A Holocaust survivor and a multi-religious global organization were awarded the 2010 Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize today at New York’s Hofstra University for their exceptional work in bringing together people from all faiths to address shared humanitarian goals.

Rabbi Arthur Schneier and Religions for Peace will share the $50,000 award. The two recipients were selected by an interfaith committee of 10 members from among 60 individuals and organizations that were nominated this year from around the world.

Bernard Firestone, dean of the college of liberal art and sciences, and Stuart Rabinowitz, Hofstra president, made the announcement this morning at a news conference that was broadcast live on the Internet. About 50 people attended the event.

“This award is to those people who help us address what many people think is the central challenge of our times, which is to promote peace and understanding across all cultures, religions and geographic boundaries,” Rabinowitz said.

Rabbi Schneier is the spiritual leader at Park East Synagogue in Manhattan and president of the Appeal for Conscience Foundation, which he founded in 1965. A witness to the Holocaust, Schneier has devoted his life to promoting religious tolerance and freedom, an earlier news release said.

“(This) is a very emotional moment, in recognition of a life’s work,” Schneier said. “What we have tried to do on a personal level is that on a daily basis you have to pay back because you are not any better than those that have perished… Religion must not become the fodder for nationalist ambitions.”

Schneier has led interfaith delegations to Cuba, China and the former Soviet Union. He was the first rabbi to receive the Presidential Citizens Medal, the second-highest civilian award in the United States. And last spring, he hosted the Pope Benedict the 16th at his synagogue during his first trip to the United States.

The prize co-recipient, Religions for Peace, is the largest multi-faith coalition for peace in the world, with 70 inter-religious councils across the globe, according to the news release. The organization promotes human rights, works to reduce poverty and advocates for ending sectarian violence.

Its most recent world assembly, in 2006, drew more than 800 religious leaders from nearly 100 countries.

“All religious communities have collectively been building, across millennia, the largest social infrastructure the human family has,” said William Vendley, the organization’s general secretary. “They can move to the front lines in building the peace for which our hearts truly hunger.

“Religions for Peace feels understood, recognized and celebrated by the remarkable prize celebrating the Guru’s extraordinary legacy to the human family.”

The Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize is awarded biannually to enhance awareness of the critical role of religious dialogue in the pursuit of peace, according to the university’s Web site. The14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was the first recipient in 2008.

Ishar Singh Bindra of Brookville, N.Y., and his family endowed the prize at the university in 2006.

“They got everything started here,” Rabinowitz said. In September 2000, the family endowed the Sardarni Kuljit Kaur Bindra Chair in Sikh studies, held by Balbinder Singh Bhogal.

"(It) gave Hofstra University the idea to create what we expect to be the country’s premier center for the secular study of religion,” he said. This triggered the formation of a separate department of religion, teaching courses in every major religion in the world.

The university now has a Catholic and a Jewish endowed chair. And it has established an endowed chair in Sikh musicology, although that has not been filled yet. The university is also considering creating a center for Sikh studies.

“We want to be the nation’s premier center for the study of Sikhism and the Sikh culture,” Rabinowitz added.

In the closing remarks, T.J. Singh Bindra, Ishar Singh’s son, talked about how Guru Nanak always taught that all religions are on the same path to God. “You are greater by your deeds (alone),” he quoted Guru Nanak.

A formal award presentation is planned for next spring.


Note: By Anju Kaur
Sikh News Network staff journalist
anjukaur@sikhnn.com
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