Karski, Albright and Dylan Get Medals of Freedom
President Obama awarded the Medal of Freedom to Jan Karski, Madeleine Albright and Bob Dylan, among other recipients.
Twelve of the 13 recipients received their medals in a ceremony Tuesday at the White House. Israeli President Shimon Peres will receive the medal in a separate event next month.
Karski, who died in 2000, was a Polish resistance fighter who was among the first to document the Nazi genocide against European Jews.
Albright, the former secretary of state and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, learned in 1997 from a reporter that her parents hid her Jewishness from her. She recently wrote a book about her family’s Jewish heritage, “Prague Winter,” in which she discusses 25 relatives who perished during the Holocaust.
Dylan, who changed his last name from Zimmerman, transformed rock and folk music in the 1960s.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
