Natan and Jew­ish Book Coun­cil are thrilled to announce the Win­ter 2026 Natan Notable Book: Out of the Sky: Hero­ism and Rebirth in Nazi Europe by Mat­ti Fried­man (Spiegel & Grau, March 26, 2026). With this selec­tion, Mat­ti Fried­man becomes the first author to win this award twice.

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.

Out of the Sky is a deep dive into an episode in his­to­ry that quick­ly became more influ­en­tial than the facts might sug­gest. In 1944, a team of young Jews who had escaped the hor­rors unfold­ing in Europe for the dream of liv­ing in the land of Israel vol­un­tar­i­ly returned as para­chutists as part of a British mil­i­tary oper­a­tion. Though the mis­sion did not seem to accom­plish any mil­i­tary or human­i­tar­i­an vic­to­ries – no Jews were saved due to the efforts of the para­chutists, no Nazis harmed – the sto­ry became leg­endary, par­tic­u­lar­ly the name of one of team mem­bers, Han­nah Senesh, whose name would become syn­ony­mous with hero­ics and brav­ery for gen­er­a­tions. Using thou­sands of orig­i­nal doc­u­ments to pro­file four of the para­chutists, includ­ing Han­nah, and detail­ing the his­tor­i­cal occur­rences of the months lead­ing up to and dur­ing the oper­a­tion, Mat­ti Fried­man begins to untan­gle the threads and bring the true pur­pose of the mis­sion into focus.

In today’s world, shap­ing the nar­ra­tive – whether in a social media post, a news arti­cle, or a geopo­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion – is one of the most pow­er­ful tools avail­able. The last­ing impact of an event is deter­mined by the sto­ry that is told, both at the time and into the future. And it is this under­stand­ing of sto­ry­telling that is at the heart of both that mis­sion and this book. As Fried­man writes, ​“In this sto­ry, Jews will not be vic­tims but heroes. This won’t change the war, but it will change how peo­ple remem­ber the war, and there­fore change the future.” It is this mes­sage that res­onat­ed with the Natan Notable Books selec­tion com­mit­tee. Com­mit­tee mem­ber Daniel Bon­ner reflect­ed on the poignan­cy of these young para­chutists know­ing that they were not like­ly to suc­ceed but jump­ing any­way, and, in doing so, tak­ing hold of their own nar­ra­tives and those of the Jew­ish peo­ple in Europe and in Israel. Their strength was root­ed in their pride in being Jews, and their deter­mi­na­tion to be in con­trol of their own stories.

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 exten­sive net­works through­out the Jew­ish phil­an­thropic and com­mu­nal worlds.

For the New York area book launch of Out of the Sky, Mat­ti Fried­man will be in con­ver­sa­tion with Abi­gail Pogre­bin on March 23, 2026 at 7:30 pm. Tick­ets for both the in-per­son event and stream­ing access are avail­able here: https://​www​.92ny​.org/​e​v​e​n​t​/​m​a​t​t​i​-​f​r​i​e​d​m​a​n​-​a​n​d​-​a​b​i​g​a​i​l​-​p​o​g​rebin.

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 April 15, 2026. Titles must have a pub­li­ca­tion date between Novem­ber 1, 2025 and Novem­ber 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 Sto­ries by Lee Yaron (2024−25), As a Jew: Reclaim­ing Our Sto­ry from Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us by Sarah Hur­witz (2025). 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; the bi-month­ly sub­scrip­tion series, Nu Reads; an annu­al print pub­li­ca­tion, Paper Brigade; the Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards; Natan Notable Books; its pop­u­lar lit­er­ary series Unpack­ing the Book: Jew­ish Writ­ers in con­ver­sa­tion; cel­e­bra­tions 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.