B'nai B'rith Victoria - Bernard J. Lustig Memorial Scholarship

Michaela Glass - 2020 Bernard J. Lustig Memorial Scholarship Winner 

 A HISTORIC LUSTIG SCHOLARSHIP “PRESENTATION”

For the first time in its 65 year history, the winner of this year’s Bernard Lustig Memorial Scholarship was announced at a Zoom event earlier this month.

Michaela Glass is a brilliant law student, having graduated last month from Monash with a double degree in Arts and Law, with first-class honours. Winners in the scholarship’s Travel Grant category are judged not only on their academic results, but also on their proven ability to be a student leader. Her referees, foremost amongst them the Hon. Marilyn Warren AC, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Victoria, praised Michaela for her enduring efforts as a mentor to younger undergraduates.

Michaela was “present” at the Zoom meeting, but she wasn’t in Melbourne. She was in the Netherlands, on her way to Cambridge University. When the new northern university year begins, she will participate in a highly selective group of post-graduates in a course leading to the Master of Corporate Law Degree. She is interested in the issue of legal control of corporations, to ensure that proper attention is given to privacy and consumers’ rights.

The meeting was opened by BBVic President Dr Benny Monheit and hosted by Raoul Wallenberg Unit, one of the BBVic entities that are committed to major annual donations to the scholarship. Dr Paul Gardner AM, Chairman of the Scholarship’s Trustees, introduced the winner to the meeting. The Lustig family was well represented. Danny Lustig, the nephew of the late Bernard, is one of the Trustees; Eve Lustig, widow of Dr Lew Lustig, founding Patron and Trustee, Bernard’s brother, was also present. A pleasant surprise was to see another nephew, Bernard King-Smith, son of the late Ruth King-Smith, and named in memory of the uncle he had never known, logged in early in the morning from his home in the United States.​

Dr Gardner, whose friendship with the Lustig family goes back to his childhood years, told Preview, “The pandemic is an international disaster of the first magnitude, and its effects have not yet been fully felt. In the meantime, B'nai B'rith and its projects refuse to lie down and die. We do what we can to carry on. Giving up is not an option.”

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