National Jewish Book Awards

2018

Category	Endowment	Winner	Finalists
Jewish Book of the Year	Everett Family Foundation Award	Beate Klarsfeld, Serge Klarsfeld; Sam Taylor, trans. Hunting the Truth: Memoirs of Beate and Serge Klarsfeld Farrar, Straus and Giroux
American Jewish Studies	Celebrate 350 Award	Jack Wertheimer The New American Judaism: How Jews Practice Their Religion Today Princeton University Press	Eric L. Goldstein and Deborah R. Weiner On Middle Ground: A History of the Jews of Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press Daniel Judson Pennies for Heaven: The History of American Synagogues and Money Brandeis Samira K. Mehta Beyond Chrismukkah: The Christian-Jewish Interfaith Family in the United States The University of North Carolina Press
Autobiography and Memoir	The Krauss Family Award in Memory of Simon & Shulamith (Sofi) Goldberg	Ehud Barak My Country, My Life: Fighting for Israel, Searching for Peace St. Martin’s Press	Maira Kalman, Alex Kalman Sara Berman’s Closet Harper Design Mohammed Al Samawi The Fox Hunt: A Refugee’s Memoir of Coming to America William Morrow
Biography	In Memory of Sara Berenson Stone	Ariel Burger Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom Houghton Mifflin Harcourt	Lillian Faderman Harvey Milk: His Lives and Death Yale University Press Gregory Joseph Wallance The Woman Who Fought An Empire: Sarah Aaronsohn and Her Nili Spy Ring Potomac Books/University of Nebraska press Ken Krimstein The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt: A Tyranny of Truth Bloomsbury
Book Club Award	The Miller Family Award in Memory of Helen Dunn Weinstein and June Keit Miller	Ronald H. Balson The Girl from Berlin St. Martin’s Press	Martin Fletcher Promised Land: A Novel Thomas Dunne Books Yossi Klein Halevi Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor HarperCollins
Children's Literature	Jewish Book Council Award	Erica S. Perl All Three Stooges Knopf Books for Young Readers	Jonathan Auxier Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster Harry N. Abrams Emily Jenkins; Paul O. Zelinsky, illus. All-of-a-Kind Family Hanukkah Schwartz & Wade Sandy Eisenberg Sasso; Margeaux Lucas, illus. Regina Persisted: An Untold Story Apples & Honey Press
Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice	Myra H. Kraft Memorial Award	Leon Wiener Dow The Going: A Meditation on Jewish Law Palgrave Macmillan	Judy Seldin-Cohen Recharging Judaism: How Civic Engagement is Good for Synagogues, Jews, and America CCAR Press Hannah Schwadron The Case of the Sexy Jewess: Dance, Gender and Jewish Joke-work in US Pop Culture Oxford University Press
Debut Fiction	Goldberg Prize	Bram Presser The Book of Dirt Text Publishing Company	Mary E. Carter I, Sarah Steinway Tovah Miriam Deborah Gaal The Dream Stitcher Anchor House Pubishing MaNishtana Ariel Samson: Freelance Rabbi Multikosheral Press NYC Moriel Rothman-Zecher Sadness Is a White Bird Atria Books
Education and Jewish Identity	In Memory of Dorothy Kripke	Barry Scott Wimpfheimer The Talmud: A Biography Princeton University Press	Pini Dunner Mavericks, Mystics & False Messiahs: Episodes from the Margins of Jewish History Koren Publishers Jerusalem Rabbi Amy Scheinerman The Talmud of Relationships, Volume 1 & 2 University of Nebraska Press / The Jewish Publication Society Scott A. Shay In Good Faith: Questioning Religion and Atheism Post Hill Press
Fiction	JJ Greenberg Memorial Award	Michael David Lukas The Last Watchman of Old Cairo Spiegel & Grau	Kenneth Bonert The Mandela Plot Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Tova Reich Mother India Syracuse University Press Gary Shteyngart Lake Success: A Novel Random House
History	Gerrard and Ella Berman Memorial Award	Ronen Bergman Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations Random House	Michael Brenner In Search of Israel: The History of an Idea Princeton University Press Shira Klein Italy’s Jews from Emancipation to Fascism Cambridge University Press Steven J. Zipperstein Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History Liveright
Holocaust	In Memory of Ernest W. Michel	Omer Bartov Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz Simon & Schuster
Mentorship Award	In Honor of Carolyn Starman Hessel	Susan Shapiro
Modern Jewish Thought and Experience	Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider	Alan L. Mittleman Does Judaism Condone Violence? Holiness and Ethics in the Jewish Tradition Princeton University Press	Samuel Hayim Brody Martin Buber’s Theopolitics Indiana University Press Amos Oz Dear Zealots Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Shachar M. Pinsker A Rich Brew: How Cafés Created Modern Jewish Culture NYU Press
Poetry	Berru Award in Memory of Ruth and Bernie Weinflash	Erika Meitner Holy Moly Carry Me: Poems BOA Editions Ltd.	Mordechai Geldman; Tsipi Keller, trans. Years I Walked at Your Side: Selected Poems State University of New York Press Alicia Jo Rabins Fruit Geode Augury Books
Scholarship	Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award	Marcin Wodziński Historical Atlas of Hasidism Princeton University Press	Lynn Kaye Time in the Babylonian Talmud: Natural and Imaged Times in Jewish Law and Narrative Cambridge University Press Vered Noam Shifting Images of the Hasmoneans: Second Temple Legends and Their Reception in Josephus and Rabbinic Literature Oxford University Press Ora Wiskind–Elper Hasidic Commentary on the Torah The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization in association with Liverpool
Sephardic Culture	Mimi S. Frank Award in Memory of Becky Levy	Jonathan Decter Dominion Built of Praise: Panegyric and Legitimacy Among Jews in the Medieval Mediterranean University of Pennsylvania Press	Sarah Abrevaya Stein Aomar Boum The Holocaust and North Africa Stanford University Press
Women's Studies	Barbara Dobkin Award	Alice Shalvi Never a Native Halban Publishers	Beth Ricanati Braided: A Journey of A Thousand Challahs She Writes Press Mara H. Benjamin The Obligated Self: Maternal Subjectivity and Jewish Thought Indiana University Press
Writing Based on Archival Material	The JDC-Herbert Katzki Award	Rebecca Erbelding Rescue Board: The Untold Story of America’s Efforts to Save the Jews of Europe Doubleday — Penguin Random House	Shira Klein Italy’s Jews from Emancipation to Fascism Cambridge University Press