Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ final book wins big at National Jewish Book Awards
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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 connelly@forward.com. Follow her on Twitter at @katz_conn.
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