National Jewish Book Awards

Modern Jewish Thought and Experience

Year	Endowment	Winner	Finalists
2025	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Lawrence Grossman Living in Both Worlds: Modern Orthodox Judaism in the United States, 1945 – 2025 Academic Studies Press	Ittay Flescher The Holy and the Broken: A Cry for Israeli-Palestinian Peace from a Land That Must Be Shared Harper Collins Daniel Taub Beyond Dispute: Rediscovering the Jewish Art of Constructive Disagreement Hodder Faith
2024	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Joshua Leifer Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life Penguin Random House / Dutton	Noah Feldman To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People Farrar, Straus & Giroux Shai Held Judaism Is About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2023	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Jeremy Brown The Eleventh Plague: Jews and Pandemics from the Bible to COVID-19 Oxford University Press	Erica Brown Ecclesiastes and the Search for Meaning Maggid Donniel Hartman Who Are the Jews―And Who Can We Become? The Jewish Publication Society Derek J. Penslar Zionism: An Emotional State Rutgers University Press
2022	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi Figuring Jerusalem: Politics and Poetics in the Sacred Center University of Chicago Press	Karma Ben-Johanan Jacob’s Younger Brother: Christian-Jewish Relations after Vatican II Belknap Press Sasha Senderovich How the Soviet Jew Was Made Harvard University Press
2021	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Erin Leib Smokler (Editor) Torah in a Time of Plague: Historical and Contemporary Jewish Responses Ben Yehuda Press	Mark Gerson The Telling: How Judaism’s Essential Book Reveals the Meaning of Life St. Martin’s Press Sonia Gollance It Could Lead to Dancing: Mixed-Sex Dancing and Jewish Modernity Stanford University Press Daniel Sokatch Can We Talk About Israel?: A Guide for the Curious, Confused, and Conflicted Bloomsbury
2020	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Jonathan Sacks Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times Basic Books	Dr. Erica Brown Esther: Power, Fate and Fragility in Exile The Toby Press Yehuda Kurtzer, Claire E. Sufrin (eds.)   The New Jewish Canon: Ideas and Debates 1980 – 2015 Academic Studies Press
2019	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Elissa Bemporad Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets Oxford University Press	Deborah E. Lipstadt Antisemitism: Here and Now Schocken Paul E. Nahme Hermann Cohen and the Crisis of Liberalism Indiana University Press
2018	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Alan L. Mittleman Does Judaism Condone Violence? Holiness and Ethics in the Jewish Tradition Princeton University Press	Samuel Hayim Brody Martin Buber’s Theopolitics Indiana University Press Amos Oz Dear Zealots Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Shachar M. Pinsker A Rich Brew: How Cafés Created Modern Jewish Culture NYU Press
2017	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Gideon Reuveni Consumer Culture and the Making of Modern Jewish Identity Cambridge University Press	Chad Alan Goldberg Modernity and the Jews in Western Social Thought University of Chicago Press Naomi Leite Unorthodox Kin: Portuguese Marranos and the Global Search for Belonging University of California Press Wendy I. Zierler Movies and Midrash: Popular Film and Jewish Religious Conversation SUNY Press
2016	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Miriam Udel Never Better!: The Modern Jewish Picaresque University of Michigan Press	Zev Eleff; Jacob J. Schacter, fwd. Modern Orthodox Judaism: A Documentary History The Jewish Publication Society
2015	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Jonathan Sacks Not In God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence Pantheon Books	David Eliezrie The Secret of Chabad: Inside the World’s Most Successful Jewish Movement The Toby Press Aviya Kushner The Grammar of God: A Journey into the Words and Worlds of the Bible Spiegel & Grau Todd M. Endelman Leaving the Jewish Fold: Conversation and Radical Assimilation in Modern Jewish History Princeton University Press
2014	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Jay Goldmintz and Jonathan Sacks The Koren Ani Tefillah Siddur Koren Publishers Jerusalem	Daniel Sperber On the Relationship of Mitzvot Between Man and His Neighbor and Man and His Maker Urim Publications Nancy H. Wiener and Jo Hirschmann Maps and Meaning: Levitical Models for Contemporary Care Fortress Press Richard Cohen Israel: Is It Good for the Jews? Simon & Schuster
2013	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Jonathan Sacks The Koren Sacks Pesach Machzor The Toby Press/Koren Publisher Jerusalem	Maxim D. Shrayer Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story Syracuse University Press Erica T. Lehrer Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Unquiet Places Indiana University Press Elissa Bemporad Becoming Soviet Jews: The Bolshevik Experiment in Minsk Indiana University Press
2012	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz Koren Talmud Bavli Koren Publishers Jerusalem	Jonathan Sacks The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search For Meaning Schocken Books Bonna Devora Haberman Rereading Israel: The Spirit of the Matter Urim Publications Ben Sidran There Was A Fire: Jews, Music and the American Dream Nardis
2011	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Jeremy Kagan The Choice To Be: A Jewish Path to Self and Spirituality Feldheim Publishers	Rabbi Jonathan Sacks Koren Sacks Rosh HaShana Mahzor Koren Publishers Jerusalem Catherine Chatterley Disenchantment: George Steiner and Meaning of Western Civilization After Auschwitz Syracuse University Press
2010	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik The Koren Mesorat HaRav Kinot: The Complete Tisha B'Av Service with Commentary Koren Publishers Jerusalem/Orthodox Union	David Hazony The Ten Commandments: How Our Most Ancient Moral Text Can Renew Modern Life Scribner
2009	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks Covenant and Conversation, A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible, Genesis: The Book of Beginnings Maggid Books (Koren Publishers) with the OU Press
2008	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	David Patterson Emil L. Fackenheim: A Jewish Philosopher's Response to the Holocaust Syracuse University Press
2007	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, ed. My People's Prayer Book Series Jewish Lights Publishing
2006	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Shuly Rubin Schwartz The Rabbi’s Wife: The Rebbetzin in American Jewish Life New York University Press
2005	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	David Ellenson After Emancipation: Jewish Religious Responses to Modernity HUC Press
2004	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Daniel C. Matt The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, Vol. 1 Stanford University Press

Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards

By Year

By Category

Mod­ern Jew­ish Thought and Experience

About this award

Lawrence Gross­man

Ittay Flesch­er

Daniel Taub

Joshua Leifer

Noah Feld­man

Shai Held

Jere­my Brown

Eri­ca Brown

Don­niel Hartman

Derek J. Penslar

Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi

Kar­ma Ben-Johanan

Sasha Senderovich

Erin Leib Smokler (Editor)

Mark Ger­son

Sonia Gollance

Daniel Sokatch

Jonathan Sacks

Dr. Erica Brown

Yehuda Kurtzer, Claire E. Sufrin (eds.) &nbsp;

Elis­sa Bemporad

Deb­o­rah E. Lipstadt

Paul E. Nahme

Alan L. Mittleman

Samuel Hayim Brody

Amos Oz

Shachar M. Pinsker

Gideon Reuveni

Chad Alan Goldberg

Naomi Leite

Wendy I. Zierler

Miriam Udel

Zev Eleff; Jacob J. Schacter, fwd.

Jonathan Sacks

David Eliezrie

Aviya Kush­n­er

Todd M. Endelman

Jay Goldmintz and Jonathan Sacks

Daniel Sperber

Nancy H. Wiener and Jo Hirschmann

Richard Cohen

Jonathan Sacks

Maxim D. Shrayer

Erica T. Lehrer

Elis­sa Bemporad

Rab­bi Adin Steinsaltz

Jonathan Sacks

Bonna Devora Haberman

Ben Sidran

Jeremy Kagan

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

Catherine Chatterley

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

The Koren Mesorat HaRav Kinot: The Complete Tisha B'Av Service with Commentary

David Hazony

Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks

David Patterson

Emil L. Fackenheim: A Jewish Philosopher's Response to the Holocaust

Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, ed.

My People's Prayer Book Series

Shuly Rubin Schwartz

David Ellenson

Daniel C. Matt

The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, Vol. 1

National Jewish Book Awards

Modern Jewish Thought and Experience

Lawrence Grossman

Ittay Flescher

Noah Feldman

Jeremy Brown

Erica Brown

Donniel Hartman

Karma Ben-Johanan

Mark Gerson

Yehuda Kurtzer, Claire E. Sufrin (eds.)

Elissa Bemporad

Deborah E. Lipstadt

Aviya Kushner

Elissa Bemporad

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz