Natan and the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil are thrilled to announce the Fall 2023 Natan Notable Book: Tar­get Tehran: How Israel Is Using Sab­o­tage, Cyber­war­fare, Assas­si­na­tion – and Secret Diplo­ma­cy – to Stop a Nuclear Iran and Cre­ate a New Mid­dle East by Yon­ah Jere­my Bob and Ilan Evy­atar (Simon & Schus­ter, Sep­tem­ber 2023). 

Twice a year, Natan Notable Books rec­og­nizes recent­ly pub­lished or about-to-be-pub­lished non-fic­tion books that promise to cat­alyze con­ver­sa­tions aligned with the themes of Natan’s grant­mak­ing: rein­vent­ing Jew­ish life and com­mu­ni­ty for the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry, shift­ing notions of indi­vid­ual and col­lec­tive Jew­ish iden­ti­ty, the his­to­ry and future of Israel, under­stand­ing and con­fronting con­tem­po­rary forms of anti­semitism, and the evolv­ing rela­tion­ship between Israel and world Jewry.

With the sit­u­a­tion in the Mid­dle East tenser than it has been in many years, hard­ly a day goes by when Iran or Iran­ian-backed groups are not in our news cycles. The con­cern about a nuclear Iran has trou­bled coun­tries across the globe, prompt­ed sum­mits and treaties, and all man­ner of diplo­ma­cy. For Israel, a nuclear Iran is a threat that they are, under­stand­ably, unwill­ing to allow. In Tar­get Tehran, Yon­ah Jere­my Bob and Ilan Evy­atar, inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ists and con­trib­u­tors to The Jerusalem Post, tell the sto­ry of Israel’s ​“secret war” on Iran, the cam­paigns by the Mossad to expose, sab­o­tage, and pre­vent Iran’s nuclear plans. Through inter­views with many very high­ly ranked offi­cials, Evy­atar and Bob weave a thrilling nar­ra­tive – one that reads like a spy nov­el – which out­lines and fore­shad­ows the com­pli­cat­ed machi­na­tions of one of the most com­plex regions in the world.

Reflect­ing on the choice, Matt Hiltzik, long­time mem­ber of the Natan Notable Books com­mit­tee, shared, ​“As we are all start­ing to bet­ter under­stand the real­i­ties and dan­gers of our post 10/7/23 world, Yonah’s and Ilan’s Tar­get Tehran pro­vides read­ers with unique insights into the Mossad’s chal­lenges and suc­cess­es in lim­it­ing Iran’s capa­bil­i­ties to inflict fur­ther harm on Israel, both direct­ly and through its prox­ies. This is exact­ly the type of con­tent that Natan’s Notable Book series hopes to high­light because under­stand­ing these his­tor­i­cal dynam­ics is cru­cial to under­stand­ing the com­plex­i­ties of Iran’s goals and its impact else­where in the Mid­dle East.”

The authors will receive a $5,000 cash prize, as well as cus­tomized sup­port for pro­mot­ing the book and its ideas, draw­ing on Natan’s and Jew­ish Book Council’s exten­sive net­works through­out the Jew­ish phil­an­thropic and com­mu­nal worlds.

An event cel­e­brat­ing the authors and dis­cussing the book will be on Mon­day, June 17 at 7 pm at Kehi­lath Jeshu­run in Man­hat­tan in part­ner­ship with the New York Jew­ish Week. 

For those inter­est­ed in sub­mit­ting a recent or soon-to-come non-fic­tion title, the dead­line for sub­mis­sion for Spring 2024 Natan Notable Books is April 26, 2024. Titles must have a pub­li­ca­tion date between Sep­tem­ber 1, 2023 and Octo­ber 31, 2024. Inquiries can be direct­ed to natannotable@​jewishbooks.​org. 

For more infor­ma­tion on the award and eli­gi­bil­i­ty or to sub­mit a title, go to https://​www​.jew​ish​book​coun​cil​.org/​a​w​a​r​d​s​/​n​a​t​a​n​-​n​o​t​a​b​l​e​-​books. 

Natan Notable Books at the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil has pre­vi­ous­ly been award­ed to Bari Weiss’ How to Fight Anti-Semi­tism (2019), Susie Linfield’s The Lion’s Den (2019), Ilan Sta­vans’ The Sev­enth Heav­en (2020), Nan­cy Sinkoff’s From Left to Right (2020), Dara Horn’s Peo­ple Love Dead Jews (2021), Michael Frank’s One Hun­dred Sat­ur­days: Stel­la Levi and the Search for a Lost World (2022), and Feed­ing Women of the Tal­mud, Feed­ing Our­selves: Uplift­ing the Voic­es of Tal­mu­dic Hero­ines and Hon­or­ing Them with Sim­ple, Veg­an Recipes edit­ed by Kenden Alfond (2022), The Land of Hope and Fear: Israel’s Bat­tle for its Inner Soul by Isabel Ker­sh­n­er (2023). Natan Notable Books is an evo­lu­tion of the Natan Book Award, which was pre­vi­ous­ly award­ed to Mat­ti Friedman’s Spies of No Coun­try (2018) and Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land (2013). 

About Natan

Natan cat­alyzes emerg­ing phil­an­thropists to become active­ly engaged in build­ing the Jew­ish future by giv­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to cut­ting-edge ini­tia­tives in Israel and in Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties around the world, and by build­ing an inter­con­nect­ed com­mu­ni­ty of givers through grant­mak­ing, events and oth­er pro­grams. Natan believes that engaged and entre­pre­neur­ial phil­an­thropy can trans­form givers, grant recip­i­ents, and the fields in which Natan invests.

About Jew­ish Book Council

Jew­ish Book Coun­cil is a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to edu­cat­ing, enrich­ing, and strength­en­ing the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty through Jew­ish inter­est lit­er­a­ture. With over 270 tour­ing authors each year; over 2,800 book clubs; 1,400 events; its annu­al print pub­li­ca­tion, Paper Brigade; the Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards; Natan Notable Books; its pop­u­lar lit­er­ary series Unpack­ing the Book: Jew­ish Writ­ers in con­ver­sa­tion; and a vibrant dig­i­tal pres­ence, JBC ensures that Jew­ish-inter­est authors have a plat­form, and that read­ers are able to find these books and have the tools to dis­cuss them with their community.