
Natan and Jewish Book Council are thrilled to announce the Summer 2025 Natan Notable Book: As a Jew: Reclaiming Our Story From Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us by Sarah Hurwitz (HarperOne, September 9, 2025).
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.
At a time when Jewish identity is worn with pride and discomfort, joy and fear, Hurwitz’s book takes a discerning look back to the sources of it all, told with the empathetic voice of one who is familiar with the full range. Wanting to account for the disconnect or disinterest that many Jews express when thinking about their own religion, As a Jew begins to peel away the stories that shaped perceptions of Jews, the anti-semitic propaganda that subtlety or intentionally hid the core of Judaism and Jewish life from the outside world, but also from Jews themselves. And as Hurwitz herself dives deeper into Jewish history, tradition, scholarship, and observance, she brings her readers along to discover the depth of wisdom, the rootedness that is founded on ritual, and above all, the joy that Judaism has to offer. As Hurwitz writes in her introduction to As a Jew, “This book is an account of how I got to this point: how I sought to engage with Judaism on its own terms, not those of others who misunderstand or disdain it; how I stripped away the layers of distortions and slanders that made me recoil from my own tradition; and how I have learned, and am still learning to live, as a Jew.”
In choosing As a Jew for the Summer 2025 Natan Notable Book award, the selection committee recognized the importance of this book at this moment in history. As a Jew is told by an author with a clear-sighted view not only of the challenges facing the American Jewish community, but also of the path through the tangled intersections of this current time and forward into the future. Committee member Daniel Bonner reflected: “We are in the midst of a renaissance in American Jewish life, and we could ask for no more powerful a messenger than Sarah Hurwitz.” Bonner describes As a Jew “as a bold, eloquent, powerful call to Jews to own their Jewish identity, deepen their Jewish knowledge, and cultivate a sense of Jewish peoplehood. This award has long recognized authors — Matti Friedman, Ilana Kurshan, Bari Weiss, Ari Shavit, and others — whose books spur conversations about important issues in contemporary Jewish life. In this book, Sarah addresses them all and offers a master-class on a thousand years of anti-Semitism, makes the case for integrating Jewish wisdom into our lives, and considers Israel’s place among the nations. She is empathetic, drawing on her experience as a hospital chaplain. She is a great storyteller, owing to her years a White House speechwriter. And she is unshakably, unapologetically proud, in the knowledge that she now owns her people’s story.”
The author 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.
Natan Notable Books submissions are rolling, and can be submitted at any time. The next deadline for consideration of a recent or soon-to-come non-fiction title is November 1, 2025. Titles must have a publication date between April 1, 2025 and April 1, 2026. Inquiries can be directed to natannotable@jewishbooks.org. For more information on the award and eligibility or to submit a title, go to the Natan Notable Books page.
Natan Notable Books at 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), 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 (2023), Henrietta Szold: Hadassah and the Zionist Dream by Francine Klagsbrun (2024), 10/7: 100 HUman Storiesby Lee Yaron (2024−25). 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 280 touring authors each year; over 3,000 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; the upcoming centennial celebration of Jewish Book Month; and a vibrant digital presence reaching over 800,000 readers, 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.