Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ final book wins big at National Jewish Book Awards
Image by iStock
By Irene Katz Connelly January 27, 2021
The National Jewish Book Awards selected the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ “Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times” as the most notable Jewish book of 2020.
Sacks, a prolific author and a leader in modern Jewish thought, has won several prizes at the awards program, which the Jewish Book Council has operated since 1950. But this one will likely be his last: The awards committee chose to posthumously honor Sacks, who died in November 2020 at the age of 72.
Other big winners included Laura Arnold Lieberman, who won awards in three categories for the historical study “The Art of the Jewish Family: A History of Women in Early New York in Five Objects” and the Monday Morning Cooking Club, a group of recipe writers in Australia who snagged a food writing award for their cookbook “Now For Something Sweet.” Publishing agent Deborah Harris won the Jewish Book Council’s Carolyn Starman Hessel Mentorship Award.
The Forward has covered many of the prize winners and finalists; read our reviews of their award-winning books below.
Winners
Everett Family Foundation Award for Jewish Book of the Year: “Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times” by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
JJ Greenberg Memorial Award for Fiction: “Apeirogon” by Column McCann
Biography Award in Memory of Sara Berenson Stone: “From Left to Right: Lucy S. Dawidowicz, the New York Intellectuals, and the Politics of Jewish History” by Nancy Sinkoff
Miller Family Award in Memory of Helen Dunn Weinstein and June Keit Miller: “The Lost Shtetl” by Max Gross
Finalists
The Krauss Family Award in Memory of Simon & Shulamith Goldberg for Autobiography and Memoir: “Here We Are: My Friendship With Philip Roth” by Benjamin Taylor
JJ Greenberg Memorial Award for Fiction: “Evening” by Nessa Rappoport
Irene Katz Connelly is a staff writer at the Forward. You can contact her at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @katz_conn.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
