National Jewish Book Awards

2012

Category	Endowment	Winner	Finalists
American Jewish Studies	Celebrate 350 Award	Laura Arnold Leibman Messianism, Secrecy and Mysticism: A New Interpretation of Early American Jewish Life Vallentine Mitchell	Jonathan D. Sarna When General Grant Expelled the Jews Schocken Books/Nextbook Press Tobias Brinkmann Sundays at Sinai: A Jewish Congregation in Chicago The University of Chicago Press
Anthologies and Collections	Jewish Book Council Award	Franklin Foer and Marc Tracy, eds. Jewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame Twelve	Gad Freudenthal, ed. Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures Cambridge University Press Jonathan Goldstein I’ll Seize the Day Tomorrow Pintail Alon Goshen-Gottstein and Eugene Korn, eds. Jewish Theology and World Religions The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir	The Krauss Family Award in Memory of Simon & Shulamith (Sofi) Goldberg	Gerald Sorin Howard Fast: Life and Literature in the Left Lane Indiana University Press	Joy Ladin Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey Between Genders University of Wisconsin Press Avi Shilon; Danielle Zilberberg and Yoram Sharett, trans. Menachem Begin: A Life Yale University Press
Children's and Young Adult Literature	Jewish Book Council Award	Ulrich Hub; Jörg Mühle, illus. Meet at the Ark at Eight Eerdmans Books for Young Readers	Deborah Hodge Rescuing the Children: The Story of the Kindertransport Tundra Books Nechama Liss-Levinson When The Hurricane Came CreateSpace
Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice	Myra H. Kraft Memorial Award	Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Joel Segel; Kushner, fwd. Davening: A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Prayer Jewish Lights Publishing	Members of Congregation Netivot Shalom Paths of Torah: An Anthology of Torah Commentary Netivot Shalom
Debut Fiction	Foundation for Jewish Culture Goldberg Prize	Daniel Torday The Sensualist Nouvella	Anna Funder All That I Am HarperCollins Adam Wilson Flatscreen Harper Perennial
Education and Jewish Identity	In Memory of Dorothy Kripke	Jeffrey S. Kress Development, Learning, and Community: Educating for Identity in Pluralistic Jewish High Schools Academic Studies Press	Susan Handelman Make Yourself a Teacher: Rabbinic Tales of Mentors and Disciples University of Washington Press Goldie Milgram and Ellen Frankel, eds. Mitzvah Stories: Seeds for Inspiration and Learning Reclaiming Judaism Ora Horn Prouser Esau’s Blessing: How the Bible Embraces Those with Special Needs Ben Yehuda Press
Fiction	JJ Greenberg Memorial Award	Francesca Segal The Innocents Voice	Joshua Henkin The World Without You Pantheon Books Herman Wouk The Lawgiver Simon and Schuster Maggie Anton Rav Hisda’s Daughter: A Novel of Love, the Talmud, and Sorcery Plume Books
History	Gerrard and Ella Berman Memorial Award	Anita Shapira Israel: A History Brandeis University Press	Daniel B. Schwartz The First Modern Jew: Spinoza and the History of an Image Princeton University Press Bernard Wasserstein On the Eve: The Jews of Europe Before the Second World War Simon & Schuster Steven Gimbel Einstein’s Jewish Science: Physics at the Intersection of Politics and Religion Johns Hopkins University Press
Holocaust	Jewish Book Council Award	Laura Jockusch Collect and Record: Jewish Holocaust Documentation in Early Postwar Europe Oxford University Press	David Koker; Robert Jan von Pelt, ed.; Horn and Irons, trans. At the Edge of the Abyss: A Concentration Camp Diary, 1943 – 1944 Northwestern University Press Matthew Brzezinski Isaac’s Army: A Story of Courage and Survival in Nazi-Occupied Poland Random House
Illustrated Children's Book	Louis Posner Memorial Award	Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso; Joani Keller Rothenberg, illus. The Shema in the Mezuzah: Listening to Each Other Jewish Lights Publishing	Madelyn Rosenberg; Paul Meisel, illus. The Schmutzy Family Holiday House
Jewish Book of the Year	Everett Family Foundation Award	Rock, Polland, Soyer, Gurock; Deborah Dash Moore, ed. City of Promises: A History of the Jews of New York, With a Visual Essay by Diana L. Linden NYU Press
Lifetime Achievement	Jewish Book Council Award	Eric R. Kandel
Modern Jewish Thought and Experience	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
Scholarship	Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award	Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70 – 1492 Princeton University Press	Katrin Kogman-Appel A Mahzor From Worms: Art and Religion in a Medieval Jewish Community Harvard University Press David Ellenson and Daniel Gordis Pledges of Jewish Allegiance: Conversion, Law, and Policymaking in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Orthodox Responsa Stanford University Press Marjorie Lehman The En Yaaqov: Jacob ibn Habib’s Search for Faith in the Talmudic Corpus Wayne State University Press
Sephardic Culture	Mimi S. Frank Award in Memory of Becky Levy	Tirtsah Levie Bernfeld Poverty and Welfare among the Portuguese Jews of Early Modern Amsterdam The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization	Aron Rodrigue and Sarah Abrevaya Stein, eds.; Isaac Jerusalmi, trans. A Jewish Voice from Ottoman Salonica: The Ladino Memoir of Sa’adi Besalel a‑Levi Stanford University Press Stella Cohen; Marc Hoberman, photographer Stella’s Sephardic Table: Jewish Family Recipes From the Mediterranean Island of Rhodes Hoberman Collection
Women's Studies	Barbara Dobkin Award	Elana Sztokman The Men’s Section: Orthodox Jewish Men in an Egalitarian World The Hadassah Brandeis Institute, University Press of New England	Mira Katzburg-Yungman Hadassah: American Women Zionists and the Rebirth of Israel The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
Writing Based on Archival Material	The JDC-Herbert Katzki Award	Jean Ancel; Yaffah Murciano, trans.; Leon Volovici, ed. The History of the Holocaust in Romania University of Nebraska Press and Yad Vashem	Rock, Polland, Soyer, Gurock; Deborah Dash Moore, ed. City of Promises: A History of the Jews of New York, With a Visual Essay by Diana L. Linden NYU Press