The Micha Kirshner Prize, sponsored by the Ben-Yami and Kirshner families and the Department of Photography and Screen Arts, is awarded annually to outstanding fourth-year students from photography departments at higher institutions of art and photography. The purpose of the prize – amounting to ILS 20,000 – is to promote the art of photography and video among young beginning creators. The winners are selected by a three-person committee that includes a representative of the family, an external curator, and a representative of the college.

Aside from the prize, a one-day seminar is held in memory of Micha Kirshner, a collaboration between the Department of Photography and Screen Arts at the WIZO Haifa Academic Center, headed by Eran Hadad Barak, and the Haifa Museum of Art. As a rule, the seminars focus on art as an instrument of social/political criticism and on various angles for looking at the current reality.
The prize is announced at the end of the seminar.

The prize is awarded in memory of Micha Kirshner, admired artist and teacher, a pillar of Israeli culture who produced generations of students. Micha Kirshner was aptly described by Renen Shor, filmmaker, director, and initiator of the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School: “Micha’s click enchanted the school… Micha taught the school’s first-year stills photography workshop and left his imprint on hundreds of students here and on thousands over the years, at WIZO Haifa and elsewhere. As his students will attest. What is the Kirshner spirit? What is this elusive spirit of an inquisitive and demanding teacher who fights for multiple ways of observing and doing, the eye and the click, the imaginary and the material. What is the essence of the doubtful and amused look? The experienced and optimistic? The sane and Sisyphean spirit that allows one to ask all the questions repeatedly? And then once more from the beginning. Micha walked through the fields of Israeli reality with his camera. He tried to fathom it, confronted it, rebuilt it with many partners. Felt pained by it and told us one story after another. These were not goodnight stories.

We are deeply grateful to those who designed the website, most of all Shiraz Grinbaum who took an active part in the decision making processes, providing guidance and support. To our dearest Terry Schreuer and to the designer Ofri Fortis for paving the way to the initial concept, to The Studio and particularly Shlomi Nachmani, for the branding and construction of the website, to photographer Eran Ackerman for the scanning, and to Rachel Kessel for the translations.