JERUSALEM (JTA) — Adina Bar-Shalom, a Haredi education activist and daughter of the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, and Avi Naor, founder of Or Yarok Association for Safer Driving, have won the Israel Prize.
Bar-Shalom and Naor are both recipients of this year’s Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievement, for their special contribution to state and society.
The prizes, which will be given on Israel Independence Day in May, were announced Tuesday by Israel’s Education Minister Shai Piron.
Bar-Shalom is being awarded the prize for her “pioneering work to bridge societal rifts and socioeconomic gaps and to promote an ultra-Orthodox lifestyle that includes social openness and higher education,” according to the judges’ committee.
Naor founded Or Yarok after losing his son in a traffic accident. He is being awarded the prize for being “an Israeli high-tech industry founder who chose to devote much of his energy and money to pioneering projects to combat the scourge of auto accidents in Israel, and other projects to benefit society,” the committee wrote. Naor also is a co-chairman of the Israel Funders Network.
Bar Shalom’s late father received the prize in 1970 for his work in rabbinical literature.
The Israel Prize is Israel’s highest civilian honor.
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