2025 SHEKEL PRIZE ANNOUNCED

Ira Rezak's prize-winning book Jewry Reflected, Refracted and Recorded on Medals is based on an exhibition of his material at New York's Center for Jewish History.

The phrase "Jewry reflected, refracted, and recorded in medals" is a compelling description of the way Jewish history, culture, and experience are represented and preserved through the art and craft of medals

Reflected: Medals, tokens and Badges have been used for centuries by Jewish artists to reflect the actuality of Jewish individual and communal existence. A Jewish Mother by Boris Schatz offers a reflection upon Jewish values, presenting a mother in the act of tenderly raising her young child, both literally and figuratively, to be concerned for the welfare of others in the Jewish Community, to perform the biblically commanded mitzvah of charity.

Refracted: Medals are often used to honor or reward individuals who have excelled in some activity that brings credit to the Jewish people. Over their long history Jews have had to adapt themselves individually and communally as they engage with society in changing circumstances which has inevitably necessitated change, refraction of direction and method. After nearly two millennia the Jewish re-settlement of the Holy Land required new adaptations to older ways of life. The 1932 prize medal designed by Moses Murro for the Levant Fair in Tel Aviv presented such change by inventing a new iconographic logo, the flying camel, a modern version of an ancient Jewish mode of passage.

Recorded: Commemoration, establishing a material record of past events and present achievements is perhaps the most common function of medallic art. Jewry, the Jewish people, have had much in their past to reflect upon, and fortunately also attainments worthy of celebration. The medal by Isidore Konti celebrating the 250th anniversary of the arrival of Jews in America records this event in a classical Beaux-Arts style. Liberty and Justice triumph over Intolerance on one side, while on the other a figure of History has inscribed on a tablet the dates 1655 and 1905 under the protection of an American eagle.

This exhibition presents artifacts that were a part of Jewish lives, have survived, and have a story to tell. Coins, medals, and related items, like books and prints, are replicated and disseminated to achieve a wide distribution. Coins are exclusively the prerogative of sovereign governments, so their imitative successors—medals, tokens, and badges—retain an aura of authority.

Coins are an official means of monetary exchange. Tokens circulate as coin-like objects issued by local entities—towns, communities, institutions, even private merchants—so their circulation is only valid regionally. Medals resemble coins, but need not be small and are textually and pictorially free to present a wider range of subject matter. Medallic sponsors may be communal, institutional, commercial, even individual. Medals often function as rewards for personal achievement—military, academic, communal, scholastic, athletic—or to commemorate dedications, or religious and other noteworthy occasions. Medals honor both the living and the dead and may serve as proof of personal participation in group events or as souvenirs of private experiences. Insignia, worn externally, serve to indicate and project status and affiliation. Amulets worn individually offer protection, displaying biblical texts and images.

Except for a very brief period two thousand years ago, until the foundation of Israel in 1948 there were no Jewish national governments and consequently no official Jewish coins. But medals, tokens, insignia and amulets have been used extensively by Jews for centuries.

The Shekel Prize has been awarded annually since 2017 to the author of the best book published on the subject of Ancient Judaean, Holy Land, Israel, or Jewish Numismatics. Ira Rezak is a retired physician and educator who has studied and collected Judaica for many years. An Emeritus Professor at Stony Brook University, he serves as president of the Harry G. Friedman Society and is a board member of the American Israel Numismatic Association.