Join us in celebrating the collective work of the Columbia and Barnard communities in enriching the lives of Jewish students on campus. We are thrilled to recognize the Gershom Mendes Seixas Award honorees Ester Fuchs, Nicholas Lemann, and David Schizer along with Young Leadership Award honoree David Fine CC’13.
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Learn more about this year’s honorees below.
Gershom Mendes Seixas Award Honorees
Co-Chairs of the Task Force on Antisemitism at Columbia University
Ester R. Fuchs is Professor of International and Public Affairs and Political Science at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where she directs the Urban and Social Policy Program. She served as Special Advisor to New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg for Governance and Strategic Planning from 2001 to 2005 and has held senior leadership roles at Barnard College and Columbia University. Professor Fuchs leads Whosontheballot.org, a voter engagement initiative for New York City, and Communities Speak, which works with community and government partners to build economically resilient, equitable, and livable cities. She is the author of Mayors and Money and has directed numerous research and policy projects focused on urban governance, civic participation, and social impact. Prof. Fuchs serves on several academic, civic, and Jewish communal boards and was the first woman to chair a New York City Charter Revision Commission. In 2001, she was asked to write a new Prayer for the US Government, which has been adopted by many synagogues. Prof. Fuchs’ work has been recognized with numerous honors, including the Bella Abzug Leadership Award and induction into the City Limits New York City Hall of Fame.
Nicholas Lemann was born and raised in New Orleans. He began his journalism career there as a 17-year-old staff writer for an alternate weekly paper called the Vieux Carre Courier. He graduated from Harvard College, where he was president of The Harvard Crimson, in 1976, magna cum laude in American History and Literature. He has worked as a reporter and editor at The Washington Monthly, Texas Monthly, The Washington Post, The Atlantic (where he was national correspondent from 1983 to 1999) and The New Yorker (where he has been a staff writer for twenty-five years), and contributed to many other publications. From 2003 to 2013 he was dean of Columbia Journalism School, leading a period of significant growth and change for the school, and since then he has been a professor there. At Columbia he has also helped launch Columbia Global Reports, a publishing venture that he continues to lead, Columbia World Projects, and the Knight Columbia First Amendment Institute. He is currently one of three co-chairs of the university’s antisemitism task force. His books include The Promised Land (1991), The Big Test (1999), Redemption (2006), Transaction Man (2019), and, most recently, Higher Admissions (2024). He is a member of several honorary societies, including the American Philosophical Society, the New York Institute for the Humanities, the Society of American Historians, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, where he serves as co-chair of the academy’s Commission on Reimagining Our Economy.
David Schizer is Dean Emeritus and Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law & Economics at Columbia Law School. He served as Dean from 2004 to 2014, and as CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a global Jewish humanitarian organization, from 2017 to 2019. He is the author of How to Save the World in Six (Not So Easy) Steps: Bringing Out the Best in Nonprofits. Schizer served as co-chair of Columbia University’s Task Force on Antisemitism from 2023 to 2025. He also is Second Vice Chair of the Executive Committee of the Tax Section of the New York State Bar Association, a co-founder and co-chair of the Richman Center for Law, Business, and Public Policy at Columbia University, and a co-founder and co-chair of the Center for Israeli Legal Studies at Columbia Law School. Schizer served as a law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Alex Kozinski on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Young Leadership Award Honoree
David is a co-founder of Understory Technologies, a startup that uses AI to automate data aggregation for financial analysts. Previously he spent nearly a decade in technology, building complex data products across marketing, personalization, and urban analytics. In addition to his work with the Kraft Center, David serves on the board of JCRC New York and the Harold Grinspoon Foundation’s Next Generation Advisory Board. He has a BA from Columbia in History and American Studies. While on campus he was active in Hillel, served as the Chair of the Student Governing Board, editor of The Current, and was a regular contributor to the Spectator. David lives in New York with his wife Ruthie, and two sons, Noah and Felix.
