Association for Jewish Studies Announces 2020 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award Winners

(NEW YORK, NY, April 2021) The Association for Jewish Studies has announced the 2020 winners of the Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards.

Since 2008, these prestigious annual awards recognize and promote scholarship in the field of Jewish Studies and honor scholars whose work embodies the best in the field: rigorous research, theoretical sophistication, innovative methodology, and excellent writing. Winners receive a $10,000 prize and finalists receive a $2,000 prize.

Winners and finalists are recognized for books in four categories:

Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Jewish History & Culture in Antiquity

Winner: Lynn Kaye (Brandeis University) for Time in the Babylonian Talmud: Natural and Imagined Times in Jewish Law and Narrative (Cambridge University Press)
Finalist: Edward L. Greenstein (Bar-Ilan University) for Job: A New Translation (Yale University Press)

Jews and the Arts: Music, Performance, and Visual

Winner: Karen B. Stern (Brooklyn College) for Writing on the Wall: Graffiti and the Forgotten Jews of Antiquity (Princeton University Press)
Finalist: Ruthie Abeliovich (University of Haifa) for Possessed Voices: Aural Remains from Modernist Hebrew Theater (SUNY Press)

Modern Jewish History and Culture: Europe and Israel

Winner: Joshua Teplitsky (Stony Brook University) for Prince of the Press: How One Collector Built History’s Most Enduring and Remarkable Jewish Library (Yale University Press)
Finalist: Alyssa Quint (YIVO) for The Rise of the Modern Yiddish Theater (Indiana University Press)

Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore

Winner: David S. Koffman (York University) for The Jews’ Indian: Colonialism, Pluralism, and Belonging in America (Rutgers University Press)
Finalist: Sarah Willen (University of Connecticut) for Fighting for Dignity: Migrant Lives at Israel’s Margins (University of Pennsylvania Press)

The 2021 Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards will begin accepting submissions later this spring in the categories of Jewish Literature & Linguistics; Medieval & Early Modern Jewish History & Culture; Philosophy & Jewish Thought; and Modern Jewish History and Culture: Africa, Americas, Asia, and Oceania.

This book award program is made possible by funding from Jordan and Arlene Schnitzer through the Harold & Arlene Schnitzer Family Fund of the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation.

The Association for Jewish Studies is the largest learned society and professional organization representing Jewish Studies scholars worldwide, with more than 2,000 members in 33 countries. The mission of the AJS is to advance research and teaching in Jewish Studies at colleges, universities, and other institutions of higher learning, and to foster greater understanding of Jewish Studies scholarship among the wider public.

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