About Us

Ruth Pearl worked tirelessly to run the Daniel Pearl Foundation from 2002 until her death in July 2021 at age 85. Ruth was born in Baghdad, Iraq in the Jewish community that had existed there for centuries. In 1941, at age 5, she survived the Farhud, a deadly attack on the Jews of Baghdad. She linked the ideologies behind the Farhud to the religious extremism that led to her son’s kidnapping and murder.

“Dehumanizing people is the first step to inviting violence, like Nazism and fascism,” she said in an oral history for the Shoah Foundation at the University of Southern California. “I’m sure the killers of Danny didn’t have any sense of identifying with the humanity that connects us. For them, Danny was an object … We have to figure out ways to educate the next generation differently.”

Escaping the anti-semitic hostilities in Iraq, she emigrated to Israel in 1951. She later served in the Israeli navy as a mathematics instructor and in 1960 graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from the Technion, Israeli Institute of Technology as one of four females in a class of 120.

She received a master’s degree in electrical engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology and worked in microwave transmission design. She then became a software systems analyst and earned a national reputation as a wizard software debugger and an avid feminist.

In her role as a co-founder and Vice President of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, she oversaw day-to-day operations and was a critical force behind some of its most creative projects, such as the Daniel Pearl Journalism Fellowship program. She received several awards for her Foundation activities and contributions to east-west understanding.

Ruth Pearl will be remembered as fearless, feisty, determined, generous, and kind by all who had the honor to meet her.

Interviews with Ruth

• Ruth Pearl (Daniel's Mother) Recalls Jewish Baghdad

Obituaries

• Ruth Pearl, seeker of justice for her murdered journalist son, Daniel, dies at 85
• Ruth Pearl, mother of slain journalist who turned her grief into activism, dies at 85
• Remembering Ruth Pearl, Mother Of Slain Journalist Daniel Pearl
• Remembering Ruth Pearl, mother of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, and 'strength incarnate'

Tamara Pearl is the sister of Daniel Pearl. She has served as vice president of the Foundation’s Board of Directors since its founding in 2002. She also serves as the Foundation’s Program Director and Interim Executive Director.

Her work centers on healing, dialogue, and reconciliation. For more than 20 years, she has practiced as a psychotherapist specializing in personal, collective, and intergenerational trauma. While working with Reconciliation Canada, she co-facilitated dialogue workshops that brought Indigenous and non-Indigenous community leaders together. She has also taught at Adler University and served on the board of Peace It Together, an organization that brought Israeli, Palestinian, and Canadian teenagers together through dialogue and collaborative filmmaking.

Tamara’s doctoral research examined responses to evil, moral repair, and an ethic of love and boundaries as a path toward healing.