On Wednesday, actress Gal Gadot, Skydance Chairman and Co-CEO David Ellison and producer Jeffrey Katzenberg presented Skydance Co-CEO Ynon Kreiz with the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s 2026 Humanitarian Award.
Kreiz was honored at the Simon Wiesenthal Center‘s annual Humanitarian Award Dinner. The organization, the world’s leading Jewish human rights institution, chose to honor Kreiz in recognition of his commitment to humanitarian causes.
The dinner was held just a month after Skydance completed its controversial $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. In its first post-merger move, Ellison announced that the media conglomerate would be renamed the Skydance Corporation with him and Kreiz at the helm.
In addition to Kreiz, former CNN Senior Global Affairs analyst Bianna Golodryga was presented at the Wednesday event with the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Jewish Heritage Award in recognition of her commitment to honest journalism.
Golodryga is an Emmy-winning journalist. On Wednesday, ahead of her award presentation, it was also announced that Gadot would executive produce a Hollywood adaptation of Golodryga and Israeli Channel 12 news anchor Yonit Levi’s young adult novel “Don’t Feed the Lion.” Fox Entertainment Studios and Moriah Media are onboard to option, develop and produce the adaptation.
The novel follows Theo Kaplan, a 13-year-old soccer co-captain, his younger sister Annie and their classmate Gabe as they find their lives upended after Theo’s soccer idol posts an antisemitic message that goes viral online. When the message’s hateful rhetoric begins to spread throughout their Chicago middle school, the young trio is forced to navigate prejudice and peer pressure, as well as find a community of their own.
“This is a story that feels especially personal to us, both as parents and as a family,” Gadot and Pilot Waves Motion Pictures’ Jaron Varsano said in a statement about the adaptation. “We want our children to grow up in a world where differences are respected, where hatred is challenged and where no one feels alone in standing up for what is right. ‘Don’t Feed the Lion’ opens the door to conversations that matter, and we are grateful to be part of bringing it to life.”
