Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature
The Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature is an annual prize awarded to an outstanding literary work of Jewish interest.
History
In 2006, the family of Jewish philanthropist Sami Rohr honored his lifelong love of Jewish learning and great books by establishing the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature on his 80th birthday.The annual award, alternating between fiction and non-fiction, seeks to promote writings of Jewish interest, and to encourage the examination of Jewish values among "emerging" writers.
The $100,000 Prize honors an author whose work demonstrates potential for future contribution to the world of Jewish literature. All winners, Choice Award recipients, finalists, judges and advisors are Fellows in the Sami Rohr Jewish Literary Institute. The winner and finalists are honored at an awards ceremony for fiction in New York; the event for non-fiction takes place in Jerusalem.
The $100,000 prize is among the richest literary prizes in the world.
Eligibility and selection
Works are sought and nominated, with specific guidelines, by an advisory panel. The winner and finalists are selected by an independent group of judges, and all deliberations are strictly confidential. The Rohr family has no input or participation in the nomination or selection process.From 2007 through 2019, the runner-up award was called the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature Choice Award. The Choice Award was discontinued in 2020. Three finalists each receive a monetary prize of $5,000.
Translated works are eligible. Eligible non-fiction works are restricted to the domains of biography, history, Jewish current affairs, Jewish scholarship, or contemporary Jewish life.
Finalists and winners
The gold medal marks the winner, while the silver medal marks the runner-up.2020
The nominees were announced on April 3, 2020. The winners were announced on May 12, 2020.- Kafka's Last Trial: The Case of a Literary Legacy by Benjamin Balint
- Tehran Children: A Holocaust Refugee Odyssey by Mikhal Dekel
- Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life--in Judaism by Sarah Hurwitz
- Shadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power by Yaakov Katz
2019
- The Last Watchman of Old Cairo by Michael David Lukas
- The Words We Think We Know by Dalia Rosenfeld
- The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish
- Memento Park by Mark Sarvas
- Underground Fugue by Margot Singer
2018
- If All the Seas Were Ink: A Memoir by Ilana Kurshan
- City on a Hilltop: American Jews and the Israeli Settler Movement by Sara Yael Hirschhorn
- The Many Deaths of Jew Süss: The Notorious Trial and Execution of an Eighteenth-Century Court Jew by Yair Mintzker
- Jews on the Frontier: Religion and Mobility in Nineteenth-Century America by Shari Rabin
- The Lost Book of Moses: The Hunt For The World’s Oldest Bible by Chanan Tigay
2017
- Ways to Disappear by Idra Novey
- The Last Flight of Poxl West: A Novel by Daniel Torday
- The Yid by Paul Goldberg
- Inherited Disorders: Stories, Parables & Problems by Adam Ehrlich Sachs
- The Bed Moved: Stories by Rebecca Schiff
2016
- The Archive Thief: The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust by Lisa Leff
- Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution by Yehuda Mirsky
- Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel by Dan Ephron
- The Grammar of God: A Journey into the Words and Worlds of the Bible by Aviyah Kushner
- The Rag Race: How Jews Sewed Their Way to Success in America and the British Empire by Adam Mendelsohn
2015
- The Best Place on Earth by Ayelet Tsabari
- The Lion Seeker by Kenneth Bonert
- Panic in a Suitcase by Yelena Akhtiorskaya
- The UnAmericans by Molly Antopol
- A Replacement Life by Boris Fishman
2014
- The Aleppo Codex: A True Story of Obsession, Faith, and the Pursuit of an Ancient Bible, by Matti Friedman
- Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and Culture of Orthodox Judaism, by Sarah Bunin Benor
- Jews and Booze: Becoming American in the Age of Prohibition, by Marni Davis
- Embodying Hebrew Culture: Aesthetics, Athletics, and Dance in the Jewish Community of Mandate Palestine, by Nina S. Spiegel
- The Genius: Elijah of Vilna and the Making of Modern Judaism, by Eliyahu Stern
2013
- The Innocents, by Francesca Segal
- Leaving the Atocha Station, by Ben Lerner
- The People of Forever Are Not Afraid, by Shani Boianjiu
- The Book of Life, by Stuart Nadler
- Motti, by Asaf Schurr
2012
- When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry, by Gal Beckerman
- Moses Montefiore: Jewish Liberator, Imperial Hero, by Abigail Green
- A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction, by Ruth Franklin
- The Benderly Boys and American Jewish Education, by Jonathan B. Krasner
- The Most Musical Nation: Jews and Culture in the Late Russian Empire, by James Loeffler
2011
- The Jump Artist, by Austin Ratner
- A Curable Romantic, by Joseph Skibell
- Stations West, by Allison Amend
- The Cosmopolitans, Nadia Kalman
- The Invisible Bridge, Julie Orringer
2010
- Jewish Renaissance in the Russian Revolution, by Kenneth B. Moss
- Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce, by Sarah Abrevaya Stein
- Speaking of Jews: Rabbis, Intellectuals, and the Creation of an American Public Identity, by Lila Corwin Berman
- Station Identification: A Cultural History of Yiddish Radio in the United States, by Ari Y. Kelman
- Surprised by God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion, by Danya Ruttenberg
2009
- One More Year, by Sana Krasikov
- The Septembers of Shiraz, by Dalia Sofer
- The Book of Dahlia, by Elisa Albert
- The Rowing Lesson, by Anne Landsman
- Petropolis, by Anya Ulinich
2008
- The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, by Lucette Lagnado
- Houses of Study, by Ilana Blumberg
- The Price of Whiteness, by Eric Goldstein
- Churchill's Promised Land, by Michael Makovsky
- A Crack in the Earth, by Haim Watzman
2007
- The Genizah at the House of Shepher, by Tamar Yellin
- Our Holocaust, by Amir Gutfreund
- Not Me, by Michael Lavigne
- Disobedience, by Naomi Alderman
- Accidents, by Yael Hedaya