ABOUT THE HONOREES

SIR SIMON SCHAMA
London-born historian Sir Simon Schama is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University, New York City. Sir Simon previously taught at Cambridge, Oxford, and Harvard universities. He is also a contributing editor of the Financial Times.

Sir Simon was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2001 and was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours 2018.

He is the author of 20 award winning books, including The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age, Rembrandt's Eyes, A History of Britain (trilogy), The American Future: A History, and two volumes of The Story of the Jews.

He is the writer-presenter of 60 documentaries on art, history and literature for BBC television. his most recent documentary The Road to Auschwitz, was broadcast in April 2025. His award winning series include also include Story of the Jews, A History of Britain, and The Power of Art, which won an International Emmy for the episode on Bernini.

Sir Simon has been awarded numerous prizes and honours. His art criticism for The New Yorker won a National Magazine Award for criticism in 1996 and he won the NCR Book Award for Non-Fiction for Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, the WH Smith Literary Award for Landscape and Memory, and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-fiction for Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution.

He has received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature; the Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement, and the Premio Antonio Feltrinelli Prize in historical sciences from the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome.

Sir Simon has also curated exhibitions at the Whitechapel Art Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery.

His work has been translated into 23 languages. His 20th and most recent book, Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines and the Health of Nations, was published in 2023.

RUTH LEVINE
Ruth was a Reading Specialist who worked with learning disabled children at the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services. After retiring, she volunteered in the YIVO Archives before joining the YIVO board in 2006. After serving as Co-Chair for five years, she became Board Chair in 2017. She is a native Yiddish speaker who grew up in the Sholem Aleichem Houses in the Bronx. Her work at YIVO has brought her full circle from those early days.

DAVID LEVINE
Not counting his taxi driver days, David spent his entire career at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., Inc. He was a securities analyst, the firm's Chief Economist, and the Founder of its Bond Department. Among his activities in retirement, he has advised the Investment Committees at several non-profits, including, of course, YIVO.

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