Obermayer Awards Jury
Sara Nachama, Jury President
Sara Nachama was involved in the formation of the Obermayer Awards and has been on the jury since the very first ceremony. She is on the board of Jewish Community in Berlin, where she is a member of the steering committee for cultural affairs and is responsible for the Culture and Adult Education Centre. She also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Jewish Hospital in Berlin. In 2014 she was awarded a Federal Cross of Merit for her voluntary community service.
Miriam Bistrovic
Miriam Bistrovic is director of Berlin operations for the Leo Back Institute. She coordinates the institute’s activities and projects in Germany, ranging from panel discussions and lectures to workshops, conferences, and traveling exhibits. Before joining the Leo Baeck Institute, she worked for the first Independent Experts Group on Antisemitism, constituted by the German Bundestag in 2009; Berlin’s theme year 2013 “Diversity Destroyed: 1933/1938”; and as project coordinator for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Multi Year Work Plan on “Killing Sites.” Dr. Bistrovic majored in modern history and art history. She was a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellow at the Center for German and European Studies at the University of Tokyo, Komaba, in 2008. She earned her Ph.D. at the Technical University Berlin in 2010, where she also conducted seminars on media analysis at the Center for Research on Antisemitism and the department of political science. Her current research fields are: Jewish Exile, in particular in East Asia, and Diaspora, Culture(s) of Remembrance, and Antisemitism.
Cristina M. Finch
Cristina M. Finch currently serves as the head of the Gender and Security Division at DCAF–Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance. Ms. Finch is a human rights lawyer and advocate with 20 years of experience in advancing human rights in the areas of women's and LGBT rights, hate crimes, and discrimination. She is the former head of the Tolerance and Non-Discrimination Department at the Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, and former managing director for the Identity and Discrimination Unit at Amnesty International USA. Ms. Finch has also served as legal counsel to the Human Rights Campaign and the Congresses of both the United States and the Republic of Palau. A former adjunct law professor at George Mason University, she has provided expert testimony before the United Nations Human Rights Council, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and the U.S. Congress.
Viola Georgi
Viola Georgi is professor of diversity education at the University of Hildesheim in Germany. She is the founding director of the Center for Diversity, Democracy, and Inclusion in Education. Prior to this position, she was an associate professor for Intercultural Education at the Free University Berlin. She earned a PhD in sociology at Goethe-University Frankfurt and taught at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich and Free University Berlin. Georgi’s research is concerned with migration studies in Germany, Europe, and North America. She has profound international research experiences in the area of migration and diversity studies, among others at Sabanci University (Turkey), York University in Toronto (Canada), Uppsala University (Sweden), Cape Coast University (Ghana), and Harvard University (U.S). Her research focuses on diversity and democracy in education, history and civic education, memory studies, educational media analysis as well as intercultural school development and teacher education.
Anetta Kahane
Anetta Kahane is chairwoman of the board of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation. She was born and raised in East Berlin and worked as a Latin American scholar in the GDR. In 1991 she founded the Regional Offices for Education, Integration and Democracy (Regionale Arbeitsstellen für Bildung, Integration und Demokratie or RAA e.V.) for the new federal states. As managing director she was involved in democratization processes at schools and intercultural education. In 1991, together with other personalities such as Joachim Gauck, she received the Theodor Heuss Medal on behalf of the peaceful revolution and self-liberation of the former GDR. In 1998, Kahane founded the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, of which she was chairwoman of the board of trustees. Since 2003 she has been the full-time chairwoman of the foundation. She is also a member of the board of trustees of the Theodor Heuss Foundation. In the summer of 2002 Ms. Kahane was awarded the Moses Mendelssohn Prize of the State of Berlin.
Hanno Loewy
Hanno Loewy is the director of the Jewish Museum Hohenems in Austria. The founding director of the Fritz Bauer Institute, he was guest curator for the permanent exhibitions of the Jewish Museum Frankfurt am Main and Berlin. Dr. Loewy was president of the Association of European Jewish Museums from 2011 to 2017. His many publications cover subjects including the history of photography, film, and modern aesthetics; Jewish history and culture and contemporary Jewish politics; and the impact of the Holocaust on literature and film. His most recent book is All About Tel Aviv–Jaffa. Die Erfindung einer Stadt (All About Tel Aviv–Jaffa: The Invention of a City), together with Hannes Sulzenbacher, 2019.
Henry Obermayer
Henry Obermayer is a son of Arthur S. Obermayer and Judith Obermayer, founders of the Obermayer Awards and the Obermayer Foundation. He is a psychologist and a community builder in the San Francisco area. A faculty member in the Intensive English Program at the University of Rostock in 1988, Mr. Obermayer has returned many times to Germany since then for both professional and personal reasons.