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    • 2019 Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards

    Made possible by funding from Jordan Schnitzer and Arlene Schnitzer through the Harold & Arlene Schnitzer Family Fund of the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation, the Association for Jewish Studies is proud to award eight prizes this year (four winners and four finalists) for the annual Jordan Schnitzer Book Prize.

    The categories in this year’s competition were Jewish Literature and Linguistics; Medieval and Early Modern Jewish History and Culture; Modern Jewish History and Culture: Africa, Americas, Asia, and Oceania; and Philosophy and Jewish Thought. Books published in 2017 and 2018 by AJS members were eligible for submission. The competition had over 100 submissions this year and each category was judged by a committee of expert scholars in their field who chose this year’s winners and finalists. Winners receive a $10,000 prize and Finalists receive a $2,000 prize.

    This year’s recipients will receive their awards at a ceremony at the 51st Annual AJS Conference in San Diego on Sunday, December 15, 2019 at 2:15 PM, following the plenary. All conference attendees are welcome to attend this ceremony.

    We wish a hearty congratulations to this year’s awardees.

    WINNERS

    In the category of Jewish Literature and Linguistics

    A Rich Brew: How Cafes Created Modern Jewish Culture
    SHACHAR PINSKER, University of Michigan
    New York University Press

    In the category of Medieval and Early Modern Jewish History and Culture

    Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt: Female Adolescence, Jewish Law, and Ordinary Culture
    EVE KRAKOWSKI, Princeton University
    Princeton University Press

    In the category of Modern Jewish History and Culture: Africa, Americas, Asia, and Oceania

    Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century
    JAMES LOEFFLER, University of Virginia
    Yale University Press

    In the category of Philosophy and Jewish Thought

    Martin Buber’s Theopolitics
    SAMUEL BRODY, The University of Kansas
    Indiana University Press

    FINALISTS

    In the category of Jewish Literature and Linguistics

    Strange Cocktail: Translation and the Making of Modern Hebrew Poetry
    ADRIANA X. JACOBS, University of Oxford
    University of Michigan Press

    In the category of Medieval and Early Modern Jewish History and Culture

    Dominion Built of Praise: Panegyric and Legitimacy among Jews in the Medieval Mediterranean
    JONATHAN DECTER, Brandeis University
    University of Pennsylvania Press

    In the category of Modern Jewish History and Culture: Africa, Americas, Asia, and Oceania

    American Jewry and the Reinvention of the East European Jewish Past
    MARKUS KRAH, University of Potsdam
    DeGruyter

    In the category of Philosophy and Jewish Thought

    Philo of Alexandria: An Intellectual Biography
    MAREN NIEHOFF, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
    Yale University Press

    For further information, contact Amy Weiss, Grants and Communications Manager, at aweiss@associationforjewishstudies.org, 917-606-8249