I am deeply honored and overjoyed to receive the Scopus Prize from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
I would especially like to thank Gabriel Goldman, who told me the news upon his return from Israel. I must say I was stunned and surprised when I found out. I certainly didn't expect it.
It has always struck me that the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was founded 23 years before the establishment of the State of Israel, thanks to the vision of a group of pioneers from the World Zionist Organization who had the courage to bring this issue to the forefront. Since the project was launched, the University has expanded its activities, which today encompass virtually all areas of human knowledge and have become a driving force for innovation. Its classrooms have produced Nobel Prize winners and recipients of other major awards in Israel, such as the one awarded to Dr. Seroussi. Today, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is consistently ranked among the best universities in the world.
Education has always been a central aspiration of the Jewish people, who have worked tirelessly to preserve the transmission and dissemination of Jewish thought and ethical principles, while actively engaging in the major social, cultural, and technological changes taking place around the world.
The same spirit prevailed among a group of thinkers in Tsarist Russia 138 years ago. They were the pioneers of the ORT project, which aimed to rescue Jewish communities confined to exclusion zones through vocational education as a means of liberation. This is how ORT was founded in 1880.
Ten thousand letters requesting support for the project were sent, and the response exceeded all expectations, enabling the ORT initiative to quickly take shape as a movement within Jewish life.
Both the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the ORT project managed to attract the attention of Albert Einstein and other prominent figures, who supported both initiatives from the very beginning. Albert Einstein delivered the inaugural lecture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on its opening day, and a few years later, he attended a fundraising dinner for ORT at the Savoy Hotel in London, accompanied by George Bernard Shaw. I have a memorable photo of that event on my desk.
Our institutions owe a great deal to all those tenacious visionaries and generous figures from the scientific community and the Jewish world of that time who supported these two ambitious dreams.
An academic cooperation agreement is now in place between the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Universidad ORT Uruguay, through which we hope to develop projects that benefit both countries.
My generation, through our firsthand experience of the brutal and criminal persecution of Nazism in occupied Europe, became "viscerally connected" to the Shoah (in the words of Claude Lanzmann) and bore an indelible tragic wound. The creation of the State of Israel was of unimaginable importance, particularly for the survivors.
In the face of global apathy toward genocide, we hoped that, with the end of the war, the active or passive collaboration of the "Mitläufer"—a term coined by the Franco-German journalist Geraldine Schwarz in her recent book *Les Amnésiques* to describe Nazi sympathizers—would disappear. Our isolation, defenselessness, and vulnerability would be a thing of the past. To a large extent, and despite persistent pockets of anti-Semitism and denial, the existence of the State of Israel has allowed us to reclaim the dignity and dreams that had been snatched away from us.
Seventy years later, the State of Israel stands as a striking reality, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem represents one of its finest symbols and achievements.
My thanks go to Dr. Seroussi of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Dr. Goldman and friends at the Hebrew University in Uruguay, to my family in Uruguay—Carolina, Victoria, Florencia, Matías, Laura, and Fabiana—to those living in Israel, the U.S., and Mexico, and especially to my brother Raymond, of blessed memory, who stood by me during the darkest years; to Ruperto Long, my biographer and friend, to my colleague and friend Dr. Adrián Moscowicz, Executive Director of ORT Argentina, to my son Jorge, who was a pillar of strength when we launched the major challenge of the university project, to my husband José for supporting my endeavors, to my colleagues and Friends of ORT Uruguay, and to all of you here today.
To the new Ambassador of Israel, Mrs. Galit Ronen, wishing her every success in her mission in our country.
It is a tremendous honor to receive this award today at this event.
Thank you very much.