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.