2016 NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARDS ANNOUNCED
Book of the Year Awarded to
Israel by Daniel Gordis
Rose Tremain Wins Fiction Category for
The Gustav Sonata
Michael Chabon Awarded
JBC’s Modern Literary Achievement Award
New York, January 11, 2017 – The Jewish Book Council announced today the winners of the 2016 National Jewish Book Awards, now in its sixty-sixth year. This year’s winners include the Everett Family Foundation Book of the Year, which is awarded to Daniel Gordis’s Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn (Ecco), described by Jewish Book Council’s reviewer as “a new history of Israel [that] should become a standard for years to come, perhaps even a classic.”
Michael Chabon is the winner of JBC’s Modern Literary Achievement Award for his general contribution to modern Jewish literature, including his most recent work, Moonglow (Harper), described by Jewish Book Council’s committee as “a moving panorama of Jewish experience. Chabon serves up his colossal tale of darkness and light in fabulous language, as befits this modern fable.”
Three additional novels took top fiction honors, including Rose Tremain, winner of the coveted JJ Greenberg Fiction Award for The Gustav Sonata (W. W. Norton & Company), recently listed by Lit Hub as one of their “10 Overlooked Books by Women in 2016”; Lauren Belfer, the first recipient of the Debby and Ken Miller Book Club Award for her work And After the Fire (Harper), which has inspired conversations across the country; and Gavriel Savit, winner of the Goldberg Prize for Debut Fiction for Anna and the Swallow Man (Knopf Books for Young Readers).
French bestselling author Marceline Loridan-Ivens wins her first National Jewish Book Award in the Krauss Family’s Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir category for But You Did Not Come Back (Grove Atlantic) and Stanley Moss wins the inaugural Berru Award in Memory of Ruth and Bernie Weinflash in the category of Poetry for Almost Complete Poems (Seven Stories Press).
The Barbara Dobkin Award in Women’s Studies winner is The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate (CCAR Press), co-edited by Rabbi Rebecca Einstein Schorr and Rabbi Alysa Mendelson Graf and the Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award in Scholarship is presented to Benjamin R. Gampel for Anti-Jewish Riots in the Crown of Aragon and the Royal Response, 1391-1392 (Cambridge University Press).
Please see the full list of winners and the finalists in 20 National Jewish Book Award categories below.
The winners of the 2016 National Jewish Book Awards will be honored on March 7, 2017 at a gala awards dinner and ceremony to be held at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan. The program will be hosted by Abigail Pogrebin, author, most recently, of the forthcoming memoir My Jewish Year: 18 Holidays, One Wondering Jew (Fig Tree Books). The reception and dinner begins at 6:00 p.m.—to buy tickets, please call 212-201-2920.
If press is interested in attending the awards ceremony, please contact Evie Saphire-Bernstein at the Jewish Book Council at evie@jewishbooks.org.
Jewish Book Council is a not-for-profit dedicated to promoting Jewish interest literature. With over 280 touring authors each year, over 1,000 book clubs, over 1,100 events, its newest annual print publication, Paper Brigade, the National Jewish Book Awards and the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, and a vibrant digital presence, JBC ensures that Jewish interest authors have a platform, that readers are able to find books on topics across Jewish life that may interest them, and ultimately have the tools to discuss those works with their community.
In 2017, JBC is pleased to add to its roster of activities a new partnership with the Natan Fund to present the Natan Book Award. The Natan Book Award at the Jewish Book Council supports and promotes a breakthrough book intended for mainstream audiences that will catalyze conversations around Jewish life and community in the 21st century. Submission guidelines and details can be found at www.jewishbookcouncil.org/awards/natanbookaward.
About the National Jewish Book Awards: The National Jewish Book Award was established by the Jewish Book Council in 1950 in order to recognize outstanding works of Jewish literature. As the longest-running North American awards program of its kind in the field of Jewish literature, the National Jewish Book Awards is designed to recognize outstanding books of Jewish interest. In addition to the above-mentioned winners, awards are given out this year in fourteen categories.
A complete list of the 2016 National Jewish Book Award winners and finalists follows and additional information is available at www.JewishBookCouncil.org.
2016 National Jewish Book Award Winners and Finalists
Jewish Book of the Year
Everett Family Foundation Award
Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn (Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers) Daniel Gordis
JBC Modern Jewish Literary Achievement Award
Michael Chabon is the winner of JBC’s Modern Literary Achievement Award for his general contribution to modern Jewish literature, including his most recent work, Moonglow (Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers).
American Jewish Studies Celebrate 350 Award
Winner:
Kosher USA: How Coke Became Kosher and Other Tales of Modern Food (Columbia University Press) Roger Horowitz
Finalists:
Who Rules the Synagogue?: Religious Authority and the Formation of American Judaism (Oxford University Press) Zev Eleff
The Salome Ensemble (Syracuse University Press) Alan Robert Ginsberg
Anthologies and Collections
Winner:
Makers of Jewish Modernity: Thinkers, Artists, Leaders, and the World They Made (Princeton University Press) Jacques Picard, Jacques Revel, Michael P. Steinberg, Idith Zertal, eds.
Finalists:
Love Finer Than Wine: The Writings of Matthew Eisenfeld and Sara Duker (Createspace) Edward C. Bernstein
Love, Marriage, and Jewish Families: Paradoxes of a Social Revolution (Brandeis University Press) Sylvia Barack Fishman
Have I Got a Story for You: More Than a Century of Fiction from the Forward (W. W. Norton & Company) Ezra Glinter
Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir
The Krauss Family Award in Memory of Simon & Shulamith (Sofi) Goldberg
Winner:
But You Did Not Come Back (Grove Atlantic) Marceline Loridan-Ivens; Sandra Smith, trans.
