The B’nai B’rith World Center-Jerusalem has announced the winners of its Award for Journalism Recognizing Excellence in Diaspora Reportage for 2023:

Award Winner: Itamar Eichner (The Diplomatic correspondent for Ynet and Yedioth Ahronoth)

Certificate of Merit: Josh Aronson (The Diaspora correspondent for Maariv), Judah Gross (Times of Israel)

Lifetime Achievement Award: Izhak Hildesheimer

Itamar Eichner will be recognized for extensive coverage during 2022 of Jewish communities in the United States, Russia, Spain, Poland and particularly in war-torn Ukraine. He also published a survey of levels of anti-Semitism in different European countries.

Josh Aronson and Judah Gross will receive Certificates of Merit for articles spanning Jewish communities in Kyrgyzstan, the U.S., Great Britain, Poland and Ukraine. Gross is currently the news editor at ejewishphilanthropy.com. He received this award for his articles featured in the Times of Israel.

Izhak Hildesheimer (87) will be recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award for decades of devotion to reporting on various aspects of Jewish life around the world in a career spanning some 70 years, including stints as an emissary to Jewish communities in Great Britain and Russia.

Since its establishment in 1992, the B’nai B’rith World Center Award for Journalism has recognized excellence in reporting on contemporary Diaspora Jewish communities and on the state of Israel-Diaspora relations in Israeli print, broadcast and online media. The award is widely recognized as the most prestigious prize in the Israeli media industry for Diaspora reportage and was established to help strengthen the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora. The award highlights the important contributions the media can make toward strengthening the relationship between Israel and world Jewry by encouraging quality reporting on Diaspora communities and Israel-Diaspora relations.

The distinguished members of the award jury are: Ya’akov Ahimeir, former editor and anchor, Israel Public Broadcasting Corporation and Lifetime Achievement Award winner for 2016; Yehudith Auerbach, former head of the Department of Journalism and Communication Studies, Bar-Ilan University; Professor Emeritus Sergio DellaPergola, The Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University; Professor Gabriela Shalev, former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations; journalist Yair Sheleg; Asher Weill, publisher and editor of “Ariel,” The Israel Review of Arts and Letters (1981-2003).

The award is presented in memory of the late Wolf Matsdorf, editor of the World Center’s journal “Leadership Briefing” and a journalist in Israel and Australia, and his wife Hilda, a pioneer in social work in both countries. The Lifetime Achievement Award is presented in memory of Luis and Trudi Schydlowsky.

For further information, please contact Alan Schneider, Director, B’nai B’rith World Center-Jerusalem: 02-6251743; 052-5536441.