St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
) is a widely regarded folklorist, author, poet, and editor of dozens of books. He has won the international
Koret Jewish Book Award The Koret Jewish Book Award is an annual award that recognizes "recently published books on any aspect of Jewish life in the categories of biography/autobiography and literary studies, fiction, history and philosophy/thought published in, or transla ...
, for the book ''Before You Were Born'', and won a 2005
National Jewish Book Award
The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1944, is an organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature. He has been featured in the Jewish Children's Book Project, local media in his hometown of Saint Louis, ''
The Jerusalem Post
''The Jerusalem Post'' is a broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''The Palestine Post''. In 1950, it changed its name to ''The Jerusalem Post''. In 2004, the paper ...
'', and ''
The Canadian Jewish News
The Canadian Jewish News is a non-profit, national, English-language digital-first media organization that serves Canada‘s Jewish community. A national edition of the newspaper was published for 60 years in Toronto. A weekly Montreal edition in ...
'', as well as in many other publications.
Parents and early life
Schwartz was born April 21, 1945, to Nathan and Bluma (Rubin).
Publications and awards
Schwartz's later work in Jewish
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
, fiction, poetry, and children's literature has been recognized by more than forty organizations and literary bodies. He won the Aesop Prize from the American Folklore Society, the
American Book Award
The American Book Award is an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "the ...
from the
Before Columbus Foundation
The Before Columbus Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1976 by Ishmael Reed, "dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary American multicultural literature". The Foundation makes annual awards for books published in ...
, and the
Sydney Taylor Book Award
The Sydney Taylor Book Award recognizes the best in Jewish children's literature. Medals are awarded annually for outstanding books that authentically portray the Jewish experience. The award was established in 1968 by the Association of Jewish L ...
, among others.
More recently, the author was awarded the 2005
National Jewish Book Award
The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1944, is an organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature. an extensive attempt—almost 700 pages—to demonstrate the existence of a Jewish mythology.
His children's story, ''Before You Were Born,'' was named one of the top ten children's books of 2005 and was given the Koret International Jewish Book Award from the
Koret Foundation
The Koret Foundation is a private foundation based in San Francisco, California. Its mission is to strengthen the Bay Area and support the Jewish community in the U.S. and Israel through grantmaking to organizations involved with education, arts an ...
in 2006. ''Before You Were Born'' describes the angel Lailah, who shares all the secrets of life with children while they are still inside the womb.
Schwartz has been nominated for the
National Jewish Book Award
The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1944, is an organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature.midrash
''Midrash'' (;"midrash" ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. he, מִדְרָשׁ; ...
. In this capacity, he has collected more than a thousand unique tales from around the world in several major collections.
*''Elijah’s Violin and Other Jewish Fairy Tales'' (1983)
*''Miriam’s Tambourine: Jewish Folktales from around the World'' (1986)
*''Lilith’s Cave: Jewish Tales of the Supernatural'' (1987)
*''Gabriel’s Palace: Jewish Mystical Tales'' (1993)
*''Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism'' (2008)
*''Leaves from the Garden of Eden'' (2008)
See also
*
Malakh
In Judaism, angels ( he, ''mal’āḵ'', plural: ''mal’āḵīm'', literally "messenger") are supernatural beings that appear throughout the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), rabbinic literature, Jewish apocrypha, apocrypha and List of Old Testament p ...