The National Jewish Book Awards are a significant snapshot of mainstream American Jewish culture and book life. What it does, perhaps uniquely, is mix together across a broad spectrum of categories middle brow culture, including books for children, along with literature and academic scholarship. Without any critical animus, I’ll add this. That Jonathan Sacks and Art Green won awards, the one in Modern Jewish Thought and Experience, the other in Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice, is a sign of the times. These two awards indicate what is current and important in popular Jewish religious thought today, i.e. conservative moralism and New Age spirituality. Also of note is that a book on visual and material culture and objects, by Laura Arnold Leibman, won the award in three categories: American Jewish Studies, History, and Women Studies. I am pasting the list of and links to winners and runners-up below the information from their website
About Jewish Book Council: Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating, enriching, and strengthening the community through Jewish literature. With over 250 touring authors each year, 2,000 book clubs, 1,300 events, the National Jewish Book Awards, Natan Notable Books, the 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 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:
Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Basic Books
American Jewish Studies
Celebrate 350 Award
Winner:
The Art of the Jewish Family: A History of Women in Early New York in Five Objects
Laura Arnold Leibman
Bard Graduate Center
Finalists:
Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age
Ayala Fader
Princeton University Press
Laurel Leff
Yale University Press
The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City
Scott D. Seligman
Potomac Books
Autobiography and Memoir
The Krauss Family Award in Memory of Simon & Shulamith (Sofi) Goldberg
Winner:
When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father’s War and What Remains
Ariana Neumann
Scribner (Simon & Schuster)
Finalists:
Steerforth Press
I Want You to Know We’re Still Here
Esther Safran Foer
Crown Publishing Group
Here We Are: My Friendship with Philip Roth
Benjamin Taylor
Penguin Books
Biography
In Memory of Sara Berenson Stone
Winner:
Nancy Sinkoff
Wayne State University Press
Finalists:
Andrea Dworkin: The Feminist as Revolutionary
Martin Duberman
The New Press
Rabbi Leo Baeck: Living a Religious Imperative in Troubled Times
Michael A. Meyer
University of Pennsylvania Press
Other Press
Book Club
The Miller Family Award in Memory of Helen Dunn Weinstein and June Keit Miller
Winner:
Max Gross
HarperVia
Finalists:
Jan Eliasberg
Little, Brown (Back Bay)
Kristin Harmel
Gallery Books
The Yellow Bird Sings: A Novel
Jennifer Rosner
Flatiron Books
A. B. Yehoshua
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Children’s Picture Book
Winner:
Welcoming Elijah: A Passover Tale with a Tail
Lesléa Newman, illustrated by Susan Gal
Charlesbridge
Finalists:
Judah Touro Didn’t Want to Be Famous
Audrey Ades, illustrated by Vivien Mildenberger
Kar-Ben Publishing
No Steps Behind: Beate Sirota Gordon’s Battle for Women’s Rights in Japan
Jeff Gottesfeld, illustrated by Shiella Witanto
Creston Books
Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice
Myra H. Kraft Memorial Award
Winner:
Judaism for the World: Reflections on God, Life, and Love
Arthur Green
Yale University Press
Finalists:
CCAR Press
Prepare My Prayer: Recipes to Awaken the Soul
Rabbi Dov Singer
Koren Publishers Jerusalem
Debut Fiction
Goldberg Prize
Winner:
Florence Adler Swims Forever: A Novel
Rachel Beanland
Simon & Schuster
Finalists:
David Hopen
HarperCollins
The Yellow Bird Sings: A Novel
Jennifer Rosner
Flatiron Books
Education and Jewish Identity
In Memory of Dorothy Kripke
Winner:
Hebrew Infusion: Language and Community at American Jewish Summer Camps
Sarah Bunin Benor, Jonathan Krasner, and Sharon Avni
Rutgers University Press
Finalist:
The Unstoppable Startup: Mastering Israel’s Secret Rules of Chutzpah
Uri Adoni
HarperCollins Leadership
