Shekel Prize Recipient
Photos: Ira Rezak
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Shekel Prize Recipient

Published July 25, 2025 | Read time 2 min read

By Sydney Stewart

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Ira Rezak received the 2025 Shekel Prize for his 2024 publication, Jewry Reflected, Refracted and Recorded on Medals. The honor, awarded annually since 2017, is presented to the author of the best book on ancient Judaean, Holy Land, Israel, or Jewish numismatics. Rezak based the prize-winning text on an exhibition of his material at New York’s Center for Jewish History. The book surveys medals and related items that represent Jewish history, culture, and experience and shares the stories these artifacts tell. Jewry Reflected depicts specimens such as Moses Murro’s 1932 prize medal for the Levant Fair in Tel Aviv; Boris Schatz’s 1910 medal, A Jewish Mother; and Isidor Konti’s 1905 medal celebrating the 250th anniversary of Jewish settlement in America. 

The 1932 copper prize medal designed by Moses Murro for the Levant Fair in Tel Aviv presents how Jewish people have adapted to change by inventing a new iconographic logo—the flying camel, a modern version of an ancient Jewish mode of passage. (Photo: Ira Rezak)
The 1910 bronze art medal “A Jewish Mother” by Boris Schatz offers a reflection upon Jewish values, presenting a mother in the act of tenderly raising her young child, both literally and figuratively. (Photo: Ira Rezak)
 The bronze medal crafted by Isidore Konti in 1905 celebrates the 250th anniversary of the arrival of Jews in America and records this event in a classical Beaux-Arts style. (Photo: Ira Rezak)

Rezak is a retired physician and educator who specializes in Jewish numismatics and serves as a board member of the American Israel Numismatic Association. He is an emeritus professor at Stony Brook University and the president of the Harry G. Friedman Society, an organization dedicated to Jewish art.

A version of this article appears in the September 2025 issue of The Numismatist (money.org).