Southern New England Jewish Ledger
This Jewish Book Council has announced the winners of the 72nd National Jewish Book Awards.
The winning books include Kosher Soul: The Faith and Food Journey of an African American Jew by Michael W. Twitty (HarperCollins/ Amistad Books) which was named the Everett Family Foundation Book of the Year. Kosher Soul explores the connections between the Jewish and African diasporas through food, making a case that the links between the cuisine and identity of the two communities form a deep connective tissue. This eye-opening book includes Twitty’s conversations with people from different demographics within both communities, as well as deep dives into theology, identity, and, of course, food — giving readers the impetus to reflect on their heritage and religion in a new way.
Michael Frank is the winner of both the new Holocaust Memoir category and the Sephardic Culture category Mimi S. Frank Award in memory of Becky Levy with his book One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World (Avid Reader Press). He was also recently named a Natan Notable Book from Natan Fund and Jewish Book Council in October 2022.
Dani Shapiro wins her second National Jewish Book Award, and her first JJ Greenberg Memorial Award for Fiction, for her novel Signal Fires (Alfred A. Knopf). Ashley Goldberg wins the Goldberg Prize for Debut Fiction with his novel Abomination (Penguin Random House Australia) and Miriam Ruth Black is recognized as the recipient of the The Miller Family Book Club Award in Memory of Helen Dunn Weinstein and June Keit Miller for her novel Shayna (Kirk House). The inaugural Hebrew Fiction in Translation Jane Weitzman Award goes to Mayan Eitan for her book Love (Penguin Press), which is self-translated.
Jonathan Freedland is the recipient of both the Biography Award in Memory of Sara Berenson Stone and the Holocaust Award in Memory of Ernest W. Michel for his book The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World (HarperCollins Publishers), and Kenneth B. Moss wins the Gerrard and Ella Berman Memorial Award in History for his book An Unchosen People: Jewish Political Reckoning in Interwar Poland (Harvard University Press).
Shoshana Nambi has won the inaugural Children’s Picture Book Tracy and Larry Brown Family Award for The Very Best Sukkah: A Story of Uganda, illustrated by Moran Yogev (Kalaniot Books). Susan Wider receives the Young Adult Literature Award for It’s My Whole Life: Charlotte Salomon: An Artist in Hiding During World War II (Norton Young Readers), and the Middle Grade Literature Award goes to The Prince of Steel Pier by Stacy Nockowitz (Kar-Ben Publishing).
The Jane and Stuart Weitzman Family Award for Food Writing and Cookbooks goes to Cooking alla Giuda by Benedetta Jasmine Guetta (Artisan Books) and Sean Singer wins the Berru Poetry Award in Memory of Ruth and Bernie Weinflash for Today in the Taxi (Tupelo Press).
Danya Ruttenberg’s On Repentance and Repair (Beacon Press) receives the Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice Myra H. Kraft Memorial Award.
This year, we are pleased to present the Mentorship Award in Honor of Carolyn Starman Hessel to Ellen Frankel. Frankel served as the Editor in Chief and CEO of The Jewish Publication Society for eighteen years. During her tenure, she mentored both authors, staff, and students; championed many women scholars starting with Aviva Zornberg; brought to life the Folktales of the Jews project, which made the stories of forgotten Jewish communities accessible to a larger audience; in addition to her unwavering commitment to make obscure texts accessible to lay audiences. Former JPS employee Arielle Levites shares, “Her special contribution has been in telling unknown and under-explored stories and nurturing first-time authors who otherwise might have been overlooked.” Frankel is also a National Jewish Book Award-winning author, teacher, storyteller, and lecturer.
A complete list of the 72nd National Jewish Book Award winners and finalists can be found below, and additional information is available at www.JewishBookCouncil.org.
JBC’s website features a database of current and past National Jewish Book Award winners and finalists; judges’ remarks on the 2022 winners and finalists will also be available after the March 2023 celebration.
The winners of the 72nd National Jewish Book Awards will be honored on Wednesday March 1, 2023 at 6:30 p.m. at a ceremony to be held at Bohemian National Hall in New York City. For ticket information, visit jewishbookcouncil.org.
Jewish Book of the Year
Everett Family Foundation Award
Winner:
Kosher Soul: The Faith and Food Journey of an African American Jew
Michael W. Twitty
HarperCollins/ Amistad Books
Mentorship Award in Honor of Carolyn Starman Hessel
Ellen Frankel
Ellen Frankel served for eighteen years as Editor in Chief and CEO of The Jewish Publication Society. She is the author of ten books, including The Illustrated Hebrew Bible, which won a National Jewish Book Award. Most recently, she is the author of the new thriller series, The Jerusalem Mysteries. Frankel has taught writing and literature at Princeton University, Franklin and Marshall College, and Drexel University as well as leading writing workshops for educators, businesspeople, and teens.
