James Wolfensohn - Personal Life and Honors

Personal Life and Honors

A friend of Jacqueline du Pré, he began cello studies with her at the age of 41 when she offered to teach him on the condition that he perform on his 50th birthday at Carnegie Hall in New York, which he did. He repeated the exercise on his 60th and 70th birthdays with Yo-Yo Ma and Bono. He continues to play and has appeared, together with musician friends, at private events at Carnegie Hall and elsewhere.

Wolfensohn has received numerous awards throughout his life, including becoming an honorary officer of the Order of Australia in 1987, and an honorary knighthood of the Order of the British Empire in 1995 for his service to the arts. The University of New South Wales conferred an honorary degree of Doctor of Science in 2006 and he is a recipient of The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence.

He is married to Elaine, née Botwinick, and has three grown children, Sara, Naomi, Adam, and seven grandchildren.

In New York, Wolfesohn found himself at a Jerusalem Foundation lunch next to Dorothy de Rothschild, widow of James. She could not tell him why his father suddenly had left Rothschild six decades earlier. But he was reassured that his father had been a "wonderful man".

In 2006, he received the Leo Baeck Medal for his humanitarian work promoting tolerance and social justice.