Herzog awards Israeli Presidential Medal of Honor to 11 distinguished figures

President Isaac Herzog awarded Israel’s highest civilian honor to 11 prominent figures at a ceremony at the President’s Residence on Sunday, recognizing careers spanning science, culture, academia and public service.

The recipients were Yona Elian-Keshet, Hossam Haick, Mooli Lahad, Hefziba Lifshitz, Yossi Leshem, Abie Moses, Ziva Mekonen, Moshe Nissim, Rabbi Haim Sabato, Yehuda Eder and Uriel Reichman. The Presidential Medal of Honor, established by President Shimon Peres in 2012, is given to people whose skills, service or other contributions have had an exceptional impact on Israel or humanity.

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Each and every one of you is a beacon in your field. Each and every one of you is a genuine, personal example of the power to make a difference, not only to the State of Israel and Israeli society, but to a great extent to the wider world as well.

Herzog praised the laureates as examples of the ability to make a difference in Israel and beyond. “Each and every one of you is a beacon in your field. Each and every one of you is a genuine, personal example of the power to make a difference, not only to the State of Israel and Israeli society, but to a great extent to the wider world as well,” he said.

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There are people here who simply changed the world, and there are certainly people here who made a decisive contribution to the good name of the State of Israel around the globe.

He also used the event to address political divisions during the election period. “It is precisely amid our disagreements, precisely during an election period, that I will say again and warn again: elections are not a civil war! After the elections, we will all still be here, as sisters and brothers,” Herzog said.

Five of the recipients were professors. Among them were Hossam Haick, a nanotechnology and biomedicine scientist at the Technion, Mooli Lahad, a psychologist and resilience expert at Tel-Hai University, and Hefziba Lifshitz of Bar-Ilan University’s School of Education.

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It is precisely amid our disagreements, precisely during an election period, that I will say again and warn again: elections are not a civil war! After the elections, we will all still be here, as sisters and brothers.