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 2020 competition were Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Jewish History and Culture in Antiquity; Jews and the Arts: Music, Performance, and Visual; Modern Jewish History and Culture: Europe and Israel; and Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore. Books published in 2018 and 2019 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 awards ceremony will be available to all conference attendees to stream through the conference app.
We wish a hearty congratulations to this year’s awardees.
Time in the Babylonian Talmud: Natural and Imagined
Times in Jewish Law and Narrative
Cambridge University Press
LYNN KAYE, Brandeis University
Writing on the Wall: Graffiti and the Forgotten
Jews of Antiquity
Princeton University Press
KAREN B. STERN, Brooklyn College
Prince of the Press: How One Collector Built History’s
Most Enduring and Remarkable Jewish Library
Yale University Press
JOSHUA TEPLITSKY, Stony Brook University
The Jews’ Indian: Colonialism, Pluralism,
and Belonging in America
Rutgers University Press
DAVID S. KOFFMAN, York University
Job: A New Translation
Yale University Press
EDWARD L. GREENSTEIN, Bar-Ilan University
Possessed Voices: Aural Remains from Modernist
Hebrew Theater
SUNY Press
RUTHIE ABELIOVICH, University of Haifa
The Rise of the Modern Yiddish Theater
Indiana University Press
ALYSSA QUINT, YIVO
Fighting for Dignity: Migrant Lives at Israel’s Margins
University of Pennsylvania Press
SARAH S. WILLEN, University of Connecticut
For further information, contact Amy Weiss, Grants and Professional Development Manager, at aweiss@associationforjewishstudies.org.
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
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
WINNERS
In the category of Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Jewish History and Culture in Antiquity
Time in the Babylonian Talmud: Natural and Imagined
Times in Jewish Law and Narrative
Cambridge University Press
LYNN KAYE, Brandeis University
In the category of Jews and the Arts: Music, Performance, and Visual
Writing on the Wall: Graffiti and the Forgotten
Jews of Antiquity
Princeton University Press
KAREN B. STERN, Brooklyn College
In the category of Modern Jewish History and Culture: Europe and Israel
Prince of the Press: How One Collector Built History’s
Most Enduring and Remarkable Jewish Library
Yale University Press
JOSHUA TEPLITSKY, Stony Brook University
In the category of Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore
The Jews’ Indian: Colonialism, Pluralism,
and Belonging in America
Rutgers University Press
DAVID S. KOFFMAN, York University
FINALISTS
In the category of Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Jewish History and Culture in Antiquity
Job: A New Translation
Yale University Press
EDWARD L. GREENSTEIN, Bar-Ilan University
In the category of Jews and the Arts: Music, Performance, and Visual
Possessed Voices: Aural Remains from Modernist
Hebrew Theater
SUNY Press
RUTHIE ABELIOVICH, University of Haifa
In the category of Modern Jewish History and Culture: Europe and Israel
The Rise of the Modern Yiddish Theater
Indiana University Press
ALYSSA QUINT, YIVO
In the category of Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore
Fighting for Dignity: Migrant Lives at Israel’s Margins
University of Pennsylvania Press
SARAH S. WILLEN, University of Connecticut
In the category of Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Jewish History and Culture in Antiquity
Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism
Princeton University Press
Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Fordham University
In the category of Jews and the Arts: Music, Performance, and Visual
A City in Fragments: Urban Text in Modern Jerusalem
Stanford University Press
Yair Wallach, SOAS University of London
In the category of Modern Jewish History and Culture: Europe and Israel
Yiddish in Israel: A History
Indiana University Press
Rachel Rojanski, Brown University
In the category of Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore
Genetic Afterlives: Black Jewish Indigeneity in South Africa
Duke University Press
Noah Tamarkin, Cornell University
In the category of Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Jewish History and Culture in Antiquity
The Talmud's Red Fence: Menstrual Impurity and Difference in Babylonian Judaism and Its Sasanian Context
Oxford University Press
Shai Secunda, Bard College
In the category of Jews and the Arts: Music, Performance, and Visual
Transcending Dystopia: Music, Mobility, and the Jewish Community in Germany, 1945–1989
Oxford University Press
Tina Frühauf, Columbia University
In the category of Modern Jewish History and Culture: Europe and Israel
A Citizen of Yiddishland: Dovid Sfard and the Jewish Communist Milieu in Poland
Peter Lang
Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov, Polish Academy of Sciences
