The Great World Journey for the Wolf Foundation Awards

After two consecutive years in which it was not possible to hold the Wolf Prize awarding ceremony in the Knesset, the foundation's senior officials, led by the chairman Prof. Dan Shechtman and the CEO Reut Yeinon-Barman, traveled around the world and held ceremonies at the universities of the 15 winners. In many cases it was the first local event since the outbreak of the Corona epidemic

Every year the Wolf Prize honors the best researchers, scientists and artists in the world for their achievements in the fields of science and art and their unique contribution to humanity and to the friendly relations of the House of Nations.

Every year the distinguished Wolf Prize winners come to a state ceremony held in the Knesset and receive the Wolf Prize from the President of the State of Israel.  

Due to the restrictions of the Corona epidemic, in the last two years it was not possible to hold the ceremony in the Knesset building. Therefore, the Wolf Foundation embarked on a complete journey, the first of its kind in the foundation's history, around the world and reached each winner in his country of residence and held an exciting award ceremony for him. There are 15 winners and ceremonies that took place in Sweden, Italy, Great Britain, as well as throughout the USA - from New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts on the East Coast through Austin, Texas to two universities in California.

Over the course of a month and a half from the beginning of May until June 10, including during Operation Wall Guard, the Acting Chairman of the Wolf Foundation, Prof. Dan Shechtman, and the CEO of the Wolf Foundation, Reot Yanon Berman, as well as other council members, moved from one university to another (for most of the winners, the awarding took place in a limited manner at their universities and some even at home). The people they met, diplomats, scientists, and held exciting events after a long period in which ceremonies were not held in those places.

In a conversation with the Hiden site, Prof. Shechtman explains: "The Wolf awards are given year after year in the Knesset with the participation of the President of the State and the Minister of Education. For two years that we could not do Zeba because of the corona virus, we decided to award the Wolf Prizes for two years to the winners at their places of residence and at their places of work. There were exciting ceremonies attended by the winners, the heads of their universities, as well as ambassadors and consuls of Israel in these countries."

Prof. Dan Shechtman: "Corona restrictions are still present"

"Me and the CEO of the fund Reot Yanon-Berman made the biggest trip around the USA, in Rome-Italy as well as a ceremony for the three Israeli winners. There is no obligation for Israelis to win the prize, which is given according to scientific and professional considerations, but in the current case there were three who qualified to receive the prize and we held a ceremony for them in Sabion."

"I have to point out that everywhere we went we were received very well and especially the excitement and respectable preparations in all the universities. Each university prepared an impressive ceremony and it was the first ceremony with an audience while adhering to the rules, distancing, masks, etc. For them too, this was the first swallow of getting back to normal after a year and a half of Corona.

In conclusion, Prof. Shechtman said: "I really hope that we can return and hold the ceremony in the Knesset. Every year it is a very exciting ceremony that includes the distinguished presence of the country's president. President Rivlin especially supported the fund and agreed to hold the announcement of the winners at the presidential residence. I hope that President-elect Yitzhak Boji Herzog will also support like him."

Reut Yanon Berman: "We waited for 2021 to hold a double ceremony, but since that was not possible, we went to the winners"

Reut Yanon Berman also explains in an interview to the website the scientist the circumstances for holding the journey: "We had already planned the ceremony for the year 2020 and prepared for it, but at some point the corona epidemic caused a shutdown, and we thought of holding a joint ceremony in 2021 for the winners of these two years. Although in Israel our situation is progressing compared to the rest of the world, there are still restrictions on the arrival of foreign citizens to Israel, and when we planned the ceremony this year, in March 2021, we could not commit that it would take place."

In light of this, and since among the winners there are also very old people, who as time goes by it will become more difficult for them to fly, even when this is possible, we asked the universities to which the winners belong to hold an event for each and every winner in their country of residence and celebrate the honor of awarding the prize with those universities that submitted the scientists to the prize The Nobel Prize Foundation, by the way, awarded the prizes to each winner at his home, and not at the institution where he worked or researched.

