Jewish Book Council National Jewish Book Awards Dinner 2020

Update

While our dinner celebration has been postponed, we will continue our silent auction through August 15, 2020! We hope you will consider supporting Jewish Book Council by bidding on one of these very special items. 

Impor­tant COVID-19 Update

It's with great sad­ness that we share that we will be post­pon­ing the March 17th Nation­al Jew­ish Book Award gath­er­ing and March 18th lun­cheon at Touro Col­lege. Due to updat­ed reports, includ­ing the recent advi­so­ry from the CDC, we feel it's best to err on the side of cau­tion when it comes to mat­ters of health, and we hope you under­stand that this deci­sion comes with a heavy heart and was not tak­en lightly.

We will miss see­ing you at the cel­e­bra­to­ry din­ner, but we hope that we can find anoth­er time to cel­e­brate with you all in the near future. We will be work­ing to resched­ule the din­ner and will send an update as soon as pos­si­ble. In the mean­time, we hope you will con­sid­er con­tribut­ing to our silent auc­tion above to help sup­port Jew­ish Book Coun­cil's mis­sion to edu­cate and enrich the com­mu­ni­ty through­out the year through Jew­ish literature. 

Join us at our biggest literary event of the year, held annually since 1950, as we celebrate the finest Jewish literature of 2019 and toast our award-winning authors.

The host for the 2020 celebration dinner honoring our 2019 winners is Jeffrey Yoskowitz of The Gefilte Manifesto. The event will be located at the Bohemian National Hall in New York City.

The National Jewish Book Awards is the longest-running Jewish book awards program in North America and is recognized as the most prestigious. The awards, presented by category, are designed to give recognition to outstanding books, to stimulate writers to further literary creativity, and to encourage the reading of worthwhile titles. Jewish books are critical to our survival as an educated Jewish people.

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JBC's inaugural silent auction is now live!

The auction will end on August 15, 2020.  Please click "view items" or "items" above to bid.

We are pleased to announce that in celebration of our newest National Jewish Book Award, the Jane and Stuart Weitzman Family Award for Food Writing and Cookbook, we are highlighting Jewish cuisine in Jewish Book Council's inaugural silent auction. 

Each experience and item showcases a Jewish individual or experience involved in the world of food and beverage, and funds will support Jewish Book Council's year-round efforts to educate and enrich the community through Jewish literature. Our work throughout the year makes it possible for us to present over 20 literary awards, facilitate over 1,300 literary events annually, provide discussion resources to nearly 2,000 book clubs, and connect half a million readers to Jewish literature and ideas each year.

2019 National Jewish Book Award Winners

View more details about the winners and finalists here. 

Jew­ish Book of the Year - Everett Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion Award
Amer­i­ca's Jew­ish Women
Pamela S. Nadell 

Life­time Achieve­ment Award
The Hebrew Bible
Robert Alter 

Men­tor­ship Award in Hon­or of Car­olyn Star­man Hessel
Dena W. Neusner

Amer­i­can Jew­ish Studies - Cel­e­brate 350 Award
The Foun­da­tions of Amer­i­can Jew­ish Liberalism
Ken­neth D. Wald 

Antholo­gies and Collections
What We Talk About When We Talk About Hebrew (and What It Means to Americans) 
Nao­mi B. Sokoloff, Nan­cy E. Berg, eds. 

Auto­bi­og­ra­phy and Memoir - The Krauss Fam­i­ly Award in Mem­o­ry of Simon & Shu­lamith (Sofi) Goldberg
Inher­i­tance
Dani Shapiro 

Biog­ra­phy - In Mem­o­ry of Sara Beren­son Stone
Touched with Fire: Mor­ris B. Abram and the Bat­tle against Racial and Reli­gious Dis­crim­i­na­tion
David E. Lowe 

Book Club - The Miller Fam­i­ly Award in Mem­o­ry of Helen Dunn Wein­stein and June Keit Miller 
The World That We Knew 
Alice Hoffman 

Children's Lit­er­a­ture
Gittel's Jour­ney
Lesléa New­man; Amy June Bates, illus.  

Con­tem­po­rary Jew­ish Life and Practice - Myra H. Kraft Memo­r­i­al Award
How to Fight Anti-Semi­tism 
Bari Weiss 

Debut Fic­tion - Gold­berg Prize
Naamah 
Sarah Blake 

Edu­ca­tion and Jew­ish Identity - In Mem­o­ry of Dorothy Kripke
Anti­semitism
Deb­o­rah Lipstadt

Fic­tion - JJ Green­berg Memo­r­i­al Award 
Fly Already: Sto­ries 
Etgar Keret 

Food Writ­ing & Cookbooks - Jane and Stu­art Weitz­man Fam­i­ly Award
Jew­ish Cui­sine in Hun­gary
András Koerner 

His­to­ry - Ger­rard and Ella Berman Memo­r­i­al Award
The Guard­ed Gate
Daniel Okrent 

Holocaust - In Mem­o­ry of Ernest W. Michel 
The Unwant­ed
Michael Dobbs 

Mod­ern Jew­ish Thought and Experience- Dorot Foun­da­tion Award in Mem­o­ry of Joy Unger­lei­der May­er­son 
Lega­cy of Blood
Elis­sa Bemporad 

Poet­ry - Berru Award in Mem­o­ry of Ruth and Bernie Weinflash
Deaf Repub­lic
Ilya Kaminsky

Schol­ar­ship - Nahum M. Sar­na Memo­r­i­al Award 
Rashi's Com­men­tary on the Torah
Eric Lawee 

Sephardic Cul­ture - Mimi S. Frank Award in Mem­o­ry of Becky Levy
Lethal Provo­ca­tion
Joshua Cole 

Visu­al Arts
Edith Halpert, the Down­town Gallery, and the Rise of Amer­i­can Art
Rebec­ca Shaykin 

Women Stud­ies - Bar­bara Dobkin Award
Sarah Schenir­er and the Bais Yaakov Move­ment 
Nao­mi Seidman 

Writ­ing Based on Archival Material - The JDC-Her­bert Katz­ki Award
A Mor­tu­ary of Books
Elis­a­beth Gallas; Alex Skinner, trans.

Young Adult Literature
Some­day We Will Fly 
Rachel DeWoskin 

Schedule of Events

6:00 PM

Private pre-dinner reception with award winners, JBC's Board of Directors, and JBC Patrons and Benefactors

6:30 PM

General reception with all guests

7:00 PM

Sit down dinner with award presentations and ceremony

Jewish Book Council's Website

Click the image below to visit Jewish Book Council's website where you'll find reviews, essays, book club resources, past award winners, and more.