New York, January 15, 2020—Jewish Book Council announced the winners of the 2019 National Jewish Book Awards, now in its sixty-ninth year. The winners include Pamela S. Nadell, the recipient of the Everett Family Foundation Book of the Year for her enthralling America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today (W. W. Norton & Company). Robert Alter receives a Lifetime Achievement Award for his monumental and decades-long project The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary (W. W. Norton & Company).
The inaugural Jane and Stuart Weitzman Family Award for Food Writing and Cookbooks goes to Jewish Cuisine in Hungary: A Cultural History with 83 Authentic Recipes by András Koerner, a comprehensive and unique contribution to the field. This year’s celebration dinner will feature a food-and-drink-themed silent auction to highlight this new award and raise funds to support the year-round work of Jewish Book Council.
Top fiction honors have been given to novels written by authors receiving their first National Jewish Book Awards. The winners include: Fly Already: Stories (Riverhead Books) by Etgar Keret for the JJ Greenberg Memorial Award Michael for Fiction; Alice Hoffman’s The World That We Knew (Simon & Schuster), the recipient of the The Miller Family Book Club Award in Memory of Helen Dunn Weinstein and June Keit Miller; and Sarah Blake’s Naamah (Riverhead Books), the winner of the Goldberg Prize for Debut Fiction.
Two important and timely 2019 works focused on antisemitism have been recognized by the judging committees. Deborah Lipstadt has been awarded the Jewish Education and Identity Award in Memory of Dorothy Kripke for her work Antisemitism: Here and Now (Schocken), and Bari Weiss takes home her first National Jewish Book Award, for Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice in Memory of Myra H. Kraft, for How to Fight Anti-Semitism (Crown).
The Krauss Family Autobiography & Memoir Award is awarded to Dani Shapiro for her memoir Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love (Alfred A. Knopf). The second annual Biography Award in Memory of Sara Berenson Stone is given to Touched with Fire: Morris B. Abram and the Battle against Racial and Religious Discrimination (Potomac Books) by David E. Lowe.
The winner of the 2019 Holocaust Award in Memory of Ernest W. Michel is Michael Dobbs, for his work The Unwanted: America, Auschwitz, and a Village Caught In Between (Penguin Random House). Daniel Okrent is the winner of the Gerrard and Ella Berman Memorial Award for History for his book The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America (Scribner).
Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky (Graywolf Press) wins the Berru Award in Memory of Ruth and Bernie Weinflash in the Poetry category.
In the Children’s Literature category, we are pleased to recognize Gittel’s Journey: An Ellis Island Story written by Lesléa Newman and illustrated by Amy June Bates (Abrams Books). Rachel DeWoskin is awarded the Young Adult Award for her book Someday We Will Fly (Viking, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers).
This year, we are pleased to present the Mentorship Award in Honor of Carolyn Starman Hessel to Dena W. Neusner in honor of her mentorship of authors, artists, and publishing professionals throughout her career. Ms. Neusner has worked with a wide spectrum of books in the field, including children’s books, Jewish textbooks, and Haggadot. Additionally, under her leadership, Behrman House Publishers developed a new imprint, Apples & Honey Press, specifically focused on Jewish children’s books, which allowed her to help expand the field and have a new outlet to nurture Jewish literary talent. We are proud to honor her continued contributions to the field of Jewish literature.
Jewish Book Council is also pleased to announce Shimon Adaf and his work Mox Nox as the 2020 winner of the Paper Brigade Award for New Israeli Fiction in Honor of Jane Weitzman. An excerpt of Mox Nox, translated by Philip Simpson, will be featured in the 2020 issue of Paper Brigade, which will be published this spring.
A complete list of the 2019 National Jewish Book Award winners and finalists can be found below, and additional information is available below.
JBC’s new website features a database of current and past National Jewish Book Award winners and finalists; judges’ remarks on the 2019 winners and finalists book pages will also be available after the March 17, 2020 dinner celebration.
The winners of the 2019 National Jewish Book Awards will be honored on March 17, 2020 at an awards dinner and ceremony to be held at the Bohemian National Hall in Manhattan, hosted by Jeffrey Yoskowitz, of The Gefilte Manifesto.
To purchase tickets, please visit njba.givesmart.com.
If press is interested in attending the awards ceremony, please contact Evie Saphire-Bernstein, Program Director at Jewish Book Council (evie@jewishbooks.org).
About Jewish Book Council: Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Jewish-interest literature and educating and enriching the community through these works. With over 250 touring authors each year, 1,900 book clubs, 1,100 events, the National Jewish Book Awards, Natan Notable Books, its popular literary series Unpacking the Book: Jewish Writers in conversation, a vibrant digital presence, and an annual print publication, Paper Brigade, 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.
About the National Jewish Book Awards: The National Jewish Book Awards were established by the Jewish Book Council in 1950 in order to recognize outstanding works of Jewish literature. It is the longest-running awards program of its kind.
