Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, director of Jerusalem's Temple Institute, has been named winner of the Yaakov Egerst Memorial Award for Jewish Culture by the Ministry of Education. Rabbi Ariel was a unanimous choice for his work and initiative in establishing and developing the institute.

In awarding the prize, the committee wrote, among other things, "The capital of the Jewish people has always been called Jerusalem, the city of the Temple. The Temple stands at the center of the Jewish experience in the Bible, in the [words of the] sages and in the counting of the commandments, and occupies a central path in Jewish history and the Israeli life cycle. Rabbi Yisrael Ariel took upon himself the illustration of this idea to the public at large. Toward this end, Rabbi Yisrael Ariel established the Institute for Research and Building the Temple, better known as the Temple Institute, about 20 years ago.

"In the course of the years, the institute has continued to develop, and today consists of many arms, including a research institute, an exhibition of Temple utensils, Temple literature, a college and more.... The activity of the institute expresses the initiative of an educational and cultural enterprise which has been translated into educational and organizational activity, as well as artistic [and] literary activity which has a practical value for the education and knowledge of adults and youth."

Among those recommending the awarding of the prize were the Center for B'nai Akiva yeshivas, the Center for Technological Education, Dr. Malkah Shenwald and Prof. Yehuda Eisenberg.

Rabbi Aaron Angstreich, coordinator of the prize for the Ministry of Education, has informed Rabbi Ariel of the award. The award will be presented on October 23rd at the Yad Sarah House in Jerusalem as part of the annual memorial observance for Egerst, an emissary of the Education Ministry who was killed in the Yom Kippur War near the Suez Canal.