stiftung deutsch-israelisches zukunftsforum

@ DIZF / Tal Alon

Jury

Shimon-Peres-Prize: Jury 2023-2026

Daniel Donskoy

Daniel Donskoy is an actor and musician. Born in Moscow in 1990 and raised in Berlin and Tel Aviv, Donskoy's political eye sharpened early on integration and anti-Semitism. His late-night show Freitagnacht Jews (WDR) was awarded with the German Television Prize in 2021 and the Grimme Prize in 2022.

Donskoy's most recent projects include the series Schlafschafe (ZDFneo), Barbaren (Netflix) and A Small Light (Disney+). He is known from roles in Dror Zahavi's feature film Crescendo, the U.S. series Strike Back, the Netflix hit The Crown, the RTL series Sankt Maik and the British series Detectorists and Victoria, among others. Donskoy lives in Berlin and London.

Photo © Oliver Look

Kerstin Griese

Kerstin Griese is a SPD (Social Democratic Party) social politician and member of the German parliament. Since 2018, she is Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Labor and Social Affairs.

Since 2003, she is a member of the Synod and since 2015 of the Council of the Protestant Church in Germany. From 2009 to 2010, she was a full-time federal board member at the Dia-konisches Werk of the Protestant Church in Germany, responsible for social policy. Griese is a co-founder of the Willy Brandt Center Jerusalem, a member of the board of the association Gegen Vergessen - Für Demokratie (Against Forgetting - For Democracy) and a member of the board of trustees of the Kindernothilfe. From 1987 to 2000, she worked at the Memorial to the Victims of National Socialism in Düsseldorf. She studied Modern History, Eastern European Histo-ry and Political Science at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf. Kerstin Griese was born in Münster in 1966.

Photo © Inga Haar

Tamar Hay-Sagiv

Tamar Hay-Sagiv is the deputy director general for education at the Peres Center for Peace & Innovation where she manages the organization’s education programs and initiatives.

As part of her ongoing work at the Peres Center, she brings her knowledge, methodologies, and best practices to the table for the benefit of other organizations and serves as an external consultant for NGO’s, educational frameworks, and municipalities. In her day-to-day, Hay-Sagiv works closely with the director general of the Peres Center, providing support and leadership to the wider Peres Center team. She joined the center in April 2007 as a project manager, focusing on peace education through sports and development programs. She studied political science and public policy at the Tel Aviv University. Tamar Hay-Sagiv was born 1980 in Tel Aviv.

Photo © Peres Center for Peace & Innovation

Andrea Kiewel

Andrea Kiewel is a German TV presenter, columnist, and author. Since the early 2000s, she hosts the Fernsehgarten show on ZDF. For her work, she was twice awarded with the German media prize Goldene Henne and in 2021 with the German Television Award.

Furthermore, she hosted many television shows, including Das ist mein Israel (2016), the ZDF New Year shows Willkommen (2015-2022) and served as a guest judge on Das Supertalent (2021). Her books Mama, Du bist nicht der Bestimmer (2006) and Meist sonnig - Eine Liebeserklä-rung an das Leben (2021) were on the Spiegel bestseller list for several weeks. As editor-in-chief, she was responsible for the special issue Women of the Jüdische Allgemeine. In her child-hood she was a competitive swimmer, and she is actively involved with WIZO and Aleh Negev. Andrea Kiewel was born in Berlin in 1965, she currently lives in Israel.

Photo © Markus Höhn

Igor Levit

Igor Levit is a multi-award-winning pianist (Gilmore Artist Award, Opus Classic Prize, International Beethoven Prize) and activist against anti-Semitism. Since 2019, he is professor of piano at his alma mater, the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. Levit is co-artistic director of the Heidelberger Frühling music festival and curator of the Lucerne Piano Festival.

He performs regularly in the world's most prestigious concert halls, at festivals and appears as guest with leading orchestras. The documentary Igor Levit - No Fear premiered in 2022. In spring 2021, Levit published his first book Hauskonzert. In collaboration with the Bayerischer Rundfunk, his podcasts 32x Beethoven as well as Variationen – Alles wird anders were created. His 53 house concerts, which he streamed on Twitter during the lockdown in spring 2020, re-ceived international acclaim. For these, as well as for his commitment against anti-Semitism and right-wing extremism, Igor Levit was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in 2020. He was born in 1987 in Nizhni Novgorod and came to Germany with his family as a child.

Photo © Felix Broede, Sony Classical

Pola Sarah Nathusius

Pola Sarah Nathusius is a distribution strategist at the ARD Coordination Documentation and Teamlead Conversion at the Distribution Management of the Bayerischer Rundfunk.

