Sixteen prizes for personal or organizational achievement were handed out at the Israel Prize awards ceremony on Tuesday, an Independence Day tradition.
The winners included Prof. Yehoshua Kolodny of the Hebrew University (earth sciences), Prof. Yair Aharoni, a founder of Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Management (administrative science), Prof. Avraham Nitzan of TAU (chemistry), 1998 Bialik Prize winner Aryeh Sivan, who wrote his first poem while stationed at a Palmah observation post near Beit She’an in 1947 and went on to pen 16 poetry books (poetry), Prof. Avishai Margalit of Princeton University, a professor emeritus at HU (philosophy), Prof. Moshe Addad of Bar-Ilan University (criminology), author and journalist Hanoch Bartov, whose work focuses largely on the “Sabra myth” (literature), Prof. Avraham Tal of TAU (Hebrew linguistics), Peter Mirom (photography) and Prof. Aryeh Levin of HU (general linguistics).
Cleveland, Ohio, native Prof. Jonathan Gressel of the Weizmann
Institute of Science took home the award in agriculture for his work in
biotechnology. Gressel immigrated to Israel with his family 60 years
ago at the age of 14.
The lifetime achievement awards were given
to Tel Aviv’s Susan Delal Center, for its contribution to dance arts;
Negev pioneer Aharon Yadin, education minister in Yitzhak Rabin’s first
government; ILAN - the Israel Foundation for Handicapped Children; and
Druse community leader Kamal Mansour.
The ceremony is held every
Independence Day in the capital, in the presence of the president,
prime minister, Knesset speaker and Supreme Court president, and is
traditionally the closing event of the holiday.