Major Gifts & Legacy Society: GOOD MORNING JEWISH BROWARD
December 6, 2020 @ 10:15 am - 11:30 am
Registration for this event is closed. Please contact Pamela for more information.
AN EXCLUSIVE CELEBRATION FOR MAJOR DONORS & LEGACY SOCIETY MEMBERS WITH YOUR EVENT HOST, ANDY ROSEN
Join us for a live Zoom from Jerusalem for a conversation with Natan Sharansky moderated by Gil Troy
If you have not had the opportunity to make your 2020-2021 gift, we hope you will consider doing so before or during this event.
Event Organizer:
Pamela Gottlieb
786-457-3331 | pgottlieb@jewishbroward.org
Location:
Event Cost:
Complimentary
Donors eligible to attend: • Minimum household gift of $10,000 to the Jewish Federation of Broward County Annual Campaign • Legacy Society members who have Created a Jewish legacy of $100,000 or greater to the Jewish Community Foundation • Corporate Partners who commit to $10,000 a year for five years • Young Leadership Division Cabinet members.
Natan Sharansky was born in 1948 in Donetsk, Ukraine. He was a spokesman for the human rights movement, a prisoner of conscience and leader in the struggle for the right of Soviet Jews to immigrate to Israel. Mr. Sharansky was a founding member of the Helsinki Group, which monitored violations of international agreements of different religious and national groups in the Soviet Union. He worked closely with Andrei Sakharov, the renowned Soviet human rights activist, and kept close contact with foreign media beyond the iron curtain.
In 1977, a Soviet newspaper alleged that Mr. Sharansky was collaborating with the CIA. Despite denials from every level of the U.S. Government, Mr. Sharansky was found guilty and sentenced to thirteen years in prison, including solitary confinement and hard labor. In the courtroom prior to the announcement of his verdict, Mr. Sharansky in a public statement said: "To the court I have nothing to say – to my wife and the Jewish people I say "Next Year in Jerusalem". After nine years of imprisonment, due to an intense international campaign led by his wife Avital, Mr. Sharansky was released on February 11, 1986, emigrated to Israel, and arrived in Jerusalem on that very day.
Upon his arrival to Israel he became active in the integration of Soviet Jews and formed the Zionist Forum, an umbrella organization of former Soviet activist groups dedicated to helping new Israelis and educating the public about absorption issues. The final chapter of the historic struggle for the release of Soviet Jews was the historic rally of over 250,000 in 1987 during Gorbachev's first visit in Washington of which Natan Sharansky was the initiator and driving force.
In 1996, he established the Yisrael B'Aliyah party in order to accelerate the integration of new immigrants into Israeli society. He served in four successive Israeli governments as Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.
In 2009, Natan Sharansky was appointed Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel. The mission of the Jewish Agency is to guarantee the future of the Jewish People by strengthening the connection of every Jew to the State of Israel and to the Jewish People.
In 2018 he received the highest Israeli award - the Israel Prize for promoting Aliyah and the ingathering of the exiles.
Mr. Sharansky is the recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He is the only living non-American citizen who is the recipient of these two highest American awards.
Most recently, Mr. Sharansky was honored with the Genesis Prize for "his extraordinary lifelong struggle for political and religious freedoms."
He is also the author of three books: Fear No Evil, The Case for Democracy and Defending Identity. He remains a champion of the right of all people to live in freedom and believes that the advancement of human rights is critical to peace and security around the world.
Gil Troy A Distinguished Scholar in North American History at McGill University currently living in Jerusalem, Gil Troy is an award-winning American presidential historian and a leading Zionist activist. In the Foreword to Troy’s latest book, The Zionist Ideas: Visions for the Jewish Homeland – Then, Now, Tomorrow, Natan Sharansky writes: “This magnificent work is the perfect follow-up to Arthur Hertzberg’s classic The Zionist Idea. Combining, like Hertzberg, a scholar’s eye and an activist’s ear, Gil Troy demonstrates that we now live in a world of Zionist Ideas, with many different ways to help Israel flourish as a democratic Jewish state.”
Recently designated an Algemeiner J-100, one of the top 100 people “positively influencing Jewish life,” Troy wrote The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s, and ten other books on the American presidency. One leading historian called Age of Clinton “the best book on the man and his times.” Troy edited and updated another classic, the multi-volume History of American Presidential Campaigns, originally edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. and Fred Israel. He is now writing new essays on the 2012 and 2016 elections.
Troy’s book Moynihan’s Moment: America’s Fight against Zionism as Racism, describes the fall of the UN, the rise of Reagan and the spread of Anti-Zionism. Jewish Ideas Daily designated it one of 2012’s “best books.”
He appeared as a featured commentator on CNN’s popular multipart documentaries, The Eighties, The Nineties, and The 2000s. He has been interviewed on most major North American TV and Radio networks.
Troy has published essays in the American, Canadian, and Israeli media, including writing essays for the New York Times’ “Campaign Stops” in 2012 and 2016. He wrote a weekly column for the Daily Beast, “Secret Lives,” putting current events in historical perspective, and writes a weekly column for the Jerusalem Post.