Tanenbaum Center for Intrreligious Understanding
  
 


Former President William Clinton delivers the 2006 Memorial Lecture

read the transcript  

See past memorial lecturers and read past transcripts.
Learn about Tanenbaum's awards, Memorial Lecture and past honorees.
 

stay in touch

 
 Keep up with all the latest news and events. 
 

sign up now! 

 

SAVE THE DATE!  June 4, 2008

Tanenbaum's 15th Anniversary Award Ceremony & Memorial Lecture
6-9PM, United Nations Headquarters, New York City

The Mighty and the Almighty

Join us this June for our best Award Ceremony and Memorial Lecture yet, as Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright delivers the 2008 Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum Memorial Lecture and receives the Rabbi Marc. H. Tanenbaum Award for the Advancement of Interreligious Understanding.

This year, we'll also be honoring the Honorable John C. 
Whitehead, former Deputy U.S. Secretary of State and long-time Tanenbaum Leadership Council member, with the 2008 Corporate Bridge Builder Award; and NBC News Anchor Ann Curry with the 2008 Media Bridge Builder Award.  In addition, contemporary artist Tom Block will be exhibiting painting from his Human Rights
Painting Project.

Download a sponsorship and ticket form today!  For more information, contact Development Coordinator Zach Larson at zlarson@tanenbaum.org or (212) 967-7707 x104.


more about our awardees:

The Honorable Madeleine Albright

The Honorable Madeleine Albright was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia and moved with her family to the United States in 1948. She received a BA from Wellesley College with honors in Political Science in 1959 and went on to study at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and the Russian Institute at Columbia University.  Secretary Albright obtained her Masters and Doctorate from Columbia University's Department of Public Law and Government. 

Secretary Albright served as Chief Legislative Assistant to Senator Edmund S. Muskie.  She went on to serve as the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations and as a member of President Clinton's Cabinet and National Security Council. On January 23, 1997, Albright was sworn in as the 64th U.S. Secretary of State, becoming the first female Secretary of State in the history of the United States from 1976-1978 and serving as a member on the National Security Council from 1978-1980.

Following her term as Secretary of State, Albright joined the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations and became the Mortara Distinguished Professor of Diplomacy at the Georgetown University Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service in Washington, DC.  She served on the Board of Directors of the New York Stock Exchange from 2003 to 2005.    

Secretary Albright currently serves as chairperson of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and Pew Global Attitudes Project.  She is President of the Truman Scholarship Foundation and founder of the global strategy firm The Albright Group.  She is co-chair of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor and on the Board of the Aspen Institute.  She is the author of many books, including The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (2006, HarperCollins).

back to top

The Honorable John C. Whitehead 

John C. Whitehead was born in Evanston, Illinois.  He grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, attended public schools there and graduated from Montclair High School.  He lived in nearby Essex Fells until 1985 and has resided in Manhattan since 1989.

Mr. Whitehead graduated from Haverford College in 1943, and served in the U. S. Navy, participating in the invasions of Normandy, Southern France, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.  While still in the Navy, Mr. Whitehead was assigned as an instructor at Harvard Business School.  He received his M.B.A. degree, with distinction, from Harvard in 1947 and holds honorary degrees from Haverford, Pace, Rutgers, Amherst, Harvard, General Theological Seminary, Berea College and Bates College.

Mr. Whitehead began his professional career in 1947 at Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he worked for 38 years.  He rose quickly within the company and was named Partner in 1956, and Co-Chairman and Senior Partner in 1976.  He has served on the board of numerous companies, and as a Director of the New York Stock Exchange, and Chairman of the Securities Industry Association.

In April 1985, Mr. Whitehead was asked to become Deputy Secretary of State, second-in-command to Secretary George Shultz, and served until January 1989.  During this period, he was Acting Secretary of State when Mr. Shultz was away from Washington.  Mr. Whitehead was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Reagan.

Since returning to New York from Washington in 1989, he has been active in a number of educational, civic and charitable organizations.  He is a former Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the United Nations Association, the International Rescue Committee, International House, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Harvard Board of Overseers, Haverford College, and the Asia Society (not all at the same time).  He is presently Chairman of the Goldman Sachs Foundation and is also Co Chairman of the Greater New York Councils of the Boy Scouts.  He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowships and a former Director of Rockefeller University, Lincoln Center Theater, the J. Paul Getty Trust, Outward Bound, the East West Institute and the National Humanities Center.  In Washington, Mr. Whitehead is Chairman Emeritus of the Brookings Institution and the Trustees Council of the National Gallery of Art.

In late 2001, he was appointed Chairman of the Board of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the organization responsible for the rebuilding and revitalization of Lower Manhattan.  He served in that position until May 2006.  He is also the Founding Chairman of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation.

back to top

Ann Curry

Ann Curry was named co-anchor of “Dateline NBC” in May 2005 and news anchor for NBC News’ “Today” in March 1997.

Curry has distinguished herself in global humanitarian reporting. From March 2006 to March 2007, she traveled three times to Sudan to report on the violence and ethnic cleansing taking place in Darfur and Chad.  While there, she provided in-depth reports focusing on the victims who have been caught in the deadly conflict in that region, and she also conducted exclusive interviews with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and Chadian President Idrsiss Deby. In July 2006, Curry reported on the Israel-Lebanon war, and she was one of the only American reporters to file stories on both sides of the conflict from Beirut and Northern Israel. 

