Skip to Main Content

    • 2024 Jordan Schnitzer First Book Publication Awards

    The Association for Jewish Studies is pleased to again offer its Jordan Schnitzer First Book Publication Awards. This program is designed for current AJS members who already have secured publishing contracts but who require subventions to ensure publication of their first books. The AJS will grant awards up to $5,000 each. The subvention will support items including but not limited to indexing, photo and image permissions, or other things that are typically the responsibility of the author to cover. A multidisciplinary committee of scholars will evaluate applications. In deciding how to allocate these funds, the committee will consider both the scholarly significance of the book to the field of Jewish Studies and the demonstrated need for subvention support. Applications are invited from AJS members in all research disciplines. In 2024, there will be two award cycles: Applicants can either submit an application during the first cycle, which closes at the end of June, or they can submit an application during the second award cycle, which closes on December 31. Notifications will follow within roughly six weeks of each application deadline.

    Qualifications

    1. •    Applicants must be AJS members for the current 2024 membership year (running from January through December 2024).
    2. •    Subventions will only be awarded for individually authored first books (multiple authored books are ineligible; an applicant who has already published an edited collection will not be disqualified).
    3. •    Only manuscripts written in English are eligible.
    4. •    In the view of the selection committee, manuscripts should make a substantial scholarly contribution to Jewish Studies.

    Application Instructions

    1. •    Application Form (on Interfolio)
    2. •    CV
    3. •    A book proposal, including a description of the book project, chapter summaries, methods used, and information about the book’s relationship to the field and the academic and/or public market
    4. •    A budget delineating the subvention support requested; the budget should list any other subvention awards to which the author plans to apply
    5. •    Two sample chapters, ideally one which includes the book’s introduction
    6. •    Copy of the provisional book contract

    Deadline: December 31, 2024 

    Questions

    Contact Amy Weiss, Senior Grants and Professional Development Manager, at aweiss@associationforjewishstudies.org.

    Congratulations to the Jordan Schnitzer First Book Publication Awards Winners!

    These awards are given to AJS member authors who have secured publishing contracts but require subventions to ensure publication of their first books. We are so pleased to announce the winners for the first cycle of the 2024 competition, and their books:

    Alexandra Birch (Columbia University): Hitler’s Twilight of the Gods: Music and the Orchestration of War and Genocide in Europe

    Krista Dalton (Kenyon College): How the Rabbis Became Experts: Social Circles and Donor Networks in Jewish Late Antiquity

    Jacob Daniels (University of Texas at Austin): The Jews of Edirne: The End of Ottoman Europe and the Arrival of Borders

    Amit Levy (University of Haifa): A New Orient: From German Scholarship to Middle Eastern Studies in Israel

    Eli Rubin (Chabad.org): Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism

    Sarah Ellen Zarrow (Western Washington University): Displays of Belonging: Polish Jewish Collecting and Museums, 1891-1941

    The second cycle of the 2024 Jordan Schnitzer First Books Publications Awards is now open. Learn more and apply.

    2021–2024 Jordan Schnitzer First Book Publication Award Recipients