During and after her studies of political science and American studies in Frankfurt, she worked for many years as an editor, author and moderator for the national German TV stations ARD and ZDF. For the Federal Agency for Civic Education (BpB), she hosted the podcast Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland (Jewish Life in Germany). Pola Sarah Nathusius got to know Israel during several stays, among others at a journalist trip of the BpB. The Ernst Cramer & Teddy Kollek Fellowship (2016) also took her to Israel. In the course of the fellowship, she also worked for the international TV station i24News in Jaffa. After a traineeship at the Hessischer Rundfunk, she lived in Tel Aviv from 2019 to 2020. Pola Sarah Nathusius was born in Wiesbaden in 1989 and currently lives in Frankfurt.

Photo © Privat

Brigitte Zypries

Brigitte Zypries was Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy and Federal Minister of Justice. As Parliamentary State Secretary, she was charged with Germany’s aviation and space policies, from 2013 to 2017. From 2005 to 2017, she represented the Darmstadt constituency for the SPD in the German Bundestag as a directly elected member of parliament.

Brigitte Zypries studied law at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen and graduated with the second state law examination. She is Chairwoman of the Advisory Board of the European Leadership Network Deutschland e. V. (ELNET) and Ombudswoman of the Federal Association of German Debt Collection Companies (BDIU). She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the German National Foundation and Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of the German-Israeli Future Forum Foundation.

Photo © Susie Knoll

Former Jury Members

Christian Berkel

After growing up in Paris, Christian Berkel, who was born in Berlin, took his first acting lessons in France before completing his training at the German Film and Television Academy. With his unique acting style and characterful appearance, the award-winning actor immediately makes an indelible impression on audiences.

He has appeared in numerous feature films, such as the psychothriller Das Experiment. He is best known to international audiences in his roles in the Oscar-nominated historical drama Downfall and Inglorious Basterds, where he acted alongside Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz, among others. He also appeared alongside Isabelle Huppert in Elle, the French film nominated for an Oscar. After his authorial debut Der Apfelbaum (The Apple Tree) in 2018, his second novel Ada was published in 2020. Christian Berkel lives with his family in Berlin.

photo: © Stefan Klüter

Dr. Alice Brauner

Dr. Alice Brauner was born in Berlin. She studied modern history, political studies and Romance studies at the Freie Universität Berlin and gained her doctorate at the Center for Research on anti-Semitism at the Technical University Berlin.

After spending time as an editor for print media, she worked as an interviewer and consultant at the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. Dr. Alice Brauner is on the executive board of CCC Filmkunst GmbH, CCC Cinema and Television GmbH and CCC Filmstudios as a film, television and web producer. She collaborated with her father to create her first award-winning full-length feature film, Der letzte Zug (The Last Train). This was followed by TV films and outstanding feature films such as Wunderkinder and Crescendo. As well as receiving numerous awards for her films, she also won a “Romy” award in 2012 as the best producer of a German feature film.

photo: © CCC Filmkunst Daniela Incoronato

Mohammad Darawshe

Mohammad Darawshe is the Director of the Center for Equality and Shared Society at Givat Haviva Institute in Israel. He is also a Research Fellow at the Hartman Institute and serves as an expert on national minorities at the European Council in Strasbourg.

Previously, he served as Co-Director of The Abraham Fund Initiatives and as Elections Campaign Manager for the Democratic Arab Party and later The United Arab List.
He holds a B.A from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and an M.A. in Peace and Conflict Studies from Haifa University.

Kai Diekmann

Kai Diekmann (1964) was publishing director of the BILD daily newspaper until January 2017. For 15 years prior to this, he was editor-in-chief of the newspaper, which is one of Europe’s biggest news brands, reaching 39 million readers and users each month.

Previously, he served as editor-in-chief of WELT am SONNTAG.
Since 2004, he has been an independent member of the board of directors of the Turkish daily Hürriyet; since 2011 he has served as non-executive director of the London Times; since 2017 as member of the Public Policy Advisory Board, UBER, San Francisco.
In addition, Diekmann has written and edited several books.

Prof. Dr. Anat Feinberg

Prof. Dr. Anat Feinberg, born in Tel Aviv, studied English Literature and Philosophy at Tel Aviv University (BA and MA). She completed her Ph.D. thesis on Jacobean and Caroline Drama at the University of London in 1979.

She taught at the English Department at Ben Gurion University and at Tel Aviv University. Since 1990, she has been living in Germany, teaching as honorary professor of Hebrew and Jewish Literature at the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien in Heidelberg. In 2012, she was honoured with the Order of Merit by the Federal Republic of Germany.

