The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism (SICSA) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has announced that the Center’s director, Professor Robert S. Wistrich, has been awarded the Haiti Jewish Refugee Legacy Project's ‘Tikkun Olam Award’.
The award is being given to Prof. Wistrich in recognition of his unyielding commitment to the study and exposure of global anti-Semitic events and trends.
“Prof. Wistrich’s extraordinary work is a beacon of hope to all who feel the increasing threat of strikingly troubling anti-Semitic discrimination and persecution,” the organization’s founders, Harriet and Bill Mohr, said in a statement.
They added, “His tireless efforts to discover, reveal and transform this alarming landscape are ‘Tikkun Olam’ – world reparation – at its very best.”
The Haiti Jewish Refugee Legacy Project was founded in January 2010 to document and commemorate Haiti’s role in providing refuge to hundreds of Jews who fled the Nazi persecution during World War II. The project’s central database collects and memorializes personal reflections and artifacts of Holocaust survivors who sought refuge in Haiti.
Wistrich, one of the world's leading experts on anti-Semitism and a regular contributor to Arutz Sheva's Op Ed section, was named earlier this year “the leading scholar in the field of anti-Semitism study” by the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism (JSA) and was awarded their ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ in recognition of his lifelong scholarly contributions to the study of anti-Semitism.
The JSA also recognized Wistrich’s book, “A Lethal Obsession: Antisemitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad”, the Best Book of 2010 on the topic of anti-Semitism.
Previous recipients of the Haiti Jewish Refugee Legacy Project's ‘Tikkun Olam Award’ include the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Hannah Rosenthal (U.S. State Department), Professor Dina Porat (Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry), and Yad Vashem – the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority.