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(JTA) — A prize established to honor a single inspiring Jew with a lifetime of achievements has been awarded this yr to a anonymous group whose work is ongoing: Jewish activists in war-ravaged Ukraine.
The Genesis Prize Basis mentioned the conflict in Ukraine required a change within the strategy it has taken since creating the prize, recognized by some because the “Jewish Nobel,” a decade in the past.
“Recognizing the extraordinary nature of occasions dominating the previous 11 months, The Genesis Prize Choice Committee has determined to depart from the same old customized of awarding the prize to a single Jewish particular person,” the group mentioned in an announcement.
It added, “As a substitute, the Committee has elected to announce a collective award to Jewish activists and NGOs who had been impressed by the courageous residents of Ukraine and their brave president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and selected to behave on their Jewish values by standing up for freedom, human dignity, and justice.”
The group can also be not awarding the normal $1 million prize that recipients have donated to charity; as a substitute, it says it plans to “proceed to make grants to NGOs to alleviate the struggling in Ukraine, as we have now finished for the reason that starting of the conflict.” These teams have included the JDC, which has distributed emergency help throughout the nation; United Hatazalah of Israel, which skilled Ukrainians in emergency first help; and Natal, an Israeli trauma response group, in accordance with its Fb web page.
The objective of the prize, its co-founder and board chair Stan Polovets advised the Jewish Telegraphic Company, stays to stimulate Jewish giving by elevating consciousness of specific wants.
“Freedom is among the most necessary values of the Jewish folks. And this can be a nation that’s preventing for its freedom. It has a president who has shocked everybody by his resilience and braveness,” he mentioned about Ukraine. “We predict that the Jewish neighborhood worldwide must be supportive to the extent it will possibly.”
In going with the group prize, Genesis circumvented the potential pitfalls of honoring Zelensky himself. The Genesis Prize Basis held Zelensky up as a Jewish hero final October, when its cofounder and board member Natan Sharansky, the previous Soviet dissident and 2020 honoree, visited him in Kyiv. Sharansky, who lives in Israel, has been a number one advocate for Israel to dedicate extra assets to Ukraine.
Natan Sharansky, the Genesis Prize cofounder and board member, visits with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelesnky in Kyiv in October 2022. (Courtesy Genesis Prize Basis)
However honoring Zelensky, Ukraine’s most outstanding Jew, might have made for an uncomfortable state of affairs on the Genesis Prize’s glitzy awards ceremony: In his efforts to safe extra assets for Ukraine’s armed forces, Zelensky has additionally overtly criticized Israel for not being as forthcoming as he would really like. (Israel’s specific geopolitical pursuits have confounded the nation’s response to the conflict since its begin Feb. 24, 2022.)
And whereas some have referred to as Zelensky a “fashionable Maccabee,” he has not all the time signaled pleasure about being Jewish, which prize recipients are anticipated to point out, saying in 2019, “The truth that I’m Jewish barely makes 20 in my lengthy listing of faults.”
Polovets declined to touch upon the choice course of. The Genesis Prize has by no means gone to a present political office-holder; politician and businessman Mike Bloomberg was honored after he left the New York Metropolis mayor’s workplace.
The momentary departure from the Genesis Prize Basis’s common strategy prolonged past who was chosen because the recipient. The group opened nominations publicly however then didn’t launch a shortlist for a public advisory vote because it has in recent times. It additionally determined to not maintain its conventional awards ceremony in Jerusalem that has prior to now been an uncommon convening of Diaspora Jewish leaders, Israeli authorities officers and celebrities. (Final yr, the Knesset dissolved itself the night time of the ceremony, when Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla was being honored; the politicians didn’t attend.)
Whereas the modifications made sense for the bizarre second, Polovets acknowledged potential downsides, together with confusion in regards to the Genesis Prize model and the dearth of a celeb spokesperson for the yr’s trigger. He additionally mentioned he anticipated that with out a single awardee to information the place donations go, his group might obtain an uncommon variety of unsolicited functions for help.
The group will start discussions about the place to direct its giving in a couple of month, in accordance with basis officers. That may also be the primary anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
The tweaks to the choice course of will not be the primary modifications at Genesis induced by the conflict: The three Russian billionaires who helped begin the prize stepped down from the board of the associated Genesis Philanthropy Group final March, after being focused by Western sanctions in response to the invasion.
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