The G.J. Cooper Scholarship Award, valued at approximately $16,000, is granted each year to support a member of the Ottawa Jewish Community who is between the ages of 18 and 30, who has displayed leadership qualities, and academic excellence and who has an interest in the Jewish Community. The award must be used for formal education or apprenticeship in the artistic, literary or social sciences.
The Scholarship Committee meets annually in the month of April to review applications and nominations for the G.J. Cooper Award. A single candidate is chosen by the committee and the award is presented to the winning candidate at the Annual General Meeting in June.
To apply for the scholarship award, please review our guidelines to ensure you are eligible and proceed to our online application form. Applicants will be notified in writing of the outcome of the nomination process once a winning candidate has been chosen.
Applications are now closed and will reopen in January, 2025.
Scholarship Guidelines
Application Form
For information, please contact the Ottawa Jewish Community Foundation at foundation@jewishottawa.com or 613-798-4696, ext. 252.
- Arts (Fine Arts, Music, Performing Arts)
- Languages
- Law
- Linguistics
- Literature
- Philosophy
- Psychology
- Religious Studies (Rabbinic studies, Cantorial studies)
- Social Sciences (Economics, Geography, Political Science, Sociology, History)
* Excludes MBA programs, Medical and Science programs, and Trade schools.
2013 – Michael Kent
2014 – Elana Moscoe
2015 – Tal Or Ben-Choreen
2016 – Shelby Levine
2017 – Anna Frenkel
2018 – Jasmine Segal
2019 – Hannah Srour
2020 – Shaked Karabelnicoff
2021 – Dario Chaiquin
2022 - Jordan Geist
2023 - Talia Freedhoff
George Cooper passed away on October 1st of 2004 at the age of 83. He was born and raised in Ottawa, never married and was a long standing member of Beth Shalom.
George had a great passion for painting and movies and devoted a lifetime of service to Canada’s Public Service Sector. He was, by all accounts, a generous man. A testament to his generosity is that George had set up a personal insurance policy in which the Ottawa Jewish Community Foundation was named the beneficiary agency. George also left a bequest in his Will liquidating approximately three hundred thousand ($300K) dollars from his estate to the OJCF. With these funds, the OJCF established the “George Joseph Cooper Memorial Fund”.
From this memorial fund it was George’s wish to have the OJCF create the “George Joseph Cooper Scholarship Award” program so he may further education in the artistic, literary and social sciences - interests which were dear to George. Individuals who meet the criteria for the scholarship are encouraged to apply and re-apply for the award.