Paul McCartney Wins A Prestigious Prize In Israel
Iconic performer Sir Paul McCartney speaks and performs with 20 lucky fans at the Regal Theatre on November 30, 2017 in Perth, Australia. Image by James D. Morgan/Getty Images
LET IT BE: Paul McCartney will perform in Israel in September, for the first time in his career.
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Paul McCartney is one of nine laureates announced for Israel’s prestigious Wolf Prize.
McCartney is one of two recipients of the 2018 Wolf Prize in Music, Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin announced Monday.
Each year the Wolf Foundation awards $100,000 prizes in five fields. More than 30 winners have gone on to receive the Nobel Prize.
The announcement called McCartney “one of the greatest songwriters of all time. His versatility underlies an extraordinary wingspan, from the most physical rock to melodies of haunting and heartbreaking intimacy. His lyrics have an equally broad range, from the naive and the charming to the poignant and even desperate. He has touched the hearts of the entire world, both as a Beatle and in his subsequent bands, including Wings.
McCartney shares the prize with conductor Adam Fischer, who the prize committee called an “eloquent defender of human rights,” particularly “his protest against the political developments in his native Hungary.”
Seven other prizes also were announced in the fields of mathematics, chemistry, physics and agriculture.
According to the Wolf Prize, the prizes will be presented to the winners by Rivlin at a special ceremony to be held at the Knesset in Jerusalem, at the end of May. The Associated Press reported that the prize foundation had notified McCartney representatives of the prize, but that it was not immediately known if the former Beatle would attend the ceremony.
McCartney has appeared once in Israel, for a concert for over 50,000 fans in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park in 2008.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
