Michael Bloomberg To Be Awarded the $1M Genesis Prize

Outgoing New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg will be the first recipient of the Genesis Prize, an award aimed at inspiring young Jews. Image by getty images
Billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg will be the first recipient of a new $1 million prize meant to inspire young Jews.
The Genesis Prize, backed by a group of Russian Jewish oligarchs, right-wing Israeli politicians, and American Jewish communal leaders, will be awarded to the outgoing New York City mayor on October 21, the New York Times reported.
Prize organizers have high hopes for their award, which early press releases likened to a Jewish Nobel Prize. Wayne Firestone, the former director of Hillel International and the current president of the foundation created to give out the prize, told the Forward in April that he saw the prize as away to get young Jews excited about being Jewish.
“What I’m hoping to do is to build an engagement platform for young adults, to allow them to meet these individuals, hear their stories, potentially interact with them directly,” Firestone said at the time.
It’s unclear whether the mayor of New York City, whose net worth is estimated by Forbes to be $31 billion, will meet with young Jewish adults on behalf of Genesis.
Genesis Prize organizers faced criticism before the prize was announced over the small number of women on the prize committee and the rightward slant in the political affiliations of prize committee members. Others expressed skepticism as to whether such a prize was necessary.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 2
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
- 3
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker’s rabbi has notes on Booker’s 25-hour speech
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Texas bakery reportedly becomes first bagel shop to be named James Beard Award finalist
-
Fast Forward ‘That’s Simchas Torah’: The Jewish Val Kilmer moment you might have missed
-
Opinion I co-wrote Biden’s antisemitism strategy. Trump is making the threat worse
-
Fast Forward From ‘October 8’ to ‘The Encampments,’ these new documentaries illuminate the post-Oct. 7 American experience
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.