Raphael Lemkin Human Rights Award
Stephanie Rapp has held leadership roles in family philanthropy, UN agencies, and non-profit organizations. During her 20 year tenure at the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, she helped create several initiatives that ultimately became Upstart; Bend the Arc; the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable; the Rabbi at GLIDE, and the Jews of Color Initiative. She also spearheaded support of projects that build bridges and fight polarization within the Jewish world and between Jews and other faith communities. She believes storytelling is critical to building empathy and has worked on two Academy Award nominated documentaries, writes for public radio, and continues to work with organizations committed to narrative change. Her Yiddish-speaking grandparents taught her the word chutzpah at an early age; it is the quality she most admires in leaders she’s supported.
Founder’s Award
Rabbi Gerry Serotta has led a justice-rooted rabbinate for over 50 years. In addition to his roles as campus and congregational rabbi, he served as Chair of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America (now T’ruah) between 2000-2008. That year he initiated, together with Imam Yahya Hendi, Clergy Beyond Borders, an interfaith effort to promote conflict resolution and interfaith understanding. His activity and leadership advocating peaceful solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict began in 1973 when he co-founded Breira, which called for a Palestinian State as a solution to the conflict. In 1980 he founded and served as the initial Co-Chair of New Jewish Agenda, a national organization conceived to be a “progressive voice within the Jewish community and a Jewish voice within the progressive community.” He participated on the initial board which led to the creation of the Jewish Fund for Justice and also served on the boards of DC Jews United for Justice, The Shalom Center, and Tikkun Magazine. He served as the first Rabbi on the board of the Faith and Politics Institute, an interfaith, bi-partisan effort to bring spiritual reflection to the work of the US Congress, as a clergy representative on the Workers Rights Board of the District of Columbia.
Rabbinic Human Rights Hero Award
Cantor Michael Zoosman is a Board Certified Chaplain (BCC) with the Canadian Association for Spiritual Care (CASC) and received his cantorial ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 2008. He is the co-founder of “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty” and sits as an Advisory Committee Member at Death Penalty Action. For the past sixteen years, Michael has served as a chaplain in various prisons, as well as in psychiatric and medical research hospitals. Currently, Michael works as a multifaith Spiritual Health Practitioner for the Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams of the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, serving individuals who are diagnosed with both severe mental health and addiction disorders. Michael lives with his wife Molly Winston and their two daughters Sunny, 7, and Libby, 4, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Rabbinic Human Rights Hero Award
Rabbi Hilly Haber serves as the Director of Social Justice Organizing and Education at Central Synagogue, working in partnership with Central lay leaders, staff, and community-based organizations on issues of criminal legal reform and re-entry, refugee and asylee resettlement, food insecurity, and climate justice. Rabbi Haber is a PhD candidate in Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and a graduate of HUC-JIR NY, Harvard Divinity School, and Mount Holyoke College.