Award Winners 2021

Fiction: Gary Barwin for Nothing the Same, Everything Haunted: The Ballad of Motl the Cowboy (Random House Canada)

Biography: Menachem Kaiser for Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Poetry: Lisa Richter for Nautilus and Bone (Frontenac House)

Children and Youth: Sigal Samuel for Osnat and Her Dove (Levine Querido)

Scholarship Rebecca Clifford for Survivors: Children’s Lives After the Holocaust (Yale University Press)

Holocaust: Judy Batalion for The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos (William Morrow)

Award Winners 2020

Fiction: Abraham Boyarsky for Through Shadows Slow (8^th House Publishing)

Jewish Thought and Culture Tanhum Yoreh for Waste Not: A Jewish Environmental Ethic (SUNY Press)

Biography: Hernan Tesler-Mabé for Mahler’s Forgotten Conductor: Heinz Unger and His Search for Jewish Meaning, 1895–1965 (Yale University Press)

History: Derek Penslar for Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader (Yale University Press)

Children/Youth: Edeet Ravel for A Boy is Not a Bird (Groundwood Books)

Yiddish: Ilan Stavans and Josh Lambert, editors for How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish (Restless Books)

Scholarship: David Novak for Athens and Jerusalem: God, Humans, and Nature (University of Toronto Press

Poetry: Elana Wolff for Swoon (Guernica Editions)

Holocaust: Laurent Sagalovitsch for Le Temps des orphelins (Buchet/Chastel)

Award Winners 2019

Fiction: Jennifer Robson for The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding (HarperCollins)

Memoir: Ayelet Tsabari for The Art of Leaving (Harper/Collins)

Biography: Alexandra Popoff for Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century (Yale University Press)

History: Matti Friedman for Spies of No Country: Behind Enemy Lines at the Birth of the Israeli Secret Service (Signal/McClelland & Stewart)

Children/Youth: Anne Dublin for A Cage Without Bars (Second Story Press)

Yiddish: Goldie Morgenthaler, translator, for Confessions of a Yiddish Writer and Other Essays by Chava Rosenfarb (McGill-Queen’s University Press)

Scholarship: Michael Kater for Culture in Nazi Germany (Yale University Press)

Holocaust: Leonard and Edith Ehrlich, Carl S. Ehrlich, editor for Choices Under Duress of the Holocaust: Benjamin Murmelstein and the Fate of Viennese Jewry Volume I: Vienna (Texas Tech University Press)

Award Winners 2018

Fiction: Natalie Morrill for The Ghost Keeper (HarperCollins Patrick Crean Editions)

Memoir/Biography: Kathy Kacer with Jordana Lebowitz for To Look a Nazi in the Eye: A Teen’s Account of a War Criminal Trial (Second Story Press)

Poetry: Rebecca Păpacaru for The Panic Room (Nightwood Editions)

Yiddish: Seymour Mayne for In Your Words: Translations from the Yiddish and the Hebrew (Ronald P. Frye & Co)

Scholarship: Daniel Kupfert Heller for Jabotinsky's Children: Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism (Princeton University Press)

History: Pierre Anctil for Histoire des Juifs du Québec (Les éditions du Boréal)

Holocaust Literature: Max Wallace for In the Name of Humanity: The Secret Deal to End the Holocaust (Allen Lane/PenguinRandom House Canada)

Children and Youth Fiction: Anne Renaud (author) and Richard Rudnicki (illustrator) for Fania’s Heart (Second Story Press)

Award Winners 2017

Fiction: Gary Barwin, for Yiddish for Pirates (Vintage Canada).

Holocaust Literature: Myrna Goldenberg, editor, for Before All Memory Is Lost: Women's Voices from the Holocaust (Azrieli Foundation)

Memoir/Biography: Matti Friedman, for Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier's Story (Signal/McClelland & Stewart).

Children and Youth Fiction: Eva Wiseman, for Another Me (Tundra Books)

Poetry: Stuart Ross, for A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent (Wolsak & Wynn)

History: Roger Frie, for Not In My Family: German Memory and Responsibility After the Holocaust (Oxford University Press)

Yiddish: Rachel Seelig, for Strangers in Berlin: Modern Jewish Literature Between East and West 1919-1933 (University of Michigan Press).

Jewish Thought and Culture: Chantal Ringuet and Gérard Rabinovitch, editors, for Les révolutions de Leonard Cohen (Presses de l'Université du Québec).

Scholarship: Joel Hecker, for The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, Vol 11 (Stanford University Press).

Award Winners 2016

Fiction: Sigal Samuel, for The Mystics of Mile End (Freehand Books).

Holocaust Literature: Agata Tuszyńska, for A Family History of Fear (Knopf Canada)

Memoir/Biography: Howard Akler, for Men of Action (Coach House Press).

Children and Youth Fiction: Anne Dublin, for 44 Hours or Strike! (Second Story Press)

History: Michael Marrus, for Lessons of the Holocaust (University of Toronto Press)

Yiddish: Helen Mintz, translator, for Vilna, My Vilna: Stories by Abraham Karpinowitz (Syracuse University Press).

Jewish Thought and Culture: Julia Creet, Sara R. Horowitz and Amira Bojadzija-Dan, editors, for H.G. Adler: Life, Literature, Legacy (Northwestern University Press).

Scholarship: Sarah Phillips Casteel, for Calypso Jews: Jewishness in the Caribbean Literary Imagination (Columbia University Press).

Award Winners 2015

Novel: Nora Gold, for Fields of Exile (Dundurn Press).

Scholarship: James A. Diamond, for Maimonides and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon (Cambridge University Press).

Biography/Memoir: Alison Pick, for Between Gods: A Memoir (Doubleday Canada).

History: Joseph Hodes, for From India to Israel: Identity, Immigration, and the Struggle for Religious Equality (McGill-Queen’s University Press)

Youth Literature: Suri Rosen, for Playing with Matches (ECW Press)

Poetry: Robyn Sarah, for My Shoes Are Killing Me (Biblioasis).

Holocaust Literature: Beverley Chalmers, for Birth, Sex and Abuse: Women's Voices Under Nazi Rule (Grosvenor House)

Short Fiction: Mireille Silcoff, for Chez l’Arabe (House of Anansi).

Yiddish: Ruth Panofsky, for The Collected Poems of Miriam Waddington: A Critical Edition (University of Ottawa Press).

Conflicts of Interest

When a Juror has other connections/conflicts with a book being considered for an Award:

• The jurors’ expertise and connection to others in their field will likely and understandably result in friendships with authors, professional connections, as well as the writing of reviews and blurbs for books under consideration. These should not automatically preclude jurors from participating.
• Jurors will declare any potential conflicts at the outset of deliberations. The expectation is that fairness and integrity will guide the jurors on whether or not to recuse themselves from the evaluation or decision-making regarding any particular book.

When a Juror has a book that is being considered for an Award:

• No one shall serve on the jury when their own books are under consideration.
• When a juror has co-authored, edited, or has made a significant contribution to a book, the juror will declare this potential conflict as soon as possible and the Jury will decide if the connection is too close for the Juror to remain on the Jury.