Dennis Gaitsgory (left) and guest attend the 11th Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at Barker Hangar on April 5, 2025 in Santa Monica, California. (Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Breakthrough Prize)

(JTA) — In 2009, Dennis Gaitsgory, an Israeli-American who was then a math professor at Harvard University, co-wrote a petition asking the two leading Israeli politicians — conservative Benjamin Netanyahu and centrist Tzipi Livni — not to include Avigdor Liberman, seen as a hardliner, in any governing coalition they would form.

It didn’t work. When Netanyahu became prime minister, he appointed Liberman his foreign minister.

Sixteen years later, much has changed. Liberman is now considered something of a centrist — and a bitter enemy of Netanyahu, who has led Israel for nearly that entire period and now helms a coalition with far-right partners.

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Things have also changed for Gaitsgory, who was born in the former Soviet Union and received his doctorate at Tel Aviv University. He is now a director at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn, Germany.

And on Saturday, he was named as a winner of the Breakthrough Prize, a $3 million award founded by a group of tech moguls including the families of Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin and Yuri Milner, all of whom are Jewish.

Gaitsgory won the prize for his work to prove the geometric Langlands conjecture, which according to the prize foundation “grew out of a series of conjectures proposing precise connections between seemingly disparate mathematical concepts.” You can read more here about his breakthroughs and his approach to math — which included writing pivotal work while watching “Star Wars” with his son.

Gaitsgory spoke with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about his experience since Oct. 7, 2023, how it feels to win the prize and what message he would send to Israelis today.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Is there a way in which your Jewish and Israeli identity has informed your career or your work?

Well, no, math is pretty international. I mean, I don’t think one’s ethnicity, religion, or whatever informs one’s math. I don’t believe that. However, studying in Tel Aviv in the early ’90s was super fun. … It was rigorous and at the same time fun. So I was very lucky, especially with the initial set of professors.

I wanted to ask you: I saw that in 2009 — which in Israeli political terms feels like ancient history — you gained a fair amount of publicity for talking about Avigdor Liberman, and asking both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his then-rival, Tzipi Livni, not to join in a governing coalition with him.

Little did I know what Bibi would turn into.

What are your thoughts on that, more than 15 years later?

People change. I think he was a normal guy back in 2009, maybe had some inclinations, but if a person stays in power for 15 years, that deeply corrupts him. It’s like, you know, owning the ring from “The Lord of the Rings.”

I wish he went away somewhere, just somehow disappeared. But now he’s a very negative factor. But back then, he seemed — he was much more right-wing than me, but he seemed like a reasonable person. And Liberman seemed not. But now the sides have changed.

It looks like you haven’t spoken out about Israeli politics since then. Is that something you’ve considered doing, especially during the past 18 months?

So my wife just last week went to Israel and took a tent with her. She was intending to live in the tent, and participate in the protest, but the protests moved to Jerusalem so she didn’t get to use the tent, but she actively participated. And I’m going in May. If there is still an Israel in May, and there are still protests, I’ll go.

What would be the the main thing motivating you to go to a protest, of all the things happening in Israel?

Before, there were three main streams [of demonstrations]: There was one, the biggest one, that just called for the return of hostages. There was another one that called, well, basically against Netanyahu personally — against the judicial reform, to keep democracy. And the third one was basically against the dehumanization of Gaza, of Palestinians.

And now what [my wife] says is that all three got combined somehow. After the renewed fighting, a lot of people got convinced that it’s not justified by any strategic considerations, it’s just manipulation by Netanyahu to save himself from prison, just to keep the government. And basically all these three, they’re now together. And, basically, I’m moved by all three, but I don’t have to distinguish, fortunately.

Back in 2009 you spoke publicly in your own name as a leading mathematician. Is that something you’ve considered doing — putting out a public statement in your name, saying, “Here’s what I think, and here’s what I’m asking for?”

I honestly haven’t considered doing that just because I didn’t think anybody would listen. I would do anything if I knew it had any kind of effect.

I mean, there’s so much written there, even without us. Right now, I don’t feel if I put an ad in Haaretz … that it would change anything. If I had any idea what I could do, I would do it.

How have you been feeling since Oct. 7?

Unfortunately, I’m familiar with the feeling of when a member of your family is sick. You live with it, and, you know, sometimes you wake up and you wish it was still a dream.

So that’s what it felt like. But after a year and a half, you get used to it, so you can’t be in a constant state of stress for that many months.

I grew up in Israel. It’s my home. … There are the Israelis that are my people. I mean, it’s a diverse body, but still there is an entity that I identify with.

I wanted to come back to the prize. What does it mean for you? What do you see as your path forward? 

To be honest, I don’t know what this means for me. And I have been feeling a little bit discombobulated by it. I hope that it settles, and I’ll just forget all about it, and just be a mathematician, as I was.

Why do you want to forget about it?

I mean, it’s a huge amount of money, and there’s a huge amount of attention. And, well, what I want in life is not that. I just want to do my math, I mean, that’s what brings me joy.

Are you considering donating any portion of it to charity?

So I was discussing with my wife — we wanted to donate to something in Israel, preferably something joint Israeli-Palestinian. However, I couldn’t really negotiate it [yet], because the prize announcement was not public … so I couldn’t tell them, “Hey, I want to donate like $100,000.”

I would like to donate something for math, but that at the same time promotes coexistence in some way.

I want to come back to one thing: You were talking about how you’re not going to put an ad in Haaretz. If you were going to put an ad in Haaretz, what would it say?

Wow, what a question. [Pauses] You’re asking, if I have a one-sentence message, what is it?

I guess. I’ll leave it to you.

So if this message is is addressed to the people of Israel and people closer to me, it would be to make the most effort to see Palestinians as humans. Just not to forget that, yes, there’s a conflict, yes, there’s an enemy — but they’re humans.

Have you not seen that message articulated by any sector or group in Israeli society?

My wife said that when she talked to people at this protest it was articulated. But somehow it’s not as prominent. For example, the main news sources don’t broadcast pictures from Gaza, so most Israelis are unaware of what is being done to Palestinians. And even if we go one year back, when we all thought that this war was more necessary than we think now, still, people should have been, should be, aware of what we are doing.

In some sense it’s a conscious choice by the Israeli public. It’s not that the media are evil, and they’re a conspiracy, not showing it. It reflects the choice of the society, not to want to see it, because it’s super hard just to be made aware of this. But this is the hardship that one has to overcome, because ignoring it is dehumanization.

Have you discussed that with friends or family in Israel? If so, how do they respond to that sentiment?

Somehow, no. We talk a lot about it in the family, but no. But I hope I will now.

You see, because I was away, and they were in there. And so, especially in the early months of the war, there was still the threat of Hezbollah. They were in an active war zone. Who am I to teach them?

So I am contradicting myself. … It’s also OK to contradict, because it’s all very contradictory.

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