Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature

The Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature is an annual prize awarded to an outstanding literary work of Jewish interest by an emerging writer. Previously administered by the Jewish Book Council.

History

In 2006, the family of Jewish philanthropist Sami Rohr honored his lifelong love of Jewish learning and great books by establishing the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature on his 80th birthday.

The annual award, alternating between fiction and non-fiction, seeks to promote writings of Jewish interest, and to encourage the examination of Jewish values among "emerging" writers.

The $100,000 Prize honors an author whose work demonstrates potential for future contribution to the world of Jewish literature. All winners, Choice Award recipients, finalists, judges and advisors are Fellows in the Sami Rohr Jewish Literary Institute. The winner and finalists are honored at an awards ceremony for fiction in New York; the event for non-fiction takes place in Jerusalem.

The $100,000 prize is among the richest literary prizes in the world.

Eligibility and selection

Works are sought and nominated, with specific guidelines, by an advisory panel. The winner and finalists are selected by an independent group of judges, and all deliberations are strictly confidential. The Rohr family has no input or participation in the nomination or selection process.

From 2007 through 2019, the runner-up award was called the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature Choice Award. The Choice Award was discontinued in 2020. Three finalists each receive a monetary prize of $5,000.

Translated works are eligible. Eligible non-fiction works are restricted to the domains of biography, history, Jewish current affairs, Jewish scholarship, or contemporary Jewish life.

Finalists and winners

The gold medal () marks the winner, while the silver medal () marks the runner-up.

2022

The nominees were announced on April 26, 2022. The winners were announced on May 19, 2022.

* ''Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure'' by Menachem Kaiser
* ''From Africa to Zion: The Shepherd Boy Who Became Israel’s First Ethiopian-Born Journalist'' by Danny Adeno Abebe, translated by Eylon Levy
* ''Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age'' by Ayala Fader

2020

The nominees were announced on April 3, 2020. The winners were announced on May 12, 2020.

* ''Kafka's Last Trial: The Case of a Literary Legacy'' by Benjamin Balint
* '' Tehran Children: A Holocaust Refugee Odyssey'' by Mikhal Dekel
* ''Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life--in Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There)'' by Sarah Hurwitz
* ''Shadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power'' by Yaakov Katz

2019

The nominees were announced on 1 April 2019. The winners were announced on 1 May 2019.
* ''The Last Watchman of Old Cairo'' by Michael David Lukas
* ''The Words We Think We Know'' by Dalia Rosenfeld
* ''The Weight of Ink'' by Rachel Kadish
* ''Memento Park'' by Mark Sarvas
* ''Underground Fugue'' by Margot Singer

2018

The nominees were announced on 30 April 2018. The winners were announced on 25 June 2018.
* ''If All the Seas Were Ink: A Memoir'' by Ilana Kurshan
* ''City on a Hilltop: American Jews and the Israeli Settler Movement'' by Sara Yael Hirschhorn
* ''The Many Deaths of Jew Süss: The Notorious Trial and Execution of an Eighteenth-Century Court Jew'' by Yair Mintzker
* ''Jews on the Frontier: Religion and Mobility in Nineteenth-Century America'' by Shari Rabin
* ''The Lost Book of Moses: The Hunt For The World’s Oldest Bible'' by Chanan Tigay

2017

The finalists were announced April 3, 2017. The awardees were announced May 3, 2017.
* ''Ways to Disappear'' by Idra Novey
* ''The Last Flight of Poxl West: A Novel'' by Daniel Torday
* ''The Yid'' by Paul Goldberg
* ''Inherited Disorders: Stories, Parables & Problems'' by Adam Ehrlich Sachs
* ''The Bed Moved: Stories'' by Rebecca Schiff

2016

The winners were awarded on 5 June 2016.
* ''The Archive Thief: The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust'' by Lisa Leff
* ''Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution'' by Yehuda Mirsky
* ''Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel'' by Dan Ephron
* ''The Grammar of God: A Journey into the Words and Worlds of the Bible'' by Aviyah Kushner
* ''The Rag Race: How Jews Sewed Their Way to Success in America and the British Empire'' by Adam Mendelsohn

