of treason and saw its life destroyed. The Portuguese Dreyfus Captain Basto and its community were destroyed by the Portuguese political, media, and judicial system.

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch's followers were systematically targeted during the Holocaust. Nearly all European rabbis and Jewish leaders, including Itzhak Katzenelson and René Blum, were murdered in Nazi concentration camps. Jewish Leaders forced to serve on the Judenrat in Nazi-occupied ghettos (such as Adam Czerniaków in Warsaw) were persecuted, coerced, and often killed by the Nazis.

In the Soviet Union, Rabbis and Zionist leaders such as Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn of Lubavitch were persecuted, imprisoned, and exiled by the Soviet government for running illegal religious schools and preserving Jewish culture.

Even in Georgia, US, Leo Frank was lynched after being falsely convicted of murder amid a wave of local antisemitism.

And yet, the Jewish people live. Jewish success keeps being rooted in God, community leadership, the world's largest family, and now the state of Israel.