The New Israel Fund Human Rights Awards Dinner

On Monday 9th July 2007, the New Israel Fund will hold an Awards Dinner to recognise the outstanding achievements of individual Israeli citizens in the field of human and civil rights in Israel.

We are delighted that Professor Yuli Tamir, MK Minister of Education of the State of Israel will be our Keynote Speaker and that The Rt. Hon. the Lord Woolf will chair this prestigious event. 

Minister Yuli Tamir was first elected to the Knesset in 1999 and was one of two female Ministers in Ehud Barak’s government.  Elected again to the Knesset in 2003, she served as a Member of the Knesset Finance, Constitution, Law and Justice, and Education, Culture and Sports Committees, as well as on the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee for Uncovering Corruption in the Government System of Israel. Yuli Tamir has been Minister of Education since May 2006 and also served as Acting Minister of Science, Culture and Sports between November 2006 and March 2007.  She is a Professor of Political Philosophy at Tel-Aviv University and served as a Research Fellow at Princeton and Harvard universities as well as the Hartman Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem.  Prof. Tamir served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Jerusalem Foundation and the Israel Institute of Democracy, and as Chairwoman of the Association of Civil Rights in Israel.

Lord Woolf was Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales between 2000 and 2005.  Prior to this, he was appointed as a High Court Judge in the Queen’s Bench Division before promotion to Lord Justice of Appeal and then became a Law Lord.  Lord Woolf has also served as Master of the Rolls. Following his retirement, he joined Blackstone Chambers as a mediator and arbitrator. He is currently Chairman of the Bank of England Financial Markets Law Committee, Chairman of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, and became Chairman of the Council of UCL in 2005.  Lord Woolf is also a visiting Professor of Law at University College London.

Human Rights Award Recipients

These exceptional awardees were selected from a wide range of nominees in the field of human and civil rights in Israel by a panel of UK and Israeli experts.

Dan Yakir. Dan has made an unparalleled contribution to human rights in Israel. His expertise and experience have earned him the status of ‘high priest’ of legal knowledge through his work as legal advisor to The Association of Civil Rights in Israel. Over the last fifteen years, he has been a key player in the formulation of Israel’s human rights laws, specialising in freedom of speech, Palestinian rights related to the Israeli authorities, and gay and lesbian rights. He has won many precedent-setting judgments at the Supreme Court and lower courts, and helped people from every sector of Israeli society to realise their rights as equals before the law.

Hanna Zohar. Hanna turned her personal passion into her profession when she founded Kav LaOved (Workers’ Hotline), which has become the leading civil society organisation promoting the rights of disadvantaged workers in Israel. She was the first in Israel to raise the issue of foreign workers’ rights onto the Israeli agenda, and has helped other organisations grow and specialise in this field as she expanded the scope of Workers’ Hotline to include workers from every sector of Israeli society and many sectors of the workforce. Hanna has played a major part in helping thousands of workers reclaim millions of shekels of pay unfairly withheld from them, and she has also worked hard to improve legislation protecting workers’ rights in Israel.

Uri Ben Yaakov Pinkerfeld. Uri is a shining example of an individual moved to act according to his conscience to help others whose rights are being violated.  Guided by Jewish values and respect for human rights, he works with Palestinian farmers, and has led a grassroots movement of individuals and organisations in Israel, including the Israel Religious Action Centre, BINA: Centre for Jewish Identity and Hebrew Culture, Rabbis for Human Rights, the Kibbutz Movement and the New Israel Fund, to replant olive groves uprooted or burned by Israeli settlers. He believes that the Palestinians’ decision to join him by rehabilitating their land rather than demonstrating or retaliating is evidence of a sincere desire for peaceful relations.

All donations raised from this event will go to support the human and civil rights work of the New Israel Fund which, for more than 25 years, has been a leader in strengthening Israel’s democracy and promoting freedom, justice and equality for all Israel’s citizens.

More information please call Talia Winokur at the New Israel Fund on 0207 724 2266 or email talia@uknif.org