The B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem announces the winners of the 2011 B’nai B’rith World Center Award for Journalism Recognizing Excellence in Diaspora Reportage in Memory of Wolf and Hilda Matsdorf. This year’s recipients are Bambi Sheleg, founder and editor-in-chief of the bimonthly magazine Eretz Acheret and director/photographer Meni Elias. Veteran Israeli journalist Noah Klieger will receive this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Since 1992, the B’nai B’rith World Center Award for Journalism has recognized excellence in reportage on contemporary Diaspora Jewish communities and on the state of Israel-Diaspora relations in the Israeli print and electronic media. The award is widely acknowledged in the media industry as the most prestigious prize in Israel recognizing excellence in Diaspora reporting.
Members of the distinguished award jury are: Dan Pattir, political analyst and media advisor to prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Menachem Begin (chairman); professor Yehudith Auerbach, head of the Communication and Journalism Studies Division, Bar-Ilan University; Sara Frenkel, Diaspora reporter, Broadcast Authority and Lifetime Achievement Award winner for 2002; Shlomo Nakdimon, journalist and columnist; and Asher Weill, publisher and editor of Ariel: The Israel Review of Arts and Letters (1981-2003).
“The award is geared to strengthening Israel-Diaspora relations by recognizing those who excelled over the past year in reporting on Jewish communities around the world and their relationship with the State of Israel. This is especially important in light of trends of disaffection and distancing that have been observed in some recent studies,” B’nai B’rith World Center ChairmanHaim V. Katz noted. “The award is one of the World Center’s major contributions to building this relationship and making it relevant and intimate for the broad Jewish public in Israel. By recognizing these journalists, we hope they will decide to continue to explore the vast array of Jewish Diaspora communities for their readers and viewers. This exposure will undoubtedly help build relationships between Israel and these communities.”
Bambi Sheleg won the award in the print media category for the November-December edition of Eretz Acheret— the thought-provoking magazine she founded in 2000. The edition was dedicated to the relationship between American and Israeli Jews under the title “Two States for Two Peoples: America Jewry and Us.” In addition to her position at Eretz Acheret, Sheleg has published a regular, highly-regarded column in Ma’ariv since 1996.
Meni Elias won the award in the broadcast media category for his moving documentary “When Israel Went Out.” The film, broadcast in October 2010 on Israel Television and produced by Micha Shagrir, follows three young Israeli Ethiopians on a re-enactment of their dangerous journey by foot from Ethiopia to Sudan on their way to Israel. Elias also lectures on photography at the Sapir College in Sderot and has directed, produced and filmed more than 20 documentaries over the past decade.
The jury also presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to Noah Klieger, member of the editorial board of Yediot Aharonot (Israel’s largest Hebrew daily), journalist, sportsman and author. Born in Strasbourg, France in 1926, Klieger survived the Auschwitz extermination camp and two death marches, and is today a recognized expert on the Shoah. He made aliyah in 1947 aboard the ship Exodus where he was one of the commanders of the battle against British commandos who stormed the ship. He joined Yediot Aharonot in 1957, serving as editor of the foreign news desk and correspondent. During his 54-year career at the newspaper, he published thousands of articles on Diaspora Jewish communities, the Holocaust, the Eichmann and Demjanjuk trials and Nazi war criminals. Klieger has also led many of missions of Israelis to the death camps in Europe.
The Award is made possible through donations from professor Daniel Schydlowsky, a member of the B’nai B’rith World Center International Board of Governors and the Matsdorf family.
Details about the award ceremony will be published in the coming weeks.
For further information please contact Alan Schneider, director, B’nai B’rith World Center, by phone: 02-6251743, fax: 02-6258097; 052-5536-441 or email: worldcenter@bnaibrith.org.