The nonprofit group Reaching Common Ground announced the prize-winners of its first essay contest yesterday, to the delight of $10,000 winner and Tufts sophomore Dora Levinson.
"I don't even have an idea of how much money that is," she said.
Levinson, a community health major, discovered last Wednesday that she had won second prize in the contest, which asked entrants to submit an original work on how Christians and Jews share a type of common ground.
Her prize was second only to graduate student Adam Meredith-Ployd of Atlanta, who is attending the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. In total, the Reaching Common Ground essay contest offered $100,000 in prize money, the richest student essay competition in the United States.
According to Levinson, the large amount of prize money brings needed attention to the essay contest's topic. "I've told my people that I won an essay contest and they say, 'Oh that's great,'" she said. "But when I tell them I won $10,000, they're like, 'Oh my God!'"
The essay contest asked for submissions from youth aged 16-22 and received over 4,000 works from across the country.
Levinson's passion for the essay topic stretches beyond her work. "I think that because of globalization and interactions between countries, interfaith relations are becoming important," Levinson said. "People need to have a better grasp so that they don't dismiss others because of their religious practice."
Family history and her upbringing played the largest roles in development of Levinson's ideals of interfaith relations. "I grew up in an interfaith family," she said. "It has rich traditions coming down on both sides."
Levinson's father is a rabbi, while her mother attended divinity school.
She grew up on a faith-based farm that grew crops for impoverished inner-city Bostonians. "We even had 'kitty-worship,' which was a way to make faith accessible," Levinson said.
It seems fitting, then, that Levinson heard about the contest through her father. Upon hearing about the contest from a fellow member of an inter-faith clergy association, Rabbi Levinson offered the opportunity to Dora.
Resulting from her strong family faith background, part of the prize money will be donated to the synagogue under which she grew up in Brattleboro, Vt.
Other money from the prize will help an interfaith nonprofit started by her brother, which is based on the late Mother Theresa's principles. According to Levinson, she will donate money to "a health clinic in Calcutta for street
children."
While the shock of winning such a large prize has just recently hit Levinson, she has time to recover before further events.
A meeting of the prize-winners will be held in April, where she hopes to meet and talk with Meredith-Ployd. "I think his essay is interesting," she said, unsure of whether she agreed with him.
The contest asked writers to discuss Judeo-Christian common grounds through historical or current events, or through faith.
Taking an unusual approach to the question, Levinson offered a rethinking of the story of Cain and Abel. "There was another option," she said. "They could have worked together rather than competing for the attention of God."
Reaching Common Ground is a nonprofit organization started by 25-year old Harvard graduate student and philanthropist Elizabeth Goldhirsh.
In order to put forward the richest American essay contest, Reaching Common Ground coupled with Baltimore's Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies (ICJS).
"It was amazing to see the concern and commitment these students of different faiths shared in their essays," ICJS executive director and contest judge Reverend Dr. Christopher Leighton said in a press release yesterday.
