Trailblazing Jewish, Muslim and Sikh women awarded UK’s top interfaith honour
Mitzvah Day founder Laura Marks among trio recognised with Sternberg Interfaith Gold Medallion for decades of cross-faith bridge-building
Three leading women from Jewish, Muslim and Sikh communities have received one of Britain’s highest accolades for interfaith work.
At a ceremony on 23 June, Laura Marks CBE, Dr Julie Siddiqi MBE and Professor Jagbir Jhutti-Johal were presented with the Sternberg Interfaith Gold Medallion – an award previously given to Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Pope John Paul II – for their “exceptional contribution” to faith understanding in the UK and beyond.
Announcing the awards, Michael Sternberg OBE KC, Executive Chair of the Sir Sigmund Sternberg Charitable Foundation, said the winners represent “completely splendid attributes and achievements” which his late father, who founded the prize in 1986, “would have vigorously applauded.”
“The exceptional contribution of these worthy winners to interfaith dialogue in the UK over many decades is reason enough to celebrate and salute each of them,” he said. “Much of the work done within communities here to build understanding and to heal rifts is actually done by women. Sadly, this is too often ignored.”
He added: “Each of these women, who in their own way is a trailblazer and a pathfinder, will underline the huge contribution of women to interfaith work in the United Kingdom which is now taking place and which is a joy to behold.”
Laura Marks is the founder of the Jewish-led social action initiative Mitzvah Day and co-founder of Nisa-Nashim, a Jewish-Muslim women’s network. She also chaired the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust for nearly a decade and helped establish the Women’s Faith Forum and the UK’s Freedom of Religion and Belief Forum.
Dr Julie Siddiqi MBE is the other co-founder of Nisa-Nashim, as well as co-founder of the British Muslim Network and a leading Muslim voice in social action and interfaith work, including The Big Iftar. A familiar voice on BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day, she is also patron of the United Religions Initiative and The Feast.
Sikh academic Professor Jagbir Jhutti-Johal of the University of Birmingham is a Commissioner on Religion and Belief in British Public Life, a steering group member of the UK Freedom of Religion or Belief Forum, and a member of the Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief at the ODIHR (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights). Her work focuses on theology, women’s rights, and contested global issues within the Sikh community.
Past recipients of the Sternberg Interfaith Gold Medallion include philanthropist Dr David Dangoor, Cardinal Basil Hume, Lord Yehudi Menuhin, and most recently Sir Stephen Timms and Dr Harriet Crabtree OBE.
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