Finalist:
In the Darkroom (Metropolitan Books) Susan Faludi
Book Club Award
The Debby and Ken Miller Award
Winner:
And After the Fire (Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers) Lauren Belfer
Finalists:
Two She-Bears (Schocken Books) Meir Shalev, Stuart Schoffman, trans.
Beauty Queen of Jerusalem (St. Martin’s Press) Sarit Yishai-Levy, Anthony Berris, trans.
Children’s Literature
Winner:
I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers) Debbie Levy; Elizabeth Baddeley, illus.
Finalists:
Dreidels on the Brain (Dial Books) Joel ben Izzy
The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog (Dutton Books for Young Readers) Adam Gidwitz
Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice Myra H. Kraft Memorial Award
Winner:
Changing the World from the Inside Out: A Jewish Approach to Personal and Social Change (Shambhala Publications, Inc.) Rabbi David Jaffe
Finalists:
The Gefilte Manifesto: New Recipes for Old World Jewish Foods (Flatiron Books) Liz Alpern and Jeffrey Yoskowitz
The Heart of Loneliness: How Jewish Wisdom Can Help You Cope and Find Comfort (Jewish Lights Publishing) Rabbi Marc Katz
Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting (Flatiron Books) Danya Ruttenberg
Debut Fiction Goldberg Prize
Winner:
Anna and the Swallow Man (Knopf Books for Young Readers) Gavriel Savit
Finalists:
The Yid (Picador) Paul Goldberg
The Beautiful Possible (Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers) Amy Gottlieb
Education and Jewish Identity In Memory of Dorothy Kripkeo
Winner:
Next Generation Judaism: How College Students and Hillel Can Help Reinvent Jewish Organizations (Jewish Lights Publishing) Mike Uram
Finalist:
Judaisms: A Twenty-First-Century Introduction to Jews and Jewish Identities (University of California Press) Aaron J. Hahn Tapper
Fiction
JJ Greenberg Memorial Award
Winner:
The Gustav Sonata (W. W. Norton & Company) Rose Tremain
Finalists:
Carry Me (Schocken Books) Peter Behrens
Charlotte (The Overlook Press) David Foenkinos
History
Gerrard and Ella Berman Memorial Award
Winner:
The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel (Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers) Uri Bar-Joseph
Finalists:
Dreams Deferred: A Concise Guide to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Movement to Boycott Israel (Indiana University Press) Cary Nelson, ed.
East West Street: On the Origins of “Genocide” and “Crimes Against Humanity” (Knopf) Philippe Sands
Holocaust
Winner:
Holocaust, Genocide, and the Law: A Quest for Justice in a Post-Holocaust World (Oxford University Press) Michael Bazyler
Finalists:
The Holocaust in Croatia (University of Pittsburgh Press) Ivo Goldstein and Slavko Goldstein
A History of the Grandparents I Never Had (Stanford University Press) Ivan Jablonka; Jane Kuntz, trans.
Lessons of the Holocaust (University of Toronto Press) Michael R. Marrus
East West Street: On the Origins of “Genocide” and “Crimes Against Humanity” (Knopf) Philippe Sands
Modern Jewish Thought and Experience
Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider Mayerson
Winner:
Never Better!: The Modern Jewish Picaresque (University of Michigan Press) Miriam Udel
Finalist:
Modern Orthodox Judaism: A Documentary History (Jewish Publication Society) Zev Eleff
Poetry
Berru Award in Memory of Ruth and Bernie Weinflash
Winner:
Almost Complete Poems (Seven Stories Press) Stanley Moss
Finalists:
Two Worlds Exist (Orison Books) Yehoshua November
Go On (Parlor Press) Ethel Rackin
Scholarship
Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award
Winner:
Anti-Jewish Riots in the Crown of Aragon and the Royal Response, 1391-1392 (Cambridge University Press) Benjamin R. Gampel
Finalists:
Clepsydra: Essay on the Plurality of Time in Judaism (Stanford University Press) Sylvie Anne Goldberg
The Zohar: Reception and Impact (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization) Boaz Huss
Sexuality in the Babylonian Talmud: Christian and Sasanian Contexts in Late Antiquity (Cambridge University Press) Yishai Kiel
Sephardic Culture
Mimi S. Frank Award in Memory of Becky Levy
Winner:
Extraterritorial Dreams: European Citizenship, Sephardi Jews, and the Ottoman Twentieth Century (University of Chicago Press) Sarah Abrevaya Stein
Finalists:
Anti-Jewish Riots in the Crown of Aragon and the Royal Response, 1391-1392 (Cambridge University Press) Benjamin R. Gampel
Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece (Stanford University Press) Devin Naar
Women’s Studies Barbara Dobkin Award
Winner:
The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate (CCAR Press) Rabbi Rebecca Einstein Schorr, Rabbi Alysa Mendelson Graf, eds.
Writing Based on Archival Material
The JDC-Herbert Katzki Award
Winner:
Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece (Stanford University Press) Devin E. Naar, Stanford University Press
Finalist:
Anti-Jewish Riots in the Crown of Aragon and the Royal Response, 1391-1392 (Cambridge University Press) Benjamin R. Gampel
Young Adult
The Posner Award
Winner:
On Blackberry Hill (CreateSpace) Rachel Mann
Finalists:
Anna and the Swallow Man (Knopf Books for Young Readers) Gavriel Savit
Another Me (Tundra Books) Eva Wiseman
The Whole Megillah 