Fiction
JJ Greenberg Memorial Award
Winner:
Colum McCann
Random House
Finalists:
Emuna Elon
Atria Books
Eshkol Nevo, translated by Sondra Silverston
Other Press
Nessa Rapoport
Counterpoint Press
Yishai Sarid, translated by Yardenne Greenspan
Restless Books
Food Writing & Cookbooks
Jane and Stuart Weitzman Family Award
Winner:
Monday Morning Cooking Club
HarperCollins
Finalist:
Ben Katchor
Schocken Books
History
Gerrard and Ella Berman Memorial Award
Winner:
The Art of the Jewish Family: A History of Women in Early New York in Five Objects
Laura Arnold Leibman
Bard Graduate Center
Finalists:
Natan M. Meir
Stanford University Press
Rescue the Surviving Souls: The Great Jewish Refugee Crisis of the Seventeenth Century
Adam Teller
Princeton University Press
Holocaust
In Memory of Ernest W. Michel
Winner:
The Unanswered Letter: One Holocaust Family’s Desperate Plea for Help
Faris Cassell
Regnery History
Middle Grade Literature
Winner:
Anne Blankman
Viking Children’s Books, Penguin/Random House
Finalists:
Tziporah Cohen
Groundwood Books
Sofiya Pasternack
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Chance: Escape from the Holocaust
Uri Shulevitz
Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers/Macmillan
Modern Jewish Thought and Experience
Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider Mayerson
Winner:
Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Basic Books
Finalists:
Esther: Power, Fate, and Fragility in Exile
Dr. Erica Brown
Koren Publishers Jerusalem
The New Jewish Canon: Ideas & Debates 1980 – 2015
Yehuda Kurtzer and Claire E. Sufrin
Academic Studies Press
Poetry
Berru Award in Memory of Ruth and Bernie Weinflash
Winner:
Lisa Richter
Frontenac House
Finalists:
Elvira Basevich
Pank Books
Asylum: A personal, historical, natural inquiry in 103 lyric sections
Jill Bialosky
Alfred A. Knopf
Adam Kammerling
Out-Spoken Press
Scholarship
Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award
Winner:
Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism
Sarit Kattan Gribetz
Princeton University Press
Finalists:
Nahmanides: Law and Mysticism
Moshe Halbertal, translated by Daniel Tabak
Yale University Press
Demons, Angels, and Writing in Ancient Judaism
Annette Yoshiko Reed
Cambridge University Press
Sephardic Culture
Mimi S. Frank Award in Memory of Becky Levy
Winner:
Forging Ties, Forging Passports: Migration and the Modern Sephardi Diaspora
Devi Mays
Stanford University Press
Finalists:
The Jews of Ottoman Izmir: A Modern History
Dina Danon
Stanford University Press
Stefan Hertmans, translated by David McKay
Alfred A. Knopf
Dalia Kandiyoti
Stanford University Press
Women Studies
Barbara Dobkin Award
Winner:
The Art of the Jewish Family: A History of Women in Early New York in Five Objects
Laura Arnold Leibman
Bard Graduate Center
Finalists:
Her Story, My Story? Writing About Women and the Holocaust
Edited by Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz and Dalia Ofer
Peter Lang Publishers
The Rebellion of the Daughters: Jewish Women Runaways in Habsburg Galicia
Rachel Manekin
Princeton University Press
Writing Based on Archival Material
The JDC-Herbert Katzki Award
Winner:
Blood Libel: On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth
Magda Teter
Harvard University Press
Finalists:
The Lost Archive: Traces of a Caliphate in a Cairo Synagogue
Marina Rustow
Princeton University Press
Leaving Zion: Jewish Emigration from Palestine and Israel after World War II
Ori Yehudai
Cambridge University Press
Young Adult Literature
Winner:
Gavriel Savit
Random House Children’s Books
Finalists:
Marisa Kanter
Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing
Rachel Lynn Solomon
Simon & Schuster Children’s PublishingMore from JBC Staffnational jewish book awardbooksfictionmiddle grade fictionidentityimmigrationrefugeesPreviousIllumination: A Conversation with Mark PodwalAda BrunsteinCategoriesArts & Culture
” conservative moralism and New Age spirituality” it’s telling that NPRish folks (including the audience) like Krista Tippett manage to embrace both often at the same time.