In the category of Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore
Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age
Princeton University Press
Ayala Fader, Fordham University
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
WINNERS
In the category of Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Jewish History and Culture in Antiquity
Blood for Thought: The Reinvention of Sacrifice in Early Rabbinic Literature
MIRA BALBERG, University of California, San Diego
University of California Press
In the category of Jews and the Arts: Music, Performance, and Visual
The Jewish Bible: A Material History
DAVID STERN, Harvard University
University of Washington Press
In the category of Modern Jewish History and Culture: Europe and Israel
Jabotinsky’s Children: Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism
DANIEL KUPFERT HELLER, Monash University
Princeton University Press
In the category of Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore
When the State Winks: The Performance of Jewish Conversion in Israel
MICHAL KRAVEL-TOVI, Tel Aviv University
Columbia University Press
FINALISTS
In the category of Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Jewish History and Culture in Antiquity
The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity
EVA MROCZEK, University of California, Davis
Oxford University Press
In the category of Jews and the Arts: Music, Performance, and Visual
Honest Bodies: Revolutionary Modernism in the Dances of Anna Sokolow
HANNAH KOSSTRIN, The Ohio State University
Oxford University Press
In the category of Modern Jewish History and Culture: Europe and Israel
A Home for All Jews: Citizenship, Rights, and National Identity in the New Israeli State
ORIT ROZIN, Tel Aviv University
Brandeis University Press
In the category of Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore
Modernity and the Jews in Western Social Thought
CHAD ALAN GOLDBERG, University of Wisconsin-Madison
The University of Chicago Press
WINNERS
In the category of Jewish Literature and Linguistics
Golem: Modern Wars and Their Monsters
MAYA BARZILAI, University of Michigan
New York University Press
In the category of Medieval and Early Modern Jewish History and Culture
Contested Treasure: Jews and Authority in the Crown of Aragon
THOMAS W. BARTON, University of San Diego
Pennsylvania State University Press
In the category of Modern Jewish History and Culture: Africa, Americas, Asia, and Oceania
Young Lions: How Jewish Authors Reinvented the American War Novel
LEAH GARRETT, Monash University
Northwestern University Press
In the category of Philosophy and Jewish Thought
A Political Theory for the Jewish People
CHAIM GANS, Tel Aviv University
Oxford University Press
FINALISTS
In the category of Jewish Literature and Linguistics
The Marriage Plot: Or, How Jews Fell in Love with Love, and with Literature
NAOMI SEIDMAN, Graduate Theological Union
Stanford University Press
In the category of Medieval and Early Modern Jewish History and Culture
Anti-Jewish Riots in the Crown of Aragon and the Royal Response, 1391-1392
BENJAMIN R. GAMPEL, Jewish Theological Seminary
Cambridge University Press
In the category of Modern Jewish History and Culture: Africa, Americas, Asia, and Oceania
Across Legal Lines: Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco
JESSICA M. MARGLIN, University of Southern California
Yale University Press
In the category of Philosophy and Jewish Thought
The Christian Schism in Jewish History and Jewish Memory
JOSHUA EZRA BURNS, Marquette University
Cambridge University Press
WINNERS
In the Category of Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Jewish History & Culture in Antiquity:
What's Divine about Divine Law? Early Perspectives
CHRISTINE HAYES, Yale University
(Princeton University Press)
In the Category of Jews and the Arts (Visual, Performance, Music):
Jewish Contiguities and the Soundtrack of Israeli History
ASSAF SHELLEG, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
(Oxford University Press)
In the Category of Modern Jewish History and Culture: Europe and Israel:
Protocols of Justice: The Pinkas of the Metz Rabbinic Court, 1771–1789
JAY R. BERKOVITZ, University of Massachusetts Amherst
(Brill)
In the Category of Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore:
Rhinestones, Religion, and the Republic: Fashioning Jewishness in France
KIMBERLY A. ARKIN, Boston University
(Stanford University Press)
FINALISTS
In the Category of Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Jewish History & Culture in Antiquity:
Tradition and the Formation of the Talmud
MOULIE VIDAS, Princeton University
(Princeton University Press)
In the Category of Jews and the Arts (Visual, Performance, Music):
Roman Vishniac Rediscovered
MAYA BENTON, International Center of Photography
(DelMonico Books/Prestel/International Center of Photography)
In the Category of Modern Jewish History and Culture: Europe and Israel:
