Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg’s \u201cThe Triumph of Life: A Narrative Theology of Judaism\u201d represents what one admirer calls a \u201cculmination of a lifetime of theological reflection.\u201d (University of Nebraska Press\/Jewish Publication Society)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The JBC also honored Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg, 91, with its Lifetime Achievement Award for his latest book, \u201cThe Triumph of Life: A Narrative Theology of Judaism.\u201d Greenberg is a leading Modern Orthodox theologian, and the JBC said his book represents a \u201cculmination of his many decades of thinking and teaching about Jewish philosophy and theology,\u201d according to the statement. <\/p>\n
Yael van der Wooden won the Goldberg Prize for Debut Fiction for her novel \u201cThe Safekeep.\u201d The highly anticipated novel, by a writer who is originally from Tel Aviv and currently resides in the Netherlands, is a love story set in a 1960s Holland haunted by the legacy of World War II.<\/p>\n
The JBC presented its Mentorship Award to Aaron Lansky, the founder of the Yiddish Book Center, a repository, museum and Yiddish learning center in Amherst, Massachusetts. Lansky, 69, who according to the judges \u201cfundamentally reshaped the fate of one of the great Jewish languages\u2019 histories,\u201d is set to retire in June. The mentorship award is named in honor of Carolyn Starman Hessel, the former executive director of the Jewish Book Council.<\/p>\n
Other winners include:<\/p>\n
Family Book Club: \u201cThe Last Dekrepitzer,\u201d by Howard Langer.<\/p>\n
History: \u201cReading Herzl in Beirut: The PLO Effort to Know the Enemy,\u201d by Jonathan Marc Gribetz.<\/p>\n
Holocaust: \u201cOccupied Words: What the Holocaust Did to Yiddish,\u201d by Hannah Pollin-Galay and \u201cWarsaw Testament,\u201d by Rokhl Auerbach, translated by Samuel Kassow.<\/p>\n
Education and Jewish Identity: \u201cUncomfortable Conversations with a Jew,\u201d by Emmanuel Acho and Noa Tishby.<\/p>\n
Contemporary Jewish Life & Practice: \u201cThe Madwoman in the Rabbi\u2019s Attic: Rereading the Women of the Talmud,\u201d by Gila Fine. <\/p>\n
American Jewish Studies: \u201cA Cold War Exodus: How American Activists Mobilized to Free Soviet Jews,\u201d by Shaul Kelner.<\/p>\n
Biography: \u201cLeonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall,\u201d by Christophe Lebold.<\/p>\n
Children\u2019s Picture Book: \u201cSharing Shalom,\u201d illustrated by Selina Alko. <\/p>\n
Young Adult Literature: \u201cNight Owls,\u201d by A. R. Vishny.<\/p>\n
Middle Grade Literature: \u201cFinn and Ezra\u2019s Bar Mitzvah Time Loop,\u201d by Joshua S. Levy.<\/p>\n
Food Writing and Cookbooks: \u201cForbidden: A 3,000-Year History of Jews and the Pig,\u201d by Jordan D. Rosenblum.<\/p>\n
Poetry: \u201cThe Story of Your Obstinate Survival,\u201d by Daniel Khalastchi.<\/p>\n
Modern Jewish Thought and Experience: \u201cTablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life,\u201d by Joshua Leifer.<\/p>\n
Scholarship: \u201cBabylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity,\u201d by Simcha Gross.<\/p>\n
Sephardic Culture: \u201cEntwined Homelands, Empowered Diasporas: Hispanic Moroccan Jews and Their Globalizing Community,\u201d by Aviad Moreno.<\/p>\n
Women\u2019s Studies: \u201cHoly Rebellion: Religious Feminism and the Transformation of Judaism and Women\u2019s Rights in Israel,\u201d by Ronit Irshai and Tanya Zion-Waldoks.<\/p>\n
Writing Based on Archival Material: \u201cThe Business of Transition: Jewish and Greek Merchants of Salonica from Ottoman to Greek Rule,\u201d by Paris Papamichos Chronakis.<\/p>\n
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