American Jewish Studies
Celebrate 350 Award
Winner:
American Shtetl: The Making of Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic Village in Upstate New York
Nomi M. Stolzenberg and David N. Myers
Princeton University Press
Finalists:
The Literary Mafia: Jews, Publishing, and Postwar American Literature
Josh Lambert
Yale University Press
Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War: The Union Army
Adam D. Mendelsohn
New York University Press
Autobiography and Memoir
The Krauss Family Award in Memory of Simon & Shulamith (Sofi) Goldberg
Winner:
Chosen: A Memoir of Stolen Boyhood
Stephen Mills
Metropolitan Books
Finalists:
The Adventures of Herbie Cohen: World’s Greatest Negotiator
Rich Cohen
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Like a Drop of Ink in a Downpour: Memories of Soviet Russia
Yelena and Galina Lembersky
Academic Studies Press
Lost & Found: Reflections on Grief, Gratitude, and Happiness
Kathryn Schulz
Random House
Biography
In Memory of Sara Berenson Stone
Winner:
The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World
Jonathan Freedland
HarperCollins Publishers
Finalists:
Professor of Apocalypse: The Many Lives of Jacob Taubes
Jerry Z. Muller
Princeton University Press
Book Club
The Miller Family Award in Memory of Helen Dunn Weinstein and June Keit Miller
Winner:
Shayna
Miriam Ruth Black
Kirk House
Finalists:
Moonshot: Inside Pfizer’s Nine Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible
Albert Bourla
HarperCollins
Cover Me With My Izar
Nora Houri Haim
Raven Like a Writing Desk
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Gabrielle Zevin
Penguin Random House
The Incandescent Threads
Richard Zimler
Parthian Books
Children’s Picture Book
Tracy and Larry Brown Family
Winner:
The Very Best Sukkah: A Story from Uganda
Shoshana Nambi, Moran Yogev, illus.
Kalaniot Books
Finalists:
Tia Fortuna’s New Home: A Cuban Journey
Ruth Behar, Devon Holzwarth, illus.
Random House Children’s Books
Alone Together on Dan Street
Erica Lyons, Jen Jamieson, illus.
Apples & Honey Press, Behrman House
Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice
Myra H. Kraft Memorial Award
Winner:
On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World
Danya Ruttenberg
Beacon Press
Finalists:
Stop Look Listen: Celebrating Shabbos Through a Spiritual Lens
Nehemia Polen
Koren Publishers
Debut Fiction
Goldberg Prize
Winner:
Abomination
Ashley Goldberg
Penguin Random House Australia
Finalists:
The Girl Who Counted Numbers
Roslyn Bernstein
Amsterdam Publishers
Education and Jewish Identity
In Memory of Dorothy Kripke
Winner:
My Second Favorite Country: How American Jewish Children Think About Israel
Sivan Zakai
NYU Press
Finalists:
Queering Anti-Zionism Academic Freedom, LGBTQ Intellectuals, and Israel/Palestine Campus Activism
Corinne E. Blackmer
Wayne State University Press
#antisemitism: Coming of Age During the Resurgence of Hate
Samantha Vinokor-Meinrath
ABC-CLIO
Fiction
JJ Greenberg Memorial Award
Winner:
Signal Fires
Dani Shapiro
Alfred A. Knopf
Finalists:
I’d Like to Say Sorry, but There’s No One To Say Sorry To: Stories
Mikołaj Grynberg
The New Press
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Gabrielle Zevin
Penguin Random House
Food Writing & Cookbooks
Jane and Stuart Weitzman Family Award
Winner:
Cooking alla Giuda
Benedetta Jasmine Guetta
Artisan Books
Finalist:
Honey Cakes & Latkes: Recipes from the Old World by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Survivors
Maria Zalewska (ed.)
Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation / Melcher Media
Hebrew Fiction in Translation
Jane Weitzman Award
Winner:
Love
Maayan Eitan
Penguin Press
Finalists:
World Shadow
Nir Baram; Jessica Cohen, trans
Text Publishing
Victorious
Yishai Sarid; Yardenne Greenspan, trans.
