Sigmund Sternberg
- Ruth Schiff
- Hazel Sternberg
Michael Sternberg
Ruth Tamir (nee Sternberg)
David Sternberg
Sir Sigmund Sternberg KCSG GCFO OOA[1] JP[2] (Hungarian: Sternberg Zsigmond; 2 June 1921 – 18 October 2016) was a Hungarian-British philanthropist, interfaith campaigner, businessman and Labour Party donor.
Early life
Sternberg was born in 1921 in Budapest, Hungary.[3][4] He was Jewish. He emigrated to England in 1939,[3] and was naturalised as a British citizen in 1947.
Career
Sternberg worked in the scrap metal trade.[3] After the war, he founded Sternberg Group of Companies.[4] By 1968 he retired from the scrap metal trade and focused on commercial property investments.[4]
Philanthropy
Sternberg worked to promote dialogue between different faiths. For example, he relocated a Roman Catholic convent at Auschwitz. Moreover, he organised the first papal visit to a synagogue in 1986. Additionally, he negotiated the Vatican's recognition of the state of Israel.[citation needed]
He was a long-term Labour Party supporter and donor.[5]
Sternberg established The Sir Sigmund Sternberg Charitable Foundation in 1969 and was one of the co-founders of the Three Faiths Forum. Sternberg was Life President of the Movement for Reform Judaism.[6] He was chairman of the Sternberg Interfaith Gold Medallion.
In 1976, Sternberg was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, and in 1985 he was made a Papal Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great (KCSG) by Pope John Paul II.[3] He was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 1998 for his interfaith work worldwide.[7] In November 2005, Sternberg was promoted to the highest rank within the Royal Order of Francis I to the grade of Knight Grand Cross (GCFO), this in recognition of his contributions to furthering the interfaith activities of the British and Irish Delegation.[8] In 2008, he received the FIRST International Award for Responsible Capitalism, lifetime achievement medal.[9] In 2009 he was made Officer of the Order of Ouissam Alaouite by King Mohammed VI.
Personal life and death
Sternberg married Ruth Schiff in 1949.[4] They had a son, Michael Sternberg, and a daughter, artist Frances Aviva Blane. They divorced in 1969, and he later married Hazel Sternberg, who died in 2014.[3] He died on 18 October 2016.[3]
References
- ^ Le Matin
- ^ Association Members Archived 2012-02-06 at the Wayback Machine – official website of the Association of Papal Orders in Great Britain of Pius IX, Saint Gregory and Saint Sylvester
- ^ a b c d e f Sugarman, Daniel (19 October 2016). "Sir Sigmund Sternberg dead at 95". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 23 October 2016.
- ^ a b c d Klein, Emma (20 October 2016). "Obituary: Sir Sigmund Sternberg". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 23 October 2016.
- ^ "Tribute to Sir Sigmund Sternberg – Labour Business". Labour Business. 2017. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
- ^ Who's who: Sir Sigmund Sternberg, President – website of Movement for Reform Judaism
- ^ Previous price winners – website of the Templeton Prize
- ^ Interfaith leader Sir Sigmund Sternberg promoted to the highest rank within the Royal Order of Francis I – official website of the Grand Magistral Delegation for Inter-Religious Relations
- ^ 2008 Award – official website of FIRST Magazine
External links
- Profile from the Three Faiths Forum
- A portrait of Sir Sigmund (1998) by Valerie Wiffen, Sir Sigmund Sternberg by Valerie Wiffen, oil on canvas, 1998], is in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
- v
- t
- e
- Mother Teresa (1973)
- Brother Roger (1974)
- Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1975)
- Leo Josef Suenens (1976)
- Chiara Lubich (1977)
- Thomas F. Torrance (1978)
- Nikkyō Niwano (1979)
- Ralph Wendell Burhoe (1980)
- Cicely Saunders (1981)
- Billy Graham (1982)
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1983)
- Michael Bourdeaux (1984)
- Alister Hardy (1985)
- James I. McCord (1986)
- Stanley Jaki (1987)
- Inamullah Khan (1988)
- Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker & George MacLeod (1989)
- Baba Amte & Charles Birch (1990)
- Immanuel Jakobovits (1991)
- Kyung-Chik Han (1992)
- Charles Colson (1993)
- Michael Novak (1994)
- Paul Davies (1995)
- Bill Bright (1996)
- Pandurang Shastri Athavale (1997)
- Sigmund Sternberg (1998)
- Ian Barbour (1999)
- Freeman Dyson (2000)
- Arthur Peacocke (2001)
- John Polkinghorne (2002)
- Holmes Rolston III (2003)
- George F. R. Ellis (2004)
- Charles H. Townes (2005)
- John D. Barrow (2006)
- Charles Taylor (2007)
- Michał Heller (2008)
- Bernard d'Espagnat (2009)
- Francisco J. Ayala (2010)
- Martin Rees (2011)
- 14th Dalai Lama (2012)
- Desmond Tutu (2013)
- Tomáš Halík (2014)
- Jean Vanier (2015)
- Jonathan Sacks (2016)
- Alvin Plantinga (2017)
- Abdullah II of Jordan (2018)
- Marcelo Gleiser (2019)
- Francis Collins (2020)
- Jane Goodall (2021)
- Frank Wilczek (2022)
- Edna Adan Ismail (2023)