Lucy Aharish . (photo credit: screenshot)
“I am so pleased and proud of the contributions that will be made to organizations that are… bringing together different communities – Arab Israelis, Jews, Bedouins – all Israeli women,” said Genesis Lifetime Achievement Award Honoree and US Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg via video at Tuesday’s event. “I think women can contribute a great deal to achieving, some day, a lasting peace.”
Ginsburg sat on the committee that reviewed the more than 220 applications received from NGOs for the Genesis Prize grants, which are funded by the $1 million annual Genesis Prize award, doubled to $2 million in 2018 by Israeli philanthropist Morris Kahn.
“You have been my inspiration,” said Stan Polovets, co-founder and CEO of the Genesis Prize, who explained that the Kahn Foundation’s investment in the Genesis Prize is only one of the foundation’s dozens of philanthropic investments, which include support of space tech nonprofit SpaceIL, horseback riding therapy for children with disabilities, cardiac surgery for poor Ethiopians, and partnering with Genesis to help bring Syrian children from conflict areas to Israel for treatment at the Ziv Medical Center in Safed.
Kahn told attendees that he is “really encouraged” by the organizations which applied for the prize.
“Nothing can stand in your way,” Kahn told the group of women leaders. “It is only a question of time.”
Applications for Genesis Prize Foundation grants were accepted in the areas of socioeconomic participation and opportunity for women; gender equality, particularly in the areas of marriage and divorce; the rights and status of women from minority groups; and women’s empowerment, specifically to resist violence. Of the grants, some 30% will serve Jewish women, 30% Arab, Bedouin and Druze women, and another 10% are specific to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.