Second Annual New Israel Fund Atlanta Tzedek Award

Please join NIF and prominent Atlanta leaders and activists as we honor Richard and Phyllis for their lifetimes of dedication to the Atlanta Jewish community and for their leadership in advocating for civil liberties and equality. The evening will feature remarks by Dr. Franco as well as a conversation between Shira Ben-Sasson Furstenberg, Associate Director of the New Israel Fund in Israel, and Dr. Paul Wolpe. Shira will share insights from NIF’s work to help Israel fulfill its founders’ promise to “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.”

Shira Ben-Sasson Furstenberg is the Associate Director of NIF in Israel. She previously served as Chief of Staff and spent ten years working as a grants and program officer at NIF and Shatil, focusing on the issues of Jewish pluralism and religious freedom. Shira was the director of the Jewish Pluralism Watch and the Masorti (Conservative) Movement’s Knesset watch. She also served as the director of iRep- Israel Religious Expression Platform at the Jewish Federations of North America, and worked at the Knesset research and information center. Shira holds BA and MA degrees in Sociology and Anthropology from the Hebrew University, and lives in Jerusalem.

Dr. Paul Wolpe is the Raymond F. Schinazi Distinguished Research Chair in Jewish Bioethics, a professor in the departments of Medicine, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, and Sociology, and the Director of the Center for Ethics at Emory University. Dr. Wolpe moved to Emory University in the summer of 2008 from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was on the faculty for over 20 years in the departments of Psychiatry, Sociology, and Medical Ethics, and faculty in its Center for Bioethics.

The New Israel Fund is the leading organization advancing and defending democracy in Israel. Widely credited with building Israeli progressive civil society, we have provided over $300 million to more than 900 organizations since our inception in 1979. Learn more about NIF on our website at www.nif.org.