Education Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the Jewish Home party, announced on Sunday that radical leftist activist Prof. David Shulman is the recipient of the Israel Prize in the field of religious studies and philosophy research.
Shulman is a senior activist in the Palestinian-Israeli group Ta’ayush, and in 2007 he published his book “Bitter Hope: From the Diary of a Ta’ayush Activist, 2002-2006.”
Ta’ayush is a radical leftist organization which last month shot into infamy over an investigative report that aired on Channel 2‘s show “Uvda,” leading to a criminal investigation into Ezra Nawi and Guy Butavia, both members of the group.
The two were filmed admitting to how they get the Palestinian Authority (PA) to torture and execute Palestinian Arabs who want to sell land to Jews, a fact Nawi, a Hamas supporter and convicted pedophile, openly bragged about in the footage.
Ta’ayush regularly conducts provocative confrontations against the IDF in the southern Hevron region, and a new investigative report has shown it is funded by Rabbi for Human Rights, a fact being hidden to scam American donors.
Giving its reasoning for granting the prize to Shulman, the prize committee noted that the professor from Hebrew University is a leading researcher into the literature and culture of southern India and has an international reputation.
Shulman’s research is characterized by his proficiency in a wide variety of languages including Sanskrit, Tamil, Hindi and Telugu.
His work focuses on a variety of topics including religions, myths, art, folklore and imagination. He established the field of India Studies in Israel, and most India researchers in Israel are his students.