India-born music conductor Zubin Mehta has been honoured with Israel’s first Presidential Awards of Distinction, the country’s version of the French Legion of Honour or the Order of Canada.

The award is being bestowed upon those “who have made an outstanding contribution to the state of Israel or to humanity, through their talents, services, or in any other form,” a statement from the Israeli Presidency said.

The Israeli president and the members of the advisory council, chaired by former supreme court president Meir Shamgar and former president Yitzhak Navon, announced the names of the recipients in February.

Mehta, 75, will be sharing the honours with the likes of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Judith Feld Carr, a Canadian-Jewish musician and human rights activist who helped smuggle thousands of Jews out of Syria, the Rashi Foundation, a non-governmental organisation, Chabad Rabbi Adin Even Yisrael and attorney Uri Slonim.