Beyond Violence: Jewish Survivors in Poland and Slovakia, 1944–1948
ANNA CICHOPEK-GAJRAJ, Arizona State University
(Cambridge University Press)
In the Category of Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore:
Jaffa Shared and Shattered: Contrived Coexistence in Israel/Palestine
DANIEL MONTERESCU, Central European University
(Indiana University Press)
HONORABLE MENTIONS
In the Category of Jews and the Arts (Visual, Performance, Music):
Social Concern and Left Politics in Jewish American Art
MATTHEW BAIGELL,Rutgers University
(Syracuse University Press)
Graphic Details: Jewish Women's Confessional Comics in Essays and Interviews
SARAH LIGHTMAN, University of Glasgow
(McFarland)
In the Category of Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore:
Thin Description: Ethnography and the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem
JOHN L. JACKSON, JR., University of Pennsylvania
(Harvard University Press)
WINNERS
In the Category of Cultural Studies and Media Studies:
Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography
SARA LIPTON, State University of New York, Stony Brook
(Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company)
In the Category of Modern Jewish History—Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania:
Becoming Ottomans: Sephardi Jews and Imperial Citizenship in the Modern Era
JULIA PHILLIPS COHEN, Vanderbilt University
(Oxford University Press)
In the Category of Philosophy and Jewish Thought:
Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848
SVEN-ERIK ROSE, University of California, Davis
(Brandeis University Press)
FINALISTS
In the Category of Cultural Studies and Media Studies:
Roman Vishniac Rediscovered
MAYA BENTON, International Center of Photography
(DelMonico Books/Prestel/International Center of Photography)
Dreamland of Humanists: Warburg, Cassirer, Panofsky, and the Hamburg School
EMILY LEVINE, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
(The University of Chicago Press)
In the Category of Modern Jewish History—Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania:
The Rag Race: How Jews Sewed Their Way to Success in America and the British Empire
ADAM D. MENDELSOHN, University of Cape Town
(New York University Press)
In the Category of Philosophy and Jewish Thought:
The Modernity of Others: Jewish Anti-Catholicism in Germany and France
ARI JOSKOWICZ, Vanderbilt University
(Stanford University Press)
Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition
BENJAMIN D. SOMMER, Jewish Theological Seminary
(Yale University Press)
WINNERS
In the Category of of Jewish Literature and Linguistics:
Poetic Trespass: Writing between Hebrew and Arabic in Israel/Palestine
LITAL LEVY, Princeton University
(Princeton University Press)
Unclean Lips: Obscenity, Jews, and American Culture
JOSHUA LAMBERT, Yiddish Book Center / UMASS-Amherst
(New York University Press)
In the Category of Medieval and Early Modern Jewish History:
Palaces of Time: Jewish Calendar and Culture in Early Modern Europe
ELISHEVA CARLEBACH, Columbia University
(Harvard University Press)
In the Category of Modern Jewish History—European Countries:
The Mixed Multitude: Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement, 1755–1816
PAWEL MACIEJKO, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
(University of Pennsylvania Press)
HONORABLE MENTIONS
In the Category of of Medieval and Early Modern Jewish History:
After Expulsion: 1492 and the Making of Sephardic Jewry
JONATHAN RAY, Georgetown University
(New York University Press)
The Scandal of Kabbalah: Leon Modena, Jewish Mysticism, Early Modern Venice
YAACOB DWECK, Princeton University
(Princeton University Press)
Sinners on Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation
MAGDA TETER, Wesleyan University
(Harvard University Press)
In the Category of Modern Jewish History—European Countries:
Becoming Soviet Jews: The Bolshevik Experiment in Minsk
ELISSA BEMPORAD, Queens College, CUNY
(Indiana University Press)
Yankel's Tavern: Jews, Liquor, and Life in the Kingdom of Poland
GLENN DYNNER, Sarah Lawrence College
(Oxford University Press)
In the Category of Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Jewish History and Culture in Antiquity:
The Intellectual History and Rabbinic Culture of Medieval Ashkenaz
EPHRAIM KANARFOGEL, Yeshiva University
(Wayne State University Press)
In the Category of Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore:
The Jewish Dark Continent: Life and Death in the Russian Pale of Settlement
NATHANIEL DEUTSCH, University of California - Santa Cruz
(Harvard University Press)
In the Category of Jews and the Arts—Visual, Performance, and Music:
Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War, and the Holocaust
DAVID SHNEER, University of Colorado - Boulder
(Rutgers University Press)
HONORABLE MENTIONS
In the Category of Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Jewish History and Culture in Antiquity:
