Wolf Prize Recipient Gives His Award Money to Palestinians

June 17, 2008

Mathematician David Mumford of Brown University has said that he is giving $100,000 in Wolf Prize money to a Palestinian university and to a group in Israel that works for freedom of movement for Palestinian undergraduates. Mumford's pioneering work in algebraic geometry had garnered him the prestigious award.

During his acceptance speech in Israel's Knesset on May 25, Mumford noted that mathematics in Israel flourishes today on a high international plane. The subject's lifeblood, he continued "is the free exchange of ideas with scholars visiting, teaching, learning from each other, traveling everywhere in the world."

"This is not so," Mumford said, "in occupied Palestine, where education struggles to continue and travel is greatly limited."

His prize money, Mumford said, would go to Bir Zeit University, in the West Bank, and to the Israeli human-rights group called Gisha.

"I am very grateful for the prize," Mumford told Haaretz, "but I believe that Palestinian students should have an opportunity to go elsewhere to acquire an education."

Source: Haaretz, May 26, 2008; Chronicle of Higher Education, May 26, 2008.