Derviş Hızarcı

Derviş Hızarcı is chairman of the board of the Kreuzberger Initiative against Antisemitism. Previously, he served as program director of the Alfred Landecker Foundation and anti-discrimination officer at the Berlin Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family.

Hızarcı has been campaigning against various forms of discrimination, against racism, and antisemitism for many years. This includes his time as chairman of the board of the Turkish Community of Berlin, as employee of the education department at the Jewish Museum Berlin, and as a teacher at a Berlin school. In his free time, he spends a lot of time with his two children and is an active member of the traditional Jewish sports club TuS Makkabi.

photo: © Daniel Eliasson

Ahmad Mansour

Ahmad Mansour holds a master’s degree in psychology and works as a writer in Berlin. He was born in Kfar Saba and has Israeli and German citizenship. In 2018, he founded the Mansour-Initiative für Demokratieförderung und Extremismusprävention (the Mansour initiative for the promotion of democracy and the prevention of extremism, or MIND prevention), which conducts workshops on the prevention of extremism.

This involves working with prisoners in youth detention centers and with refugees. Mansour also works tirelessly to combat antisemitism. In 2015, his book, Generation Allah. Warum wir im Kampf gegen religiösen Extremismus umdenken müssen, (Generation Allah, Why we Need to Rethink the Fight against Religious Extremism) was published, followed in August 2018 by Klartext zur Integration – Gegen falsche Toleranz und Panikmache (Plain Speaking on Integration – Against False Tolerance and Scaremongering). He has received numerous awards for his work.

photo: © Heike Steinweg

Sara von Schwarze

Sara von Schwarze was born in Germany in 1968. Her parents converted to Judaism and moved with their family to Israel. Sara is an actress, playwright and director.

She studied acting at the Beit Zvi School of Drama in Ramat Gan and has starred in numerous plays, TV shows and movies since 1992. She has appeared in Israel’s leading theatres, including the Habima, the Cameri and many others, as well as in theatres in Germany. She has been part of the Cameri theatre ensemble for the last 20 years. In addition, she has been active as an acting teacher and lecturer.

Sara von Schwarze has won many awards for her acting, among them the Tel Aiviv-Yaffo Municipality Award in the name of Abraham Ben Yossef, which she received five times.

Dr. Hermann Simon

Hermann Simon was born in Berlin in 1949. Having completed secondary school he studied History and Oriental Studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin, followed by post-graduate studies in Prague, specialising in Oriental Numismatics, which were the topic of his doctorate.

From 1975 to 1988, he worked at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. From 1988-2015, he served as the Director of the Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin – Centrum Judaicum.
He has written numerous publications on numismatics and the history of Jews in Germany.

© Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin – Centrum Judaicum. Photo: Anna Fischer

Nadav Tamir

Nadav Tamir currently serves as the Executive Director of J Street Israel. He is also Senior Advisor for International Affairs at the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation and Director of International Policy and Government Relations at Peres & Associates Global Advisory Ltd.

During the last three years of the presidency of Shimon Peres he served as his Senior Policy Advisor.
Previously, he served as the Israeli Consul General to New England at the Boston Consulate and held positions at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. He also served as Policy Assistant to three different Foreign Ministers – Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, and David Levy.
Tamir holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science and an M.A. in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is a board member of Mitvim – The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies and on the steering committee of the Geneva Initiative.

Jutta Weduwen

Jutta Weduwen (1964) is the CEO of Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (ASF). She studied Sociology in Hamburg, Jerusalem and Berlin.

After working for four years in the Middle East Department of the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation, she joined ASF in 2001. Initially serving as Israel coordinator, she later led the Project Area Interculturality and became CEO in 2012. She is a member of the spokespeople’s council of the Federal Association Church and Right Wing Extremism and in the Ecumenical Planning Committee for the Intercultural Week. Her areas of expertise: History(ies) in immigration society, Israel, antisemitism and racism, international volunteer services.

Antonia Yamin

Antonia Yamin is chief reporter for the news program of BILD Live at BILD TV. Previously, she was the chief correspondent for Europe at the Israeli broadcaster KAN News. Before that, she worked for Channel 10 News Israel and for the German public broadcasting channel ZDF in Tel Aviv. In 2019, Yamin won the B'nai B'rith World Center Journalism Award for her diaspora reportage. She studied communication and political science at Tel Aviv University and journalism at the Koteret School of Journalism.

Antonia Yamin was born in Germany to a German mother and an Israeli father. She speaks fluent German, English and Hebrew and lives in Berlin.

photo: © Boaz Arad