The Abraham Geiger Award

The Abraham Geiger Award recognizes contributions to Judaism in its many facets. It was created in 2000 on the occasion of the opening of the Abraham Geiger College. With that award the Rabbinic Seminary honors people who rendered outstanding service to pluralism:

Openness, courage, tolerance, and freedom of Jewish thought as the result of the Enlightenment are honored by it as a basis for relations among Jews as well as our relations with our non-Jewish environment.

The Abraham Geiger Award is endowed with 10,000 EUR, which the recipient then allocates to a project that gives shape and form to the nature of the award.

Abraham Geiger Award Recipients

H.E. Jean-Claude Cardinal Hollerich SJ, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Luxembourg – 2022
We honour a partner of the Abraham Geiger Kolleg and a guarantor of lively and respectful Catholic-Jewish relations.

Christian Stückl, stage manager of the Passion Play in Oberammergau and director of the Munich Volkstheater – 2020
We honor you for giving weight to an important message: that we must stand up against racism and anti-Semitism in our country to ensure a pluralistic society.

Amos Oz, professor of literature at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, writer and intellectual – 2017
We honor his great courage and determination to pursue peace and understanding between Israelis and Palestinians but also with the contemporary Germany.

Dr. Angela Merkel, Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany – 2015
For years, she has worked in the realm of politics to advocate the protection of fundamental democratic values in our society and across Europe.

Annette Schavan, Federal Minister – 2013
Thanks to her commitment, Jewish Theology could be established as an academic subject in the context of a German state university.

Helen Zille, Premier of the Western Cape – 2011
She is a remarkable voice with great courage and determination in transforming South Africa into a democracy of many voices.

Professor Hans Küng – 2009
As the President of the Global Ethic Foundation, he points the way for global coexistence beyond all religious boundaries and towards common moral values, ideals and goals.

Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan – 2008
He is a remarkable voice for global sustainability, reconciliation and interreligious understanding.

Karl Cardinal Lehmann – 2006
We honor his determination to enter into dialogue with Jewry. He is an advocate for tolerance and freedom of thought.

Professor Alfred Grosser – 2004
With the voice of humanity, he constantly stood up for openness, courage, tolerance and freedom of thought as the result of the Enlightenment.

Professor Emil Fackenheim – 2002
For his philosophical life’s work: after the Shoah he opened new vistas towards a possible Jewish religious faith.

Professor Susannah Heschel – 2000
As a significant representative of contemporary Jewish philosophy, for her studies on Abraham Geiger, which carry his ideals into the present.