Former Penn president Amy Gutmann to receive award from American Jewish history museum in Philadelphia

Amy Gutmann, president emerita of the University of Pennsylvania and former U.S. ambassador to Germany, will receive a prestigious award from the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia in November.

The award recognizes “Jewish Americans who have made enormous contributions to our world … often despite facing antisemitism and prejudice,” the museum announced Monday.

Gutmann will collect the “Only in America® Award” at a ceremony on Nov. 5.

» READ MORE: Back at Penn, former president Amy Gutmann reflects on ambassadorship and where she is now: ‘I feel very free’

“Throughout her career, she has been forceful in standing up and speaking out against antisemitism, the importance of Holocaust remembrance, and promoting tolerance and respect,” the museum said in a news release.

Others who have previously been honored with the award include Bud Selig, former commissioner of Major League Baseball; former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; and CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer.

Gutmann said Monday she is deeply honored to receive the award that ties together so much of her life, including her Penn presidency and her continuing role as a professor there, her ambassadorship, her identity as a Jewish American woman whose father fled Nazi Germany and made a better life for his family, and her love of her home city of Philadelphia.

“It means the world to me,” she said. “I’m pretty humbled by it.”

Gutmann was Penn’s longest-serving president, leading the Ivy League university for 18 years, from 2004 to 2022. She then became U.S. ambassador to Germany, a post she held for two and a half years until 2024. She returned to Penn last year and currently has a joint appointment as a distinguished professor of political science and a professor of communication. A political scientist who has written on “the spirit of compromise,” she’ll be co-teaching a class in the fall, “The art and ethics of communication in moments of crisis.”

» READ MORE: Confirmed as the next U.S. ambassador to Germany, Amy Gutmann reflects on nearly 18 years as Penn’s president

Gutmann has often talked about her father, Kurt, who fled Nazi Germany in 1934 and the influence that has had on her life.

“I would not even exist if it weren’t for his combination of courage and farsightedness,” she told the New York Times in 2011.

He died when she was a junior in high school. He had no life-insurance policy, and Gutmann’s mother, Beatrice, became a secretary at the high school Gutmann attended. Gutmann went to Radcliffe College on a full scholarship including loans, which eventually were forgiven because of her service as a teacher.

“To go to the country that my father had to flee and to go as the U.S. ambassador is just historically meaningful,” she said in 2022 after being confirmed as the ambassador, “not just to me, but it shows what an alliance — what the U.S. working with Germany was able to accomplish over a time period — that sadly my father never got to live to see.”

Sharon Tobin Kestenbaum, co-chair of the Weitzman’s Board of Trustees, said of Gutmann: “Hers is a quintessential only-in-America story — her journey mirrors the stories that The Weitzman tells about luminary figures like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Steven Spielberg.”

During her tenure at Penn, she raised more than $10 billion, oversaw construction of many new buildings, prioritized financial aid to make a Penn education more accessible to students from low-income families, and led the school through a recession and pandemic. Some have pondered whether the university would have faced the same controversy over its handling of antisemitism had she still been president after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.

Former Penn president Liz Magill resigned in December 2023 after a bipartisan backlash over her congressional testimony at a hearing on colleges’ handling of antisemitism on campus. J. Larry Jameson, who had been executive vice president of the health system and dean of the medical school, stepped into the role on an interim basis and in March got the permanent appointment through June 2027.

» READ MORE: Penn president Liz Magill has resigned following backlash over her testimony about antisemitism

Gutmann said she chooses to look forward, not backward at what could have been had she still led Penn at that time.

“Do the right thing and the best thing you can do now,” she said. “I think Larry Jameson is doing an excellent job.”

Dan Tadmor, president and CEO of Weitzman, which was opened in 1976 and is based on Independence Mall, called Gutmann “a friend of Israel and the Jewish American community.”

Gutmann said she is a strong supporter of Israel and its right to exist, but also has called for aid in support of Palestinian civilians.

“I think it’s extremely important that Israel be secure,” she said. “It’s extremely important that there be peace in the Middle East. I’m also a very strong supporter of a two state solution.“

But she also emphasized that Hamas is a terrorist organization that does not represent the interests of the Palestinian people. Hamas, she said, attacked and killed people in Israel on that Oct. 7 and made it necessary for Israel to defend itself.

She noted that during her ambassadorship, she launched a “stand up and speak out” campaign in support of democracy and against all forms of hatred.

David L. Cohen, who served as Penn’s board chair during Gutmann’s presidency and is the chair for the museum award event, said in a statement that “her career is a masterclass in visionary leadership, fierce intellect, and moral courage.

“From leading one of America’s greatest universities to representing our nation in Germany, she has consistently elevated dialogue, advanced equity, and honored her heritage.”