Restless Books
History
Gerrard and Ella Berman Memorial Award
Winner:
An Unchosen People: Jewish Political Reckoning in Interwar Poland
Kenneth B. Moss
Harvard University Press
Finalists:
In Hitler’s Munich: Jews, the Revolution and the Rise of Nazism
Michael Brenner
Princeton University Press
The Baron: Maurice de Hirsch and the Jewish Nineteenth Century
Matthias B. Lehmann
Stanford University Press
The Shamama Case: Contesting Citizenship across the Modern Mediterranean Jessica M. Marglin
Princeton University Press
Holocaust
In Memory of Ernest W. Michel
Winner:
The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World Jonathan Freedland
HarperCollins Publishers
Finalist:
The School that Escaped the Nazis: The True Story of the Schoolteacher Who Defied Hitler
Deborah Cadbury
PublicAffairs, Hachette Book Group
Holocaust Memoir
Winner:
One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World
Michael Frank
Simon & Schuster / Avid Reader Press
Finalists:
Lily’s Promise: Holding On to Hope Through Auschwitz and Beyond―A Story for All Generations
Lily Ebert and Dov Forman
HarperCollins
The Watchmakers: A Story of Brotherhood, Survival, and Hope Amid the Holocaust
Harry Lenga & Scott Lenga
Kensington Books
The 23rd Psalm: A Holocaust Memoir, The 20th Anniversary Edition
George Salton with Anna Salton Eisen
Mandel Vilar Press
Middle Grade Literature
Winner:
Stacy Nockowitz
Kar-Ben Publishing
Finalists:
Pamela Ehrenberg and Tracy Lopez
PJ Publishing
Alias Anna: A True Story of Outwitting the Nazis
Susan Hood and Greg Dawson
HarperCollins
Modern Jewish Thought and Experience
Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider Mayerson
Winner:
Figuring Jerusalem: Politics and Poetics in the Sacred Center
Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi
The University of Chicago Press
Finalists:
Jacob’s Younger Brother: Christian-Jewish Relations after Vatican II
Karma Ben-Johanan
Harvard University Press
Sasha Senderovich
Harvard University Press
Poetry
Berru Award in Memory of Ruth and Bernie Weinflash
Winner:
Sean Singer
Tupelo Press
Finalists:
Her Birth and Later Years: New and Collected Poems, 1971 – 2021
Irena Klepfisz
Wesleyan University Press
Lynn Melnick
YesYes Books
Yerra Sugarman
Four Way Books
Scholarship
Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award
Winner:
The Heresy of Jacob Frank: From Jewish Messianism to Esoteric Myth
Jay Michaelson
Oxford University Press
Finalists:
Karaism: An Introduction to the Oldest Surviving Alternative Judaism
Daniel Lasker
The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
Trans Talmud: Androgynes and Eunuchs in Rabbinic Literature
Max K. Strassfeld
University of California Press
Sephardic Culture
Mimi S. Frank Award in Memory of Becky Levy
Winner:
One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World
Michael Frank
Simon & Schuster / Avid Reader Press
Finalist:
Jews, Food, and Spain: The Oldest Medieval Spanish Cookbook and the Sephardic Culinary Heritage
Hélène Jawhara Piñer
Academic Studies Press
The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire
Joseph Sassoon
Pantheon Books, Penguin Random House
Visual Arts
Winner:
Let There Be Light The Real Story of Her Creation
Liana Finck
Random House
Finalists:
Malkah’s Notebook: A Journey into the Mystical Aleph-Bet
Mira Z. Amiras
Collective Book Studio
Florine Stettheimer. A Biography
Barbara Bloemink
Hirmer Publishers
Women’s Studies
Barbara Dobkin Award
Winner:
Biblical Women and Jewish Daily Life in the Middle Ages
Elisheva Baumgarten
University of Pennsylvania Press
Finalist:
The Lives of Jessie Sampter: Queer, Disabled, Zionist
Sarah Imhoff
Duke University Press
Women Writing Jewish Modernity, 1919 – 1939
Allison Schachter
Northwestern University Press
Writing Based on Archival Material
The JDC-Herbert Katzki Award
Winner:
A “Jewish Marshall Plan” The American Jewish Presence in Post-Holocaust France
Laura Hobson Faure
Indiana University Press
Finalist:
Beyond Zion:The Jewish Territorialist Movement
Laura Almagor
The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
Yiddish Paris: Staging Nation and Community in Interwar France
Nick Underwood
Indiana University Press
Young Adult Literature
Winner:
It’s My Whole Life: Charlotte Salomon: An Artist in Hiding During World War II
Susan Wider
Norton Young Readers
Finalists:
When the Angels Left the Old Country
Sacha Lamb
Levine Querido
Salt & Honey: Jewish Teens on Feminism, Creativity, and Tradition
Elizabeth Mandel, editor
Behrman House
M. Romero
Peachtree Teen/ Peachtree
MAIN PHOTO: KosherSoul: The Faith and Food Journey of an African American Jew by Michael W. Twitty was named Book of the Year.
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