During these weeks, many events took place - the awarding ceremonies and gala events, there were ceremonies with the participation of ten people, other ceremonies with the participation of thirty, and there were also ceremonies with the participation of a hundred people - which were mostly held outside. Of course, the embassies of Israel in the world also sent representatives and helped. For example, the ceremony in honor of the winner of the award Emmanuelle Charpentier, from the discovery of CRISPR asked to hold the ceremony in Sweden, due to the fact that at the time of the discovery she was working at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. This ceremony took place in the ambassador's house and in the presence of the Wolf Prize Council member architect Amnon Richter.

"On the one hand, it is difficult to convey the feeling in words. You had to be there to feel the atmosphere. The Zazuchi are very modest, very appreciated. To hear in their home - in their institution - the amount of appreciation they have - is an inspiring thing. Tears were shed in quite a few ceremonies. It was a very exciting experience for us too to come and see the winner in his environment, meet his colleagues and meet his students. It's different. A very unique experience."

They are still waiting to come to Israel, and in 2022 we will hold a big ceremony to which the winners from the years 2020-2021 will also be able to come" from Yanon-Berman summary.

Reminder - the list of Wolf Prize winners in the last two years:

2021

• Italy - The Wolf Prize in Physics was awarded to Professor Giorgio Frisi, from the University of Rome-Spienza, for his groundbreaking discoveries in disordered systems, particle physics and statistical physics. The prize was awarded at the University of Sapienza in Rome in the presence of Israel's ambassador to Italy Dror Eder
• Israel - The Wolf Prize in Chemistry was awarded jointly to Professors Meir Lahav and Leslie Lazerovitz from the Weizmann Institute of Science, for their joint work in establishing the mutual elementary effects of three-dimensional structure on the structures of organic crystals.
• USA - The Wolf Prize in Medicine was awarded jointly to Professors Joan Stitz from Yale University, Lynn McQuatt from the University of Rochester and Adrian Kreiner from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, for their fundamental discoveries in RNA biology that hold the potential to improve modern and personalized medicine.

2020

• USA - The Wolf Prize in Art was awarded to Cindy Sherman (New York, USA), an artist who redefined the concept of art created using a camera.
• England - The Wolf Prize in Agriculture was awarded to Prof. Caroline Dean (John Innes Institute, England) for understanding memory and temperature sensing mechanisms in plants, with the aim of bringing the farmer under control of flowering and flowering times.
• USA - The Wolf Prize in Physics was awarded this year to three winners: Prof. Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - (MIT) USA, to Prof. Alan H. McDonald from the University of Texas at Austin - and to Dr. Rafi Bistritzer, from Applied Materials - Israel, for their pioneering work in the theory and experiment of twisted two-layer graphene that will lead, among other things, to a tremendous energy revolution.
• USA, Sweden - The Wolf Prize in Medicine was awarded to two winners (who later also won the Nobel Prize): Prof. Jennifer Daudna from the University of California, Berkeley, and in Sweden the prize was awarded to the French researcher Prof. Emmanuelle Charpentier from the Max Planck Institute. The two led the discovery of the revolutionary gene editing tool known as CRISPR.
• England, USA - The Wolf Prize in Mathematics was awarded to two winners: Prof. Jacob Eliashberg, a native of Stanford University, California and Prof. Simon Donaldson, from Stony Brook University on Long Island and Imperial College London in England. for their contributions to differential geometry and topology.

• The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to the scientists who developed the CRISPR "genetic numbers" immediately after the Wolf award
• Rafi Bistritzer, Wolf Prize Winners in Physics: I knew the work I did with MacDonald was making a buzz, but I didn't know how much
• The Crisper keys win the 2020 Wolf Prize in Medicine - the reasons for the prize committee
• Prof. Leslie Lazerovitz and Meir Lahav Moitzman won the Wolf Prize in Chemistry 2021
• Wolf Prize in Physics for 2021 to Professor Giorgio Frisi, researcher of disordered systems