Award Honors Commitment to the Ideals of American Exceptionalism
Milwaukee, WI – The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation has announced that Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik, one of the nation’s preeminent Jewish thinkers, scholars, public intellectuals, and religious leaders, is a 2026 Bradley Prize recipient. Rabbi Soloveichik will receive the award at the Bradley Prizes ceremony on Thursday, May 14, 2026, in Washington, D.C.
Now in its 22nd year, the Bradley Prize is awarded to individuals whose extraordinary work exemplifies the Foundation’s mission to restore, strengthen, and protect the principles and institutions of American exceptionalism.
“Rabbi Soloveichik is one of the country’s most thoughtful and compelling voices on the roles of faith and tradition in America’s founding,” said Rick Graber, president and CEO of The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. “At a moment when our culture often rejects faith, or in some cases stigmatizes those who uphold it, Rabbi Soloveichik reminds us that religious freedom is not merely tolerated in America, but it is essential to the nation’s character and constitutional order. The Bradley Foundation is pleased to honor him for his scholarship, his courageous commentary, and the moral clarity he brings to the national dialogue.”
As in the past, this year’s award recipients were chosen by the Bradley Prizes Selection Committee, after careful review ofover 60 distinguished nominations.Each award carries a stipend of $300,000.
“I’m profoundly grateful for the honor The Bradley Foundation has chosen to bestow upon me,” Rabbi Soloveichik said. “It is humbling to be linked to the brilliant scholars and courageous leaders that have been recipients of the Bradley Prize, and even more so considering the stature of those that make the decision regarding the Prize. I am especially moved by the prospect of the unique privilege, given all that The Bradley Foundation holds dear, of being part of a Bradley Prize ceremony right before we mark America’s 250th anniversary.”
Rabbi Soloveichik is the rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York, the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States, and Director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University. He is a Senior Fellow at Tikvah, an institution dedicated to preserving and advancing the foundational ideas of Jewish history and of the American Founding. Rabbi Soloveichik has lectured throughout the United States and in the United Kingdom, Israel, Europe, Asia, and Australia on a wide array of topics related to theology, the Western tradition, the history of religion, the impact of the Bible on the American Founding, and the uniquely American vision of religious liberty. He is known for his devotion to Jewish-Christian engagement, and has spoken about the biblical moral vision at the Vatican, and at Christian colleges and universities across America and in Europe.
He was appointed by President Trump to the Department of Justice’s Religious Liberty Commission in 2025, and to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom by the Senate Majority Leader in 2024, serving in 2025 as its Vice Chair. In 2018 he was awarded the Canterbury Medal for his work on behalf of religious liberty by the Becket Fund.
Rabbi Soloveichik is the author of several books, including Providence and Power: Ten Portraits in Jewish Statesmanship, for which he was featured in the Wall Street Journal for providing “lessons in leadership from the Hebrew Bible.” His articles have been published numerous times in the Wall Street Journal, as well as in Commentary, for which he is a columnist, the Free Press, National Review, Mosaic, First Things, and many other publications. He also hosts influential podcasts, including Bible365, a daily study of the Hebrew Bible that completes all Jewish scripture in a year, and Jerusalem365, which tells the 4,000-year history of Jerusalem.
