Soviet Jewish refusenik Ida Nudel, Israeli diplomat Shlomo Argov, Israeli scholar and writer Dr. Israel Eldad and the late American civil rights leader Bayard Rustin are the recipients of the 1987 Jabotinsky Award, it was announced here Tuesday.
The $100,000 award, also referred to as Defender of Jerusalem Award, will be conferred at a ceremony Oct. 28 at the Museum of Modern Art, Eryk Spektor, chairman of the Jabotinsky Foundation said in a press conference at the Sheraton Centre Hotel.
Spektor said the prize will be divided equally among the four winners. He said that the portion of the prize that was to be given to Rustin–$25,000 — who passed away last month at the age of 75, will be used for establishing a scholarship that will provide Black students in America with the opportunity to study in Israel.
“We hope this will continue Mr. Rustin’s work and dreams,” Spektor said, noting that the late Black leader “was a strong and consistent supporter of Israel and an advocate of greater Black-Jewish harmony.”
Nudel was selected for the prize for “her selfless and tireless work on behalf of the Jewish Prisoners of Conscience in the Soviet Spektor said, adding: “In selecting her for the award, we pay tribute to the faith, courage and spirit of this remarkable woman who is the standard bearer for all Jewish dissidents and a symbol of the plight of the Jews in the Soviet Union.”
Argov, Israel’s former Ambassador to Britain who was seriously wounded in London by Arab terrorists in 1982, received the award because, Spektor asserted, “he is a symbol of the danger and perils to which Israeli Foreign Service officers are exposed in a hostile world.”
The fourth recipient of the prize, Eldad, is regarded as “the foremost spiritual follower of Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky,” Spektor observed. He said that Eldad is “a leading advocate of national Zionism.”
The award, presented annually since 1983, honors men and women who “stand up in defense of the rights of the Jewish people.”
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