Felicia Langer, who received the Right Livelihood Award in 1990, has passed away at the age of 87. For 22 years, Felicia Langer fought the injustice administered mainly by military courts in Israel. She received the Award “for the exemplary courage of her advocacy for the basic rights of the Palestinian people.”
Felicia Langer was born in Poland to Jewish parents who left to the Soviet Union in 1938. Most of her other family members died in the Holocaust. In 1949 she married the holocaust survivor Mieciu Langer and together they moved to Israel. From the mid-1960’s, she had her own legal practice in Tel Aviv. During the Six-day War in 1967, Langer was shocked by the oppression and injustice of the Israeli regime in the occupied territories and began to defend Palestinian victims. Langer called for an end to the occupation and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
“We have lost a strong voice that was motivated by love and devotion and sought to build bridges based on peace and justice. It is a significant loss to the Palestinian people and their struggle against oppression. Felicia Langer took a stand for a better Israel. Our thoughts are with her closest friends and family”, said Ole von Uexkull, Executive Director of the Right Livelihood Award Foundation.
For her work, Langer suffered abuse and lived under permanent threat of violence. In 1990, she moved to Germany to work at the University in Tübingen. She continued to speak at public events to mobilise solidarity with the Israeli peace movement and the Palestinian people. In 2009, she received Germany’s Federal Cross of Merit, 1st Class.
In 1990, when receiving the Award, Langer said:
“…the Palestinian tragedy, which is now our tragedy too, is regarded as one of the most important topics on the international agenda, that it is unbearable to ignore the human suffering of a whole people, denied basic human rights in the last decade of our century, a whole nation without any protection.”
Felicia Langer’s tireless commitment for human rights is a source of inspiration in a world continuing to struggle for justice for all.
