After Snub, Genesis Prize Will Choose Where Natalie Portman’s $2M Prize Goes

Image by Getty Images

By JTA April 20, 2018

(JTA) — Natalie Portman will no longer get to choose where her $2 million Genesis Prize will be donated after saying she will not travel to Israel to receive the award.

Instead, the Genesis Prize Foundation will decide where the money goes.

Portman is refusing to travel to Israel to receive the prize because “[r]ecent events in Israel have been extremely distressing to her and she does not feel comfortable participating in any public events in Israel,” the foundation announced Thursday. It has canceled the award ceremony in June as a result.

The prize, known as the “Jewish Nobel,” has been awarded annually for five years.

Every winner has pledged to donate the award money, which was doubled this year to $2 million. Portman said she would be donating her award to women’s rights groups.

The Genesis Prize Foundation will still give the money to women’s rights groups. But Portman will no longer choose the recipients, according to a statement by Israeli philanthropist Morris Kahn, who supplied half of this year’s award.

“I cannot support the decision of canceling an appearance due to ‘recent events in Israel,’” Kahn said in the statement, which first appeared in The Jerusalem Post. “The prize money will be distributed by the Genesis Prize Foundation, not by Ms. Portman.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

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. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO