Charles Bronfman Prize Names Two Recipients

The Charles Bronfman Prize has named its 2010 recipients, and there are two of them. The prizes, along with two $100,000 awards, will be given to Sasha Chanoff, founder and executive director of Mapendo International, for his efforts rescuing and resettling at-risk and forgotten African refugees, and Jared Genser, founder and president of Freedom Now, for his defense of prisoners of conscience worldwide.

Typically, only one prize per year is awarded to a young Jewish man or woman for outstanding humanitarian accomplishments. But this year, with two recipients, “the Prize is seizing an unprecedented opportunity to advance a broader agenda. While focused on different issues, [Chanoff’s and Genser’s] common objective is the promotion and protection of rights, their common strategy is visionary tenacity, and their common beneficiary is humanity. This is a significant opportunity to honor the finest in inspired Jewish and cosmopolitan values and ethics,” Stephen Bronfman said in a statement.

This is the sixth year that the Prize is being awarded.