Temple Emanu-El will host the 2016 Cohon Memorial Foundation Awards at Shabbat evening services on Friday, Jan. 13, at 7:30 p.m. Rabbi Baruch J. Cohon and Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon will present the awards to this year’s winners, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder and president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, and Professor Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, co-founder and director of the Amcha Initiative.
Eckstein founded the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews in 1983, devoting his life to building bridges of understanding between Christians and Jews and broad support for the state of Israel. He’s recognized as the world’s leading Jewish authority on evangelical Christians. The Fellowship raises more than $140 million annually, making it the largest Christian-supported nonprofit working in Israel today.
Rossman-Benjamin is a University of California faculty member and the co-founder and director of Amcha Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to investigating, documenting and combating anti-Semitism at higher education institutions in America. She has written articles about academic anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism and lectured widely on the growing threat to the safety of Jewish students on college campuses. Most recently, she led a coalition of almost 50 Jewish and education advocacy groups that successfully lobbied UC to condemn “anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism.”
The Rabbi Samuel S. and A. Irma Cohon Foundation, established by their children and grandchildren, honors individuals who benefit Klal Yisroel, the entire Jewish people. The annual award recognizes those who excel in one of four areas: unity, education and information, rescue or the creative arts.
For more information, call 327-4501.
