Ed Kessler, the founder president of the Woolf Institute in Cambridge, which researches relations between Jews, Muslims and Christians, has been awarded top interfaith prize.

He received the Seelisberg prize from the International Council of Christians and Jews and the Centre for Intercultural Theology and Religions at the University of Salzburg.

The annual award is named after the conference that took place in the Swiss village of Seelisberg two years after the end of the Second World War to address the Christian teaching of contempt for the Jews.

Dr Kessler, who is the author or editor of a dozen books on Jewish-Christian relations, is chair of the Progressive Judaism advisory board overseeing the union between Reform and Liberal Judaism.

The award was presented during the ICCJ’s conference in Salzburg.