Nazarian: Yakirat Bezalel

In June 2023, a prestigious honor was bestowed upon one of the founding members of WIZO Los Angeles, Soraya Sarah Nazarian, at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem.

We were delighted to take part in honoring Soraya Sarah Nazarian, a founding member of WIZO Los Angeles and generous benefactor of WIZO, as she received the honor of “Yakirat Bezalel,” the highest honor bestowed by the prestigious Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem.

Soraya, who is herself an accomplished artist, a master in the medium of direct carving in stone, was honored alongside some of Israel’s most prominent artists and cultural figures.

Established in 1906, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem is recognized as Israel’s preeminent academic institution for art, design and architecture. 

After the ceremony, the guests, including WIZO President Esther Mor, Chairperson of External Relations Ahuva Koren, and Director of External Relations Danny Shapiro, took part in the inauguration of the beautiful Younes and Soraya Nazarian Library and Digital Archive in the new Bezalel campus in Jerusalem.

In 2021, Soraya inaugurated WIZO’s new, state-of-the-art Younes and Soraya Nazarian Day Care and Early Childhood Education Center in Tel Aviv.

Younes and Soraya Nazarian are prominent members of the Iranian Jewish community in Los Angeles, and are renowned for their years of philanthropic work for the community in diverse fields such as the arts, health and institutions of higher education, both in America and Israel.

“The Nazarian family’s commitment to the advancement of Israeli society is expressed in three main ways – education, art, and medicine,” said Esther Barak Landes, CEO of the Ima Foundation, the Israeli arm of the Nazarian Foundation. She added that a fourth goal, that will soon become the Foundation’s main focus, is empowering women in society.

The partnership between the Nazarian Foundation and WIZO is a culmination of a relationship going back to Israel’s earliest days, in the 1950s, when the Nazarian family matriarch.