The Natan Fund and Jew­ish Book Coun­cil are thrilled to announce the Sum­mer 2024 Natan Notable Book: Hen­ri­et­ta Szold: Hadas­sah and the Zion­ist Dream by Francine Klags­brun (Yale Jew­ish Lives, 2024).

Twice a year, Natan Notable Books rec­og­nizes recent­ly pub­lished or about-to-be-pub­lished non-fic­tion books that promise to cat­alyze con­ver­sa­tions aligned with the themes of Natan’s grant­mak­ing: rein­vent­ing Jew­ish life and com­mu­ni­ty for the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry, shift­ing notions of indi­vid­ual and col­lec­tive Jew­ish iden­ti­ty, the his­to­ry and future of Israel, under­stand­ing and con­fronting con­tem­po­rary forms of anti­semitism, and the evolv­ing rela­tion­ship between Israel and world Jewry.

In this new biog­ra­phy of Hen­ri­et­ta Szold, Francine Klags­brun details the incred­i­ble achieve­ments of an extra­or­di­nary woman who under­stood not just ideals but the actions that were required of her — and of the world around her — to address those ideals. Known most wide­ly as the founder of Hadas­sah — the Women’s Zion­ist Orga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­ca — Szold was also a schol­ar and edi­tor, an edu­ca­tor who start­ed a night school for new immi­grants in Bal­ti­more which became a mod­el for schools across the Unit­ed States, the direc­tor of Youth Aliya to Israel, and an advo­cate for numer­ous pub­lic health ini­tia­tives. She changed the lives of count­less peo­ple — not only the peo­ple in the Unit­ed States and Israel who ben­e­fit­ed from ser­vices that her ini­tia­tives pro­vid­ed, but gen­er­a­tions of Amer­i­can women for whom Hadas­sah became a mis­sion and a life­long community.

As Natan Notable Books com­mit­tee mem­ber Feli­cia Her­man said, ​“Hen­ri­et­ta Szold’s life is a mod­el for us all, espe­cial­ly in dif­fi­cult times. She was a true pio­neer: as a woman in the world of Jew­ish intel­lec­tu­al life; as a Zion­ist in Amer­i­ca long before Zion­ist ideas became pop­u­lar here; and, lit­er­al­ly, as pio­neer in the pre-State Yishuv, build­ing health­care and child wel­fare insti­tu­tions that have become core insti­tu­tions in Israeli soci­ety.” Now, when so much of our world needs rebuild­ing, the Natan Notable Books com­mit­tee is choos­ing – through the selec­tion of this book– to high­light and hon­or the mem­o­ry of a leader who took it upon her­self to not only raise aware­ness about the issues that she saw but to raise mon­ey and mobi­lize gen­er­a­tions of Amer­i­can Jew­ish women in par­tic­u­lar on behalf of Israel.

On select­ing Klagsbrun’s book as a Natan Notable Book, the com­mit­tee not­ed that Szold’s grass­roots orga­ni­za­tions were ini­tia­tives designed to, like Natan, to respond to the needs of the time, and the com­mu­ni­ty around her. Com­mit­tee chair, Tali Rosen­blatt-Cohen not­ed, ​“It is par­tic­u­lar­ly res­o­nant for Natan to hon­or a book about Hen­ri­et­ta Szold, a woman who iden­ti­fied the needs of the com­mu­ni­ties she was a part of and cat­alyzed tremen­dous change. Szold ​‘set her eyes on the future,’ a clar­i­on call for us all. Natan is also priv­i­leged to rec­og­nize Francine Klags­brun, who has her­self had tremen­dous impact on the sto­ry of Amer­i­can Jew­ish women, and has writ­ten a com­pelling, nuanced biog­ra­phy of a woman we would do well to remember.”

The author will receive a $5,000 cash prize, as well as cus­tomized sup­port for pro­mot­ing the book and its ideas, draw­ing on Natan’s and Jew­ish Book Council’s exten­sive net­works through­out the Jew­ish phil­an­thropic and com­mu­nal worlds.

An event honoring/​celebrating the book will be held on Octo­ber 28, 2024 at the Cen­ter for Jew­ish His­to­ry with author Francine Klags­brun in con­ver­sa­tion with Feli­cia Her­man. More infor­ma­tion and tick­ets for this event can be found at https://​ajhs​.org/​e​v​e​n​t​s​/​l​e​s​s​o​n​s​-​f​r​o​m​-​h​e​n​r​i​e​t​t​a​-​s​z​o​l​d​s​-​l​e​g​a​c​y​-​a​-​c​o​n​v​e​r​s​a​t​i​o​n​-​w​i​t​h​-​f​r​a​n​c​i​n​e​-​k​l​a​g​s​burn/.

For those inter­est­ed in sub­mit­ting a recent or soon-to-come non-fic­tion title, the dead­line for sub­mis­sion for Win­ter 2024 Natan Notable Books is Octo­ber 1, 2024. Titles must have a pub­li­ca­tion date between April 1, 2024 and March 31, 2025. Inquiries can be direct­ed to natannotable@​jewishbooks.​org.

For more infor­ma­tion on the award and eli­gi­bil­i­ty or to sub­mit a title, go to the Natan Notable Books page.

Natan Notable Books at the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil has pre­vi­ous­ly been award­ed to Bari Weiss’ How to Fight Anti-Semi­tism (2019), Susie Linfield’s The Lion’s Den (2019), Ilan Sta­vans’ The Sev­enth Heav­en (2020), Nan­cy Sinkoff’s From Left to Right (2020), Dara Horn’s Peo­ple Love Dead Jews (2021), Michael Frank’s One Hun­dred Sat­ur­days: Stel­la Levi and the Search for a Lost World (2022), and Feed­ing Women of the Tal­mud, Feed­ing Our­selves: Uplift­ing the Voic­es of Tal­mu­dic Hero­ines and Hon­or­ing Them with Sim­ple, Veg­an Recipes edit­ed by Kenden Alfond (2022), The Land of Hope and Fear: Israel’s Bat­tle for its Inner Soul by Isabel Ker­sh­n­er (2023), Tar­get Tehran: How Israel Is Using Sab­o­tage, Cyber­war­fare, Assas­si­na­tion – and Secret Diplo­ma­cy – to Stop a Nuclear Iran and Cre­ate a New Mid­dle East (2023). Natan Notable Books is an evo­lu­tion of the Natan Book Award, which was pre­vi­ous­ly award­ed to Mat­ti Friedman’s Spies of No Coun­try (2018) and Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land (2013). 

About Natan

Natan cat­alyzes emerg­ing phil­an­thropists to become active­ly engaged in build­ing the Jew­ish future by giv­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to cut­ting-edge ini­tia­tives in Israel and in Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties around the world, and by build­ing an inter­con­nect­ed com­mu­ni­ty of givers through grant­mak­ing, events and oth­er pro­grams. Natan believes that engaged and entre­pre­neur­ial phil­an­thropy can trans­form givers, grant recip­i­ents, and the fields in which Natan invests.

About Jew­ish Book Council

Jew­ish Book Coun­cil is a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to edu­cat­ing, enrich­ing, and strength­en­ing the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty through Jew­ish inter­est lit­er­a­ture. With over 270 tour­ing authors each year; over 2,800 book clubs; 1,400 events; its annu­al print pub­li­ca­tion, Paper Brigade; the Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards; Natan Notable Books; its pop­u­lar lit­er­ary series Unpack­ing the Book: Jew­ish Writ­ers in con­ver­sa­tion; and a vibrant dig­i­tal pres­ence, 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.