The Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, the largest award of its kind ($100,000) announced yesterday its five finalists for 2008 year.
They are:
• Ilana M. Blumberg for Houses of Study: A Jewish Woman Among Books
• Eric L. Goldstein for The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race and American Identity
• Lucette Lagnado for The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit:
My Family’s Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World
• Michael Makovsky for Churchill’s Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft
• Haim Watzman for A Crack in the Earth: A Journey Up Israel’s Rift Valley
“The five finalists have been selected by an anonymous panel of distinguished judges drawn from the literary and academic community. The names of the judges will be released upon the announcement of the Winner. An awards ceremony will be held this spring. Authors were selected based on their demonstration of a fresh vision and evidence of future potential to further contribute to the Jewish literary community.
The inaugural Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature was awarded last year to fiction writer Tamar Yellin for The Genizah at the House of Shepher (Toby Press). The prize considers fiction and non-fiction in alternating years. The prize honors an emerging author in the field of Jewish literature who has written a book of exceptional literary merit that stimulates an interest in themes of Jewish concern,” according to a press release sent to Jewschool.