Conversation with Masha Gessen, recipient of the Hannah Arendt Prize 2023

The event is fully booked. However, you are welcome to visit our livestream.
 

This week, the Heinrich Böll Foundation withdrew from the award ceremony planned for December 15 in Bremen to present the Hannah Arendt Prize to Masha Gessen. The reason for this is an essay published in the New Yorker on December 9, in which Gessen compares the Gaza Strip with the Jewish ghettos of Nazi-occupied Europe.

Gessen's essay has since been the subject of controversial and intense debates. Our decision as a foundation has also sparked much discussion. The reactions range from accusations of cancel culture against Jewish intellectuals who express criticism of Israel to the demand that Masha Gessen be retroactively stripped of the Hannah Arendt Prize. We want to confront these debates publicly - together with Masha Gessen.

We are glad that Gessen has agreed to join the presidents of the Heinrich Böll Foundation to discuss the developments of the past week as well as the role and responsibility of the media and of foundations regarding the culture of remembrance and current political discourse.

We cordially invite you to join us.

With

• Masha Gessen, journalist and writer
• Dr. Imme Scholz, President of the Heinrich Böll Foundation
• Jan Philipp Albrecht, President of the Heinrich Böll Foundation

Moderation: Dr. Tamara Or, Executive Director of the German-Israeli Future Forum

Information:    
Michael Stognieko
Project Manager
Democracy and Society
E stognienko@boell.de

Press:
Laura Endt
Press Officer
E endt@boell.de

Your Participation in the event

» Participation on site
at the the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Conference Center, Schumannstr. 8, 10117 Berlin

Please register. Unfortunately, the number of seats is limited. Should the room capacity be exhausted, we will transmit the conference via video to other rooms. We would like to point out that there is no entitlement to a seat in the room. 

» Livestream
Alternatively, you can follow the event via the livestream without registering.