Eight Jewish educators from around the world received the inaugural Global Jewish Teacher Award at a ceremony in Jerusalem attended by Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli.
The awards were presented on Monday during the Global Jewish Educator Conference, organized by the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism through UnitEd.
The recipients were Rabbi Zvi Lew of the United States; Tal Kattan of South Africa; Meir Bunytow of Mexico; Anat Kampf of the United States; Raquel Hakim of Argentina; Dina Jacobson of Britain; Marina Grushevskaya of Russia; and Rahel Israeloevitch of France.
Selected from more than 200 nominees, each recipient received a $2,500 grant from the Mayberg Foundation. The educators were honored for their contributions to strengthening Jewish identity, deepening young people’s connection to Israel and helping shape the future of Jewish communities.
“Your role as educators is not only to see what is good and positive or beautiful. It is also to see the unique contours and needs of the present, and identify with clarity what needs attention,” Herzog told participants.
The president stressed the importance of ties between Israel and Jewish communities worldwide.
“Our continuity hinges on our ability to know one another and feel responsible for one another,” Herzog said. “Without an architecture of belonging, we are lost.”
Chikli told the educators that their work gives Jewish children around the world “the knowledge that they have a place in the story of the Jewish people.”
“We here in the State of Israel are committed to being partners in your mission,” he said.
The conference brought some 250 educators, principals and educational leaders from Jewish communities around the world to Israel, where they were joined by 100 Israeli educators in cooperation with the Ministry of Education.
Participants are attending professional sessions, panels and workshops and touring Jerusalem, the Negev and Gaza border communities. Organizers said the program is intended to expose Diaspora educators to Israeli educational models, Jewish history and heritage and communities recovering from the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.
“The future of the Jewish people is built every day in schools around the world,” said Avi Cohen Scali, director general of the Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Ministry. “Jewish educators are the ones who grant the younger generation a Jewish identity and a connection to Israel.”
UnitEd works with more than 850 Jewish schools in over 50 countries, according to the ministry.
The Global Jewish Teacher Award is a joint initiative of the ministry, UnitEd, The Jerusalem Post, the World Zionist Organization, Herzog College and the Mayberg Foundation.
