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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 the 2021 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 2019 and 2020 by AJS members were eligible for submission. 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 $2,500 prize.

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

2021 WINNERS

In the category of Jewish Literature and Linguistics

Songs in Dark Times: Yiddish Poetry of Struggle from Scottsboro to Palestine
Harvard University Press
AMELIA M. GLASER, University of California, San Diego

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

The Promise and Peril of Credit: What a Forgotten Legend about Jews and Finance Tells Us about the Making of European Commercial Society
Princeton University Press
FRANCESCA TRIVELLATO, Institute for Advanced Study

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

Forging Ties, Forging Passports: Migration and the Modern Sephardi Diaspora
Stanford University Press
DEVI MAYS, University of Michigan

In the category of Philosophy and Jewish Thought

Levinas’s Politics: Justice, Mercy, Universality
University of Pennsylvania Press
ANNABEL HERZOG, University of Haifa

2021 FINALISTS

In the category of Jewish Literature and Linguistics

Salvage Poetics: Post-Holocaust American Jewish Folk Ethnographies
Wayne State University Press
SHEILA E. JELEN, University of Kentucky

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

Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah: Canonization and Resistance in the Reception of a Jewish Classic
Oxford University Press
ERIC LAWEE, Bar-Ilan University

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

The Art of the Jewish Family: A History of Women in Early New York in Five Objects
Bard Graduate Center
LAURA LEIBMAN, Reed College

In the category of Philosophy and Jewish Thought

The Invention of Jewish Theocracy: The Struggle for Legal Authority in Modern Israel
Oxford University Press
ALEXANDER KAYE, Brandeis University


For further information, contact Amy Weiss, Grants and Professional Development Manager, at aweiss@associationforjewishstudies.org.

2020 Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards

2008-2023 Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards

2010 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award Recipients
2021 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award Recipients
2009 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award Recipients
2020  Jordan Schnitzer Book Award Recipients
2024 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award Recipients
2022 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award Recipients
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2008 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award Recipients
2011 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award Recipients
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2012 Jordan SchnitzerBook Award Recipients