In the summer of 2005, Curry traveled with First Lady Laura Bush throughout Africa to discuss issues that plague the continent such as the HIV/AIDS epidemic and women's rights and education.  She was the first network news anchor to report from inside the tsunami zone in Southeast Asia, filing live and taped reports from Sri Lanka for “Dateline,” “Today” and “NBC Nightly News.”  She was also the first network news anchor to report on the humanitarian refugee crisis caused by the genocide in Kosovo, reporting for NBC News from Albania and Macedonia. 

In the first two weeks following the attacks of September 11, Curry reported live from ground zero every day.   When the United States bombed Al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan in November 2001, she reported extensively from the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea, and landed the first exclusive interview the war’s military commander, General Tommy Franks.  Curry reported from Baghdad in the weeks leading up to the war in Iraq, and then from the USS Constellation as the war began, interviewing fighter pilots who flew the first wave of bombing runs over Iraq. She also filed reports from inside Iraq, from Qatar, and Kuwait during the first weeks of the war.

Curry’s exclusive interviews include Liberia’s Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the first female elected President of an African nation, the first highly sought after interview with Thomas Hamill, the truck driver for Halliburton subsidiary KBR, who escaped captivity in Iraq, the first interview with accused spy Wen Ho Lee after he was cleared of all charges of espionage against the United States, and the first interview with the parents of the McCaughey septuplets.  Curry has also repeatedly landed the first exclusive interview with Lance Armstrong after his Tour de France wins.

Curry first joined NBC News in August 1990 as a Chicago-based correspondent.  In 1992 she was named anchor of “NBC News at Sunrise.”  She later helped launch MSNBC and then became news anchor at “Today.”  Before coming to NBC, Curry was a reporter for KCBS in Los Angeles.  In 1981, she was a reporter and anchor for KGW, the NBC affiliate in Portland, Oregon. 

Curry has earned two Emmys, four Golden Mikes, several Associated Press Certificates of Excellence, two Gracies, and an award for Excellence in Reporting from the NAACP. She has been awarded by Americares, the Anti-Defamation League as a Woman of Achievement, and the Asian American Journalists Association, receiving its National Journalism Award in 2003. She has also won numerous awards for her charity work, primarily for breast cancer research.

Curry graduated from the University of Oregon School of Journalism in 1978.

back to top

Tom Block

Tom Block's Human Rights Painting Project highlights the struggle for human rights the world over.  Using a contemporary artistic voice, Mr. Block interprets different aspects of the struggle for human rights, emphasizing the stories that bring it to life.  The works themselves capture the range of emotions experienced in this battle.  Ultimately, the paintings bring together man's best and worst impulses – the heroes of the images are a counterpoint to the regimes and authorities that forced them into that role.  We are left with the uncomfortable question of which group is more typical of our human race – and which the exception.

The works have been exhibited in 25 different venues around the United States and Europe, as well as being covered by NPR's "Talk of the Nation," Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Chicago Reader, Sojourners Magazine, Utne Magazine, Galway (Ireland) Advertiser and many other periodicals, radio and televisions stations throughout the United States and Europe.  Mr. Block has support from the Puffin Foundation, Nelson Talbott Foundation, Amnesty International, UNESCO Center for Peace and numerous private donors to fund various aspects of the project.

back to top 

Marc H. Tanenbaum Memorial Lecture
is delivered by prominent individuals whose work in the public arena enables them to inspire broad audiences to work toward greater interreligious understanding. The lectures address issues of substance and are published in print and online for distribution. They are underwritten by a member of Tanenbaum’s Leadership Council, Richard A. Smith.  See our past lecturers and read the transcripts.

Marc H. Tanenbaum Award for the
Advancement of Interreligious Understanding
is presented to individuals whose careers have significantly advanced the cause of interreligious understanding. It is underwritten by Tanenbaum Center Board Member Adam Solomon.  Honoreess include:

     2007     H.E. Archbishop Demetrios

     2006     President Bill Clinton

     2003     HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal

     2002     Dr. Eugene J. Fisher

     1999      Senator George J. Mitchell

     1998      Elie Wiesel

     1997      Archbishop Iakovos

     1996      Bishop Krister Stendahl

     1994      Father Theodore Hesburgh                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Corporate Bridge Builder Award
is given to business leaders who use their positions of influence to promote human rights and build bridges between ethnic and/or religious communities.  Past honorees include:

     2005     Nader F. Darehshori

    2004     William J. Marino

    1999     Howard P. Milstein

    1997     Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke


Media Bridge Builder Award
is presented to journalists and media personalities whose work focuses public attention on issues of human rights and intergroup understanding.  Past honorees include:

      2007     Brian Williams

     2006     Judy Woodruff

     2000     Jerry Della Femina

     1998     Edward Lewis

     1997      Kati Marton

Do you know someone worthy of a Tanenbaum Award or someone who would deliver an interesting lecture? Let us know!  Contact us at info at tanenbaum dot org.

 

back to top

back to events home 



© 2008, Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding.  Read our privacy policy and terms of use .
If you're having trouble viewing this site, please contact us at web at tanenbaum dot org.

Web Development by Webdrafter.com, Inc