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.
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 the protests on college campuses.
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