The First Israeli Award Ceremony
More than sixty prize winners, representatives of the Ministry of Education, scientists and guest were present at the first award ceremony of the Israeli History Competition at the Zalman Shazar Centre for Jewish History in Jerusalem on 26 June 2014.
The topic of the first history competition was "Attitudes toward the Other as Reflected in History." More than forty contributions were entered by Israeli students aged 13-18. Thematically, the contributions ranged from Jewish-Christian relations in the Middle Ages, to the historical demography of Tel Aviv during the First World War and a study of the biographies of the children of the Theresienstadt Ghetto.
Eli Lederhendler, chairperson of the jury and Professor of American Jewish History and Institutions at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was impressed by the quality of the essays. In his opening speech at the award ceremony he said that some of them were comparable to research papers of students of history.
Dorin Rottenshtreich-Robin from Tel Aviv won the first prize in the age group of 16-18 year olds. She wrote about immigration and integration of refugees from Muslim countries in the Middle East and survivors of the Holocaust in Israel between 1948 and 1951. In talks with her grandfather and from researching newspaper articles of the time she gained insight into the living conditions of the people in Israel in the early 1950s and the country's austerity measures. The country's population had doubled within just three years because of a mass immigration of survivors from Europe, and the administration had to take severe rationing measures to ensure the provision of the population. Dorin briefly presented her findings during the award ceremony.
The Israeli history competition is initiated and organised by The Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History in Jerusalem. The center was established in 1973 by the Historical Society of Israel and devotes itself to the transfer knowledge of historical topics from the scientific world to the general public.
During the award ceremony, Zvi Yekutiel, executive director of the Zalman Shazar Center, pointed out the significance of the Israeli history competition for the new way history is conveyed to the young generation. In addition, he emphasised the importance of the integration of the competition into the European EUSTORY network in terms of an open dialogue about the meaning of the past for the current European-Israeli relations.