The Sense of Sight in Rabbinic Culture: Jewish Ways of Seeing in Late Antiquity
RACHEL NEIS, University of Michigan
(Cambridge University Press)
Stories of the Law: Narrative Discourse and the Construction of Authority in the Mishnah
MOSHE SIMON-SHOSHAN, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
(Oxford University Press)
In the Category of Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore:
Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine: An Uncertain Ethnicity
ZVI GITELMAN, University of Michigan
(Cambridge University Press)
Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Unquiet Places
ERICA T. LEHRER, Concordia University
(Indiana University Press)
In the Category of Jews and the Arts—Visual, Performance, and Music:
MARC MICHAEL EPSTEIN, Vassar College
Medieval Haggadah: Art, Narrative & Religious Imagination
(Yale University Press)
In the Category of Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Jewish History and Culture in Antiquity:
The Intellectual History and Rabbinic Culture of Medieval Ashkenaz
EPHRAIM KANARFOGEL, Yeshiva University
(Wayne State University Press)
In the Category of Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore:
The Jewish Dark Continent: Life and Death in the Russian Pale of Settlement
NATHANIEL DEUTSCH, University of California - Santa Cruz
(Harvard University Press)
In the Category of Jews and the Arts—Visual, Performance, and Music:
Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War, and the Holocaust
DAVID SHNEER, University of Colorado - Boulder
(Rutgers University Press)
HONORABLE MENTIONS
In the Category of Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Jewish History and Culture in Antiquity:
The Sense of Sight in Rabbinic Culture: Jewish Ways of Seeing in Late Antiquity
RACHEL NEIS, University of Michigan
(Cambridge University Press)
Stories of the Law: Narrative Discourse and the Construction of Authority in the Mishnah
MOSHE SIMON-SHOSHAN, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
(Oxford University Press)
In the Category of Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore:
Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine: An Uncertain Ethnicity
ZVI GITELMAN, University of Michigan
(Cambridge University Press)
Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Unquiet Places
ERICA T. LEHRER, Concordia University
(Indiana University Press)
In the Category of Jews and the Arts—Visual, Performance, and Music:
MARC MICHAEL EPSTEIN, Vassar College
Medieval Haggadah: Art, Narrative & Religious Imagination
(Yale University Press)
WINNERS
In the Category of Early Modern and Modern Jewish History:
How Jewish is Jewish History
MOSHE ROSMAN, Bar-Ilan University
(Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)
The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period
FRANCESCA TRIVELLATO, Yale University
(Yale University Press)
In the Category of Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore:
Tours that Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage, and Israeli Birthright Tourism
SHAUL KELNER, Vanderbilt University
(NYU Press)
HONORABLE MENTIONS
In the Category of Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore:
Gender and American Jews: Patterns in Work, Education, & Famliy in Contemporary Life
HARRIET HARTMAN & MOSHE HARTMAN
(Brandeis University Press)
Mediterranean Israeli Music and the Politics of the Aesthetic
AMY HOROWITZ
(Wayne State University Press)
WINNERS
In the Category of Jews and the Arts:
Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World: Toward a New Jewish Archaeology
STEVEN FINE, Yeshiva University
(Cambridge University Press)
In the Category of Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Archaeology:
The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel
BENJAMIN D. SOMMER, Jewish Theological Seminary
(Cambridge University Press)
NOTABLE MENTIONS
In the Category of Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Archaeology
RICHARD KALMIN, Jewish Theological Seminary
Jewish Babylonia between Persia and Roman Palestine
(Oxford University Press)
In the Category of Jews and the Arts
Maqam and Liturgy: Ritual, Music, and Aesthetics of Syrian Jews in Brooklyn
MARK KLIGMAN, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
(Wayne State University Press)
From the Ghetto to the Melting Pot: Israel Zangwill’s Jewish Plays
EDNA NAHSHON, Jewish Theological Seminary
(Wayne State University Press)
WINNERS
In the Category of Gender Studies:
Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe
ELISHEVA BAUMGARTEN
(Princeton University Press)
In the Category of Philosophy and Jewish Thought:
Jewish Messianism and the History of Philosophy
MARTIN KAVKA
(Cambridge University Press)
NOTABLE SELECTION
In the Category of Philosophy and Jewish Thought:
Converts, Heretics, and Lepers: Maimonides and the Outsider
JAMES A. DIAMOND
(University of Notre Dame Press)