2015

The finalists were announced in January 2015. The awardees were announced in February 2015.
* ''The Best Place on Earth'' by Ayelet Tsabari
* ''The Lion Seeker'' by Kenneth Bonert
* ''Panic in a Suitcase'' by Yelena Akhtiorskaya
* ''The UnAmericans'' by Molly Antopol
* ''A Replacement Life'' by Boris Fishman

2014

The finalists were announced on November 7, 2013. The winners were declared in January 2014.
* '' The Aleppo Codex: A True Story of Obsession, Faith, and the Pursuit of an Ancient Bible'', by Matti Friedman
* ''Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and Culture of Orthodox Judaism'', by Sarah Bunin Benor
* ''Jews and Booze: Becoming American in the Age of Prohibition'', by Marni Davis
* ''Embodying Hebrew Culture: Aesthetics, Athletics, and Dance in the Jewish Community of Mandate Palestine'', by Nina S. Spiegel
* ''The Genius: Elijah of Vilna and the Making of Modern Judaism'', by Eliyahu Stern

2013

The winners were announced on April 9, 2013.
* ''The Innocents'', by Francesca Segal
* ''Leaving the Atocha Station'', by Ben Lerner
* '' The People of Forever Are Not Afraid'', by Shani Boianjiu
* ''The Book of Life'', by Stuart Nadler
* ''Motti'', by Asaf Schurr

2012

The winners were announced on February 15, 2012.
* ''When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry'', by Gal Beckerman
* ''Moses Montefiore: Jewish Liberator, Imperial Hero'', by Abigail Green
* ''A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction'', by Ruth Franklin
* ''The Benderly Boys and American Jewish Education'', by Jonathan B. Krasner
* ''The Most Musical Nation: Jews and Culture in the Late Russian Empire'', by James Loeffler

2011

The winners were announced on March 24, 2011.
* ''The Jump Artist'', by Austin Ratner
* ''A Curable Romantic'', by Joseph Skibell
* ''Stations West'', by Allison Amend
* ''The Cosmopolitans'', Nadia Kalman
* ''The Invisible Bridge'', Julie Orringer

2010

The winners were announced on January 26, 2010. The judges were unable to decide on the top honour, so the prize was shared and the runner-up prize eliminated.
* ''Jewish Renaissance in the Russian Revolution'', by Kenneth B. Moss
* ''Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce'', by Sarah Abrevaya Stein
* ''Speaking of Jews: Rabbis, Intellectuals, and the Creation of an American Public Identity'', by Lila Corwin Berman
* ''Station Identification: A Cultural History of Yiddish Radio in the United States'', by Ari Y. Kelman
* ''Surprised by God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion'', by Danya Ruttenberg

2009

The winners were announced on March 25, 2009.
* ''One More Year'', by Sana Krasikov
* '' The Septembers of Shiraz'', by Dalia Sofer
* ''The Book of Dahlia'', by Elisa Albert
* ''The Rowing Lesson'', by Anne Landsman
* ''Petropolis'', by Anya Ulinich

2008

The winners were announced on February 13, 2008.
* ''The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit'', by Lucette Lagnado
* ''Houses of Study'', by Ilana Blumberg
* ''The Price of Whiteness'', by Eric Goldstein
* ''Churchill's Promised Land'', by Michael Makovsky
* ''A Crack in the Earth'', by Haim Watzman

2007

The winners were announced in March 2007.
* ''The Genizah at the House of Shepher'', by Tamar Yellin
* ''Our Holocaust'', by Amir Gutfreund
* ''Not Me'', by Michael Lavigne
* ''Disobedience'', by Naomi Alderman
* ''Accidents'', by Yael Hedaya

References

{{Reflist, 30em

External links

* https://www.samirohrprize.org/

Awards established in 2006
International literary awards
Fiction awards
2006 establishments in the United States