Corinne Michaela Flick and Wolfgang Ischinger receive the Prize for Understanding and Tolerance

Press Release, Sat 11 Nov 2023

Today, the Jewish Museum Berlin (JMB) will award the Prize for Understanding and Tolerance for the twenty-second time – although it will not be a light-hearted celebration this year. Hetty Berg, Director of the Jewish Museum Berlin: “It is with sadness and horror that we follow the news of Hamas’ terrorist acts in Israel. The reactions in Germany show that our work is more important than ever. The museum is and remains a place of encounter and exchange and stands for the values of tolerance, freedom and democracy: the exhibitions are open and the Prize for Understanding and Tolerance will be awarded.”

This year’s prize goes to Dr. Corinne Michaela Flick, Founder and Chair of the CONVOCO! Foundation, and Ambassador (ret.) Prof. Dr. h. c. Wolfgang Ischinger, President of the Munich Security Conference Foundation Council. The tribute to Corinne Michaela Flick will be delivered by the Freiburg-based historian Prof. Dr. Jörn Leonhard; Ronald S. Lauder, President, Jewish World Congress, will speak in praise of Wolfgang Ischinger. Hetty Berg, the JMB’s director, will present the awards.

Since 2002, the Jewish Museum Berlin has awarded the Prize for Understanding and Tolerance to individuals from the realms of culture, politics, and business who have rendered outstanding service to the promotion of human dignity, international understanding, the integration of minorities, and the coexistence of different religions and cultures. The prize, presented at a gala dinner, is awarded jointly by the JMB and the FRIENDS OF THE JMB. Last year, the writer and Nobel laureate in literature Herta Müller and the theater and opera director Barrie Kosky received the Prize for Understanding and Tolerance from the Jewish Museum Berlin.

In their statement explaining the award of the prize to Corinne Michaela Flick, the jury wrote: “With Convoco, Corinne Michaela Flick has opened up a space for a fruitful dialogue between science and society to unfold. As the executive director and creative head of the Convoco Foundation, Corinne Michaela Flick poses questions that touch the very core of our global society: What does equality mean in an unequal world? What challenges to our freedom arise from pandemics, climate change, digitalization, and intensifying systemic competition with authoritarian states? Every topic raised by this trained lawyer takes the German Basic Law as its reference point. With her Convoco foundation, Corinne Michaela Flick shows an active commitment to shaping the future Germany, Europe, world in which we wish to live, asking questions, and changing things for the better through a shared quest for answers.”

The statement of reasons for awarding the prize to Wolfgang Ischinger reads: “Wolfgang Ischinger not only masters the art of diplomacy, but links it to the aim of helping to create a more peaceful and therefore safer world. Few people know better than he does that there are no simple recipes in an era marked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its global political consequences. A diplomat through and through, he is unafraid of plain speaking and uncomfortable questions. Wolfgang Ischinger offers an important voice of reason whenever the world’s flashpoints are at stake. Constructively and knowledgeably, he endeavors to contribute to finding peaceful solutions to conflicts. He does so not only through inspiring ideas, but also by bringing together people who have the potential to find shared paths out of the crisis despite holding positions that sometimes seem irreconcilable.”

For the latest information on the event, visit: https://www.jmberlin.de/en/prize-for-understanding-and-tolerance.