Student Rabbis awarded the first-ever Lord Etherton Prize

The Lord Etherton Award was established in 2026 by a legacy from The Rt Hon. The Lord Etherton GBE KC, a distinguished British judge and member of the House of Lords.

Lord Etherton was a trailblazer in breaking down barriers for the LGBTQ+ community within the legal profession.

The first-ever Lord Etherton Award recipients, Student Rabbis Emily Carp and Dr Stacy Hackner, reflected on receiving the award: “We are so honoured to have won the inaugural Lord Etherton Award. When we realised that we had both been to see the 2026 production of Yentl in London, we wanted to discuss our reactions to it with each other. Realising that our discussion, if written, could be a suitable piece to be submitted for the Lord Etherton Award, we decided to do so.

Our discussion of our responses to the stage show expanded to include our reactions to the original text as well, as well as a meta-analysis of how others in the LGBTQ+ community receive it. We found that our ideas about gendered dress were similar to each other, and in contrast to previous analyses. We are grateful for the feedback from the judges, and especially to the partner of the late Lord Etherton, for supporting the scholarship of student rabbis. We hope that our work inspires others to consider their responses to texts that are popularly read one way, and take a second glance!”

This generous endowment will fund the newly created Lord Etherton Award, providing an annual prize of £1,000 for the next ten years. The award will recognise one or more outstanding sermons, essays, articles, or other publications on an LGBTQ+ theme submitted by members of the LBC student body.