The Association for Jewish Studies Announces

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

Since 2008, these 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 and finalists are recognized for books in four categories:

Jewish Literature and Linguistics

Winner: Amelia M. Glaser (University of California, San Diego) for Songs in Dark Times: Yiddish Poetry of Struggle from Scottsboro to Palestine (Harvard University Press)

Finalist: Sheila E. Jelen (University of Kentucky) for Salvage Poetics: Post-Holocaust American Jewish Folk Ethnographies (Wayne State University Press)

Medieval and Early Modern Jewish History and Culture

Winner: Francesca Trivellato (Institute for Advanced Study) for 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)

Finalist: Eric Lawee (Bar-Ilan University) for Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah: Canonization and Resistance in the Reception of a Jewish Classic (Oxford University Press)

Modern Jewish History and Culture: Africa, Americas, Asia, and Oceania

Winner: Devi Mays (University of Michigan) for Forging Ties, Forging Passports: Migration and the Modern Sephardi Diaspora (Stanford University Press)

Finalist: Laura Leibman (Reed College) for The Art of the Jewish Family: A History of Women in Early New York in Five Objects (Bard Graduate Center)

Philosophy and Jewish Thought

Winner: Annabel Herzog (University of Haifa) for Levianas’s Politics: Justice, Mercy, Universality (University of Pennsylvania Press)

Finalist: Alexander Kaye (Brandeis University) for The Invention of Jewish Theocracy: The Struggle for Legal Authority in Modern Israel (Oxford University Press)

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. Of this year’s awards, Jordan Schnitzer said “Now in its fourteenth year, I continue to be humbled to support critical scholarship in the field of Jewish Studies. This year, the award winners and finalists help us understand the past and add insight to today’s issues. Congratulations to each one of you!”

AJS Executive Director, Warren Hoffman, PhD, said "The AJS is grateful to Jordan Schnitzer for sustained support of the Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards, one of the most prestigious book awards that one can receive in the field of Jewish Studies. These awards prominently elevate Jewish Studies scholarship around the world."

The 2022 Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards will begin accepting submissions in spring 2022 in the categories of 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.

Winners will receive a $10,000 prize; finalists will receive a $2,500 prize.

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.

If you would like more information about the Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards or the Association for Jewish Studies, please contact Amy Ronek at (917) 606-8249 or aronek@associationforjewishstudies.org.