In the weeks leading up to Chanukah, United Hatzalah launched the Korenvaes Miracle Award to honor eight people who have championed Israel. The honorees are people who represent the value of Tikkun Olam — repairing the world. The organization put together a list of 49 candidates and asked the public to choose the top eight to be honored with a special ceremony dedicated to them at United Hatzalah’s Jerusalem headquarters during candle-lighting each night of Chanukah.
After thousands of votes flooded in, the eight people were selected from the list of 49 The first three honorees who received the highest number of votes were world leaders not only by profession but also in their love for and championing of Israel.
The first to receive the honor was United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. Haley has been a stalwart champion of Israel in the United Nations, a place where anti-Israel bias in certain constituent bodies and agencies has become so commonplace that even some long-standing foes of the Jewish state have begun to acknowledge the situation.
The second nominee was none other than Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who is currently on track to become the longest serving Prime Minister in Israel’s history. His current term of office ends in November 2019. Netanyahu has dedicated his life to serving Israel in the military as well as in elected public office.
For their third nominee, voters chose an Israel advocate who is not strictly in the political sphere but who has defended Israel using his legal expertise and his position as a public intellectual, by selecting Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus and civil liberties defender Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz has championed Israel as a legal expert, as an author of dozens of books (including The Case for Israel), and in the court of public opinion. Dershowitz has spent decades advocating on behalf of Israel, setting the record straight regarding Israel’s right to equal treatment on the international stage, and more recently, vocally defending Israel against BDS efforts.
As the nights of Chanukah continue to be commemorated, so too will be the Korenvaes Miracle Award honorees chosen by the public. At the end of the holiday, one lucky voter will be selected by a raffle and will win a free trip to Israel that will include airfare, hotel accommodations and a V.I.P. tour of United Hatzalah’s headquarters and Command and Dispatch Center in Jerusalem.
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