Jewish Book of the Year
Everett Family Foundation Award
Winner:
America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today
Pamela S. Nadell
W. W. Norton & Company
Lifetime Achievement Award
The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary
Robert Alter
W. W. Norton & Company
Mentorship Award in Honor of Carolyn Starman Hessel
Dena W. Neusner
Dena Neusner is Executive Editor at Behrman House and its children’s book imprint, Apples & Honey Press. She has been with Behrman House for eleven years, having previously worked as a children’s book editor at Puffin Books, Scholastic, and Parachute Press. Dena has dedicated her career to supporting compelling children’s stories that reflect Jewish experience and values.
American Jewish Studies
Celebrate 350 Award
Winner:
The Foundations of American Jewish Liberalism
Kenneth D. Wald
Cambridge University Press
Finalists:
American JewBu: Jews, Buddhists, and Religious Change
Emily Sigalow
Princeton University Press
Anthologies and Collections
Winner:
What We Talk about When We Talk about Hebrew (and What It Means to Americans)
Naomi B. Sokoloff, Nancy E. Berg, eds.
University of Washington Press
Finalists:
Colonialism and the Jews
Ethan B. Katz, Lisa Moses Leff, Maud S. Mandel, eds.
Indiana University Press
Writing in Witness: A Holocaust Reader
Eric J. Sundquist
SUNY Press
The Zionist Ideas: Visions for the Jewish Homeland — Then, Now, Tomorrow
Gil Troy
The Jewish Publication Society
Autobiography and Memoir
The Krauss Family Award in Memory of Simon & Shulamith (Sofi) Goldberg
Winner:
Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love
Dani Shapiro
Alfred A. Knopf
Finalists:
Shores Beyond Shores: From Holocaust to Hope, My True Story
Irene Butter, John D. Bidwell, Kris Holloway
TSB
Everyone is Present: Essays On Photography, Memory And Family
Terry Kurgan
Fourthwall Books
The Autobiography of Solomon Maimon: The Complete Translation
Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Abraham Socher, eds.; Paul Reitter, trans.
Princeton University Press
Biography
In Memory of Sara Berenson Stone
Winner:
Touched with Fire: Morris B. Abram and the Battle against Racial and Religious Discrimination
David E. Lowe
Potomac Books
Finalists:
The Notorious Ben Hecht: Iconoclastic Writer and Zionist Militant
Julien Gorbach
Purdue University Press
Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century
Alexandra Popoff
Yale University Press
A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion
Tom Segev; Haim Watzman, trans.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Book Club
The Miller Family Award in Memory of Helen Dunn Weinstein and June Keit Miller
Winner:
The World That We Knew
Alice Hoffman
Simon & Schuster
Finalists:
The Guest Book
Sarah Blake
Flatiron Books
The Third Daughter
Talia Carner
William Morrow Paperbacks
The Last Train to London
Meg Waite Clayton
HarperCollins Publishers
The City Game: Triumph, Scandal, and a Legendary Basketball Team
Matthew Goodman
Ballantine Books
Children’s Literature
Winner:
Gittel’s Journey: An Ellis Island Story
Lesléa Newman; Amy June Bates, illus.
Abrams Books for Young Readers, an imprint of ABRAMS
Finalists:
Once Upon an Apple Cake: A Rosh Hashanah Story
Elana Rubinstein
Apples & Honey Press
Survivors of the Holocaust: True Stories of Six Extraordinary Children
Kath Shackleton
Sourcebooks Explore
Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice
Myra H. Kraft Memorial Award
Winner:
How to Fight Anti-Semitism
Bari Weiss
Crown
Finalists:
The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia: From Abraham to Zabar’s and Everything in Between
Stephanie Butnick, Liel Leibovitz, Mark Oppenheimer
Artisan Books
Getting Good at Getting Older
Richard Siegel (z’l), Rabbi Laura Geller
Behrman House
Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life — in Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There)
Sarah Hurwitz
Spiegel & Grau
Debut Fiction
Goldberg Prize
Winner:
Naamah
Sarah Blake
Riverhead Books
Finalists:
Fleishman Is in Trouble
Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Random House
Nick Bones Underground
Phil M. Cohen
Koehler Books
Willa & Hesper
Amy Feltman
Grand Central Publishing
Love Is a Rebellious Bird
Elayne Klasson
She Writes Press
Education and Jewish Identity
In Memory of Dorothy Kripke
Winner:
Antisemitism: Here and Now
Deborah Lipstadt
Schocken
Finalists:
Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life — in Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There)
Sarah Hurwitz
Spiegel & Grau
Sarah Schenirer and the Bais Yaakov Movement
Naomi Seidman
The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
Fiction
JJ Greenberg Memorial Award
Winner:
Fly Already: Stories
Etgar Keret
Riverhead Books
Finalists:
Immigrant City: And Other Stories
David Bezmozgis
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd (Canada)
