11th Annual Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer Risk-Taker Awards
Thursday, October 18th, 2007
To see photos from the 2007 Meyer awards, click here.
Background on the 2007 Honorees
Debbie Almontaser is an educator who has committed her life to supporting Arab, Muslim and interfaith communities and the founding principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy. Debbie Almontaser, is the founding team leader and the former principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy. She is also a 16-year veteran of the NYC public school system. Ms. Almontaser was born in Yemen and raised in the United States. In the past few years, Ms. Almontaser has received a few awards from faith based groups and proclamations for building bridges of understanding from the Borough President of Brooklyn and the Mayor of the City of New York for Arab Heritage Week. In 2004 Ms. Almontaser received the Revson Fellowship award for her contributions to city life. Ms. Almontaser is a founding board member of The Dialogue Project, Brooklyn Borough President's New Diversity Task Force, board advisor for the Same Difference Interfaith Alliance, Youth Bridge NY, and a member of the board of directors of Women in Islam, Muslim Consultative Network and Saba: The Association of Yemeni Americans. She is also a cofounder of Brooklyn Bridges, the September 11th Curriculum Project, and We Are All Brooklyn.
Click here to read Rabbi Ellen Lippmann's remarks on Debbie Almontaser from the Awards.
Click here to watch Debbie Almontaser accept the award.
Frances Goldin has been a civil rights, peace and housing activist and community leader for over 50 years. In the early 1950s Goldin ran for New York State Senate on the same ticket, the American Labor Party, as W.E.B. Du Bois receiving 14%, an impressive gain for a third party run. At the forefront of the affordable housing and anti gentrification movement in the 1960’s, Goldin helped to lead the Cooper Square Committee in defeating Robert Moses’ Lower Manhattan Expressway, which would have been placed atop Little Italy, the West Village, and Washington Square Park eliminating approximately 10,000 apartments in those neighborhoods. Goldin’s Activism and long-term vision of a just world continues today in her professional life as a literary agent. For over 30 years, she has run the Francis Goldin Literary Agency, representing writers such as Dorothy Allison, Barbara Kingsolver, Juan Gonzalez, Staceyann Chin, Frances Fox Piven, Martin Duberman, Mumia Abu-Jamal and fellow honoree, Adrienne Rich. Goldin’s continual efforts and rejection of the status quo is true reflection of her great ability to lead and inspire those around her. Click here to watch Frances Goldin accept the Award.
Adrienne Rich is one of our country's most distinguished poets and essayists and over the last 40 years published more than 16 volumes of poetry and four books of nonfiction prose. As society found itself in a time of progress and protest so too did Rich as she moved from her domestic life of the 1950s and 60s. Her writing began to reflect on her own complexities, as the world around her began to similarly change. The content of her work became increasingly confrontational and awarding winning—exploring such themes as women’s role in society, racism, and the Vietnam War. Since the 1970s, her volumes of exquisitely wrought lyric verse have increasingly reflected feminist and lesbian themes, explored notions of citizenship and democracy, dislocation and nationhood, and examined the politics of language, witnessing, history and art. She has been recognized with many of the most prestigious literary awards including the Lannan Foundation Lifetime Acheivement Award, the MacArthur Fellowship and the Bollingen Prize and is a former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.A lifelong political activist,in 1997, she refused to accept National Medal for the Arts on the basis that her art and thoughts were not in actuality supported by White House and then President who were to have given her the award.
New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN,) was founded on the basic principal that housing is a universal human right. NYCAHN is currently the only membership-based organization of its kind, comprised of low-income people living with HIV/AIDS and working towards providing this right for those New Yorkers in need. Their mission focuses to empower low-income people living with HIV/AIDS to organize their community, including the non-profits that serve them, to advocate for more housing, better housing and sound public policies for all New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS. Click here to watch Adrienne Rich accept the Award.
New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN,) was founded on the basic principal that housing is a universal human right. NYCAHN is currently the only membership-based organization of its kind, comprised of low-income people living with HIV/AIDS and working towards providing this right for those New Yorkers in need. Their mission focuses to empower low-income people living with HIV/AIDS to organize their community, including the non-profits that serve them, to advocate for more housing, better housing and sound public policies for all New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS. Click here to watch NYCAHN accept the Award.