The Tenth Muse: A Novel
Catherine Chung
HarperCollins Publishers
Food Writing & Cookbooks
Jane and Stuart Weitzman Family Award
Winner:
Jewish Cuisine in Hungary: A Cultural History with 83 Authentic Recipes
András Koerner
Central European University Press
Finalists:
Shuk: From Market to Table, the Heart of Israeli Home Cooking
Einat Admony, Janna Gur
Artisan Books
Savage Feast: Three Generations, Two Continents, and a Dinner Table (a Memoir with Recipes)
Boris Fishman
HarperCollins Publishers
Sababa: Fresh, Sunny Flavors From My Israeli Kitchen
Adeena Sussman
Avery
History
Gerrard and Ella Berman Memorial Award
Winner:
The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America
Daniel Okrent
Scribner
Finalists:
Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel
Matti Friedman
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Shadow Strike: Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power
Yaakov Katz
St. Martin’s Press
Masada: From Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth
Jodi Magness
Princeton University Press
The World of Aufbau: Hitler’s Refugees in America
Peter Schrag
University of Wisconsin Press
Holocaust
In Memory of Ernest W. Michel
Winner:
The Unwanted: America, Auschwitz, and a Village Caught In Between
Michael Dobbs
Alfred A.Knopf in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Finalists:
Bitter Reckoning: Israel Tries Holocaust Survivors as Nazi Collaborators
Dan Porat
Harvard University Press
The Yiddish Historians and the Struggle for a Jewish History of the Holocaust
Mark L. Smith
Wayne State University Press
Modern Jewish Thought and Experience
Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider Mayerson
Winner:
Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets
Elissa Bemporad
Oxford University Press
Finalists:
Antisemitism: Here and Now
Deborah Lipstadt
Schocken
Hermann Cohen and the Crisis of Liberalism
Paul E. Nahme
Indiana University Press
Poetry
Berru Award in Memory of Ruth and Bernie Weinflash
Winner:
Deaf Republic
Ilya Kaminsky
Graywolf Press
Finalists:
Frayed Light
Yonatan Berg; Joanna Chen, trans.
Wesleyan University Press
The Many Names for Mother
Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach
The Kent State University Press
SoundMachine
Rachel Zucker
Wave Books
Scholarship
Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award
Winner:
Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah: Canonization and Resistance in the Reception of a Jewish Classic
Eric Lawee
Oxford University Press
Finalists:
Jewish-Christian Dialogues on Scripture in Late Antiquity: Heretic Narratives of the Babylonian Talmud
Michal Bar-Asher Siegal
Cambridge University Press
The Rise of the Modern Yiddish Theater
Alyssa Quint
Indiana University Press
Prince of the Press: How One Collector Built History’s Most Enduring and Remarkable Jewish Library
Joshua Teplitsky
Yale University Press
Sephardic Culture
Mimi S. Frank Award
in Memory of Becky Levy
Winner:
Lethal Provocation: The Constantine Murders and the Politics of French Algeria
Joshua Cole
Cornell University Press
Finalists:
Dissident Rabbi: The Life of Jacob Sasportas
Yaacob Dweck
Princeton University Press
Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century
Sarah Abrevaya Stein
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Living in Silverado: Secret Jews in the Silver Mining Towns of Colonial Mexico
David M. Gitlitz
University of New Mexico Press
Visual Arts
Winner:
Edith Halpert, the Downtown Gallery, and the Rise of American Art
Rebecca Shaykin
The Jewish Museum and Yale University Press
Finalists:
Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home
Nora Krug
Scribner
Chagall, El Lissitzky, Malevich: The Russian Avant-garde in Vitebsk (1918−1922)
Angela Lampe
Prestel Publishing
Ceremonial Synagogue Textiles: From Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Italian Communities
Bracha Yaniv
The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
Women Studies
Barbara Dobkin Award
Winner:
Sarah Schenirer and the Bais Yaakov Movement
Naomi Seidman
The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
Writing Based on Archival Material
The JDC-Herbert Katzki Award
Winner:
A Mortuary of Books: The Rescue of Jewish Culture after the Holocaust
Elisabeth Gallas; Alex Skinner, trans.
New York University Press
Finalist:
Tehran Children: A Holocaust Refugee Odyssey
Mikhal Dekel
W. W. Norton & Company
Young Adult Literature
Winner:
Someday We Will Fly
Rachel DeWoskin
Viking, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers
Finalists:
Color Me In
Natasha Díaz
Random House Children’s Books
My Real Name is Hanna
Tara Lynn Masih
Mandel Vilar Press
What Makes Us
Rafi Mittlefehldt
Candlewick Press
What the Night Sings
Vesper Stamper
Penguin Random House Children’s Books
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