The Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the National Library of Israel Announce New Collaboration

The Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the National Library of Israel Announce New Collaboration

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Winner of 2022 Non-Fiction Award Announced!

Photo credit: Beowulf Sheehan

Photo credit: Beowulf Sheehan

The Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, in association with the National Library of Israel, has announced that Menachem Kaiser, author of Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure (Mariner Books), is the winner of its 2022 award for non-fiction. The brilliantly told story is set in motion when the author takes up his Holocaust-survivor grandfather’s former battle to reclaim the family’s apartment building in Sosnowiec, Poland. Plunder is a deeply immersive adventure story and a daring interrogation of inheritance — material, spiritual, familial and emotional.

“What an extraordinary honor!” Menachem Kaiser said. “The Sami Rohr Prize represents a deep and continuing commitment to Jewish literature, and I'm beyond humbled and gratified to have been selected as this year's recipient.” 

"Our family is thrilled to honor Menachem Kaiser together with Ayala Fader, Danny Abebe and Eylon Levy, for their important contributions to Jewish literature, culture and community," said George Rohr. "Each of their books expresses the spirit of the Sami Rohr Prize by focusing on central issues facing the Jewish people.”

 

This year’s finalists are:

Ayala Fader, author of Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age (Princeton University Press, 2020), a revealing look at Jewish men and women who secretly explore the outside world while remaining in their ultra-Orthodox religious communities.

Danny Adeno Abebe, author of From Africa to Zion (Miskal Publishing - Yediot, 2021), an extraordinary insider's perspective on the Ethiopian Israeli immigrant experience.

Eylon Levy, translator of From Africa to Zion, is the first Translation Finalist in the history of the Sami Rohr Prize. As such, he will join Kaiser, Abebe and Fader as a Fellow of the Sami Rohr Jewish Literary Institute.

 “We welcome this year’s authors to the SRP family, and we proudly extend the reach of the Prize to include achievement in the art of translation," said Debra Goldberg, Director of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. “Recognizing this important link in the chain of literary craftsmanship will contribute to making meaningful Jewish literary work accessible to a broader audience.”

The winner and finalists will be honored at a virtual ceremony this summer. 

 

Finalists Announced for 2022 Nonfiction Prize

The Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, in association with the National Library of Israel, announced the three finalists for its 2022 prize for nonfiction on April 26.

The finalists for the prestigious literary prize are:

Danny Adeno Abebe for his book From Africa to Zion: The Shepherd Boy Who Became Israel’s First Ethiopian-born Journalist (Miskal Publishing - Yedioth Books), translation by Eylon Aslan-Levy;

Ayala Fader for Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age (Princeton University Press);

and  Menachem Kaiser for Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

The winner will be announced in mid-May and all three authors will be honored at a virtual ceremony at the end of August. 

A New Collaboration

The Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the National Library of Israel (NLI) have announced a collaboration that will promote their shared vision to further cultivate a vibrant international Jewish literary culture and community.

  • Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature
  • The National Library of Israel

The Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature is the premier award of its kind, recognizing the unique role of contemporary writers in the examination and transmission of the Jewish experience. The annual $100,000 prize is presented to an emerging writer, for fiction and nonfiction in alternating years, who demonstrates the potential for continued contribution to the world of Jewish literature.

Sami Rohr, 1926-2012

Sami Rohr, 1926-2012

In 2006, in honor of Sami Rohr’s 80th birthday, his children, George, Evelyn and Lillian, were determined to find a way to honor two of their father’s driving values--the importance of encouraging emerging talent and his lifelong love of Jewish learning and great books. The family’s passionate belief in the transformative power of literature led the way to the creation of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.

 

Sami Rohr's children

Sami Rohr's children

The Prize, and the prestige that it evokes, has increased the status of Jewish writers in all spheres across the globe. Recent winners have included Benjamin Balint, Michael David Lukas and Ilana Kurshan. In 2021, Nicole Krauss became the first recipient of the Prize's Inspiration Award for Fiction. Past winners and finalists have acknowledged the impact of the Prize on their careers and professional pursuits.

Past winners of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature

Past winners of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature

The annual award ceremony is held alternately in Israel and the United States. With the opening of the new National Library of Israel campus in Jerusalem later this year, future events in Israel will take place at NLI. The Sami Rohr Prize will be officially announced as the "Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature awarded in association with the National Library of Israel.” In previous years, the Prize was awarded for works of original English literature. This year, for the first time ever, works that have been translated into English will also be eligible for consideration.

A unique feature of the Prize is its mission to create and maintain a community for Jewish literature. Winners and finalists join an internationally acclaimed group of judges and advisors as Fellows in the Sami Rohr Jewish Literary Institute. Fellows maintain contact, share ideas and critique one another’s work through virtual and live networking events.

Sami Rohr passed away in 2012. The Prize that bears his name honors his legacy and carries his vision into the future.

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Home to the largest collection of textual Judaica ever amassed and mandated to serve as the national library for both the State of Israel and the worldwide Jewish community, the National Library of Israel offers singular assets for the preservation, promotion, and cultivation of the fruits of Jewish literary creativity. Those peerless collections, as well as NLI experts and connections to leading Israeli literary and intellectual figures, publishers and scholars, will be harnessed to further shared goals. The National Library of Israel and the Sami Rohr Prize, in collaboration with NLI USA, the National Library's American affiliate, are developing joint programming and collaborative initiatives, including professional networking between fellows of the Sami Rohr Jewish Literary Institute and fellows of NLI's writers-in-residence programs, the Pardes literary incubator and the intercultural Bustan poetry incubator.

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George Rohr, son of Sami Rohr and Prize Co-Founder: "We are extremely excited about the potential of this new association. The Sami Rohr Prize and the National Library of Israel share a vision of encouraging the growth of a prolific global Jewish literary culture and are committed to working together towards this common goal. Our collaboration will inform, encourage and enrich each other's work, and we hope that it will help nurture ever-growing Jewish literary excellence and creativity.”

Shai Nitzan, Rector, National Library of Israel: "The passionate vision and activities of the Sami Rohr literary initiatives, paired with the unparalleled collections, mission, and setting of the National Library of Israel, present exceptional opportunities for the joint cultivation of a vibrant literary culture and community."

David Makovsky, Co-President, NLI USA: "The new association with the Sami Rohr Prize reflects NLI USA's commitment to further extending the National Library of Israel into the Jewish literary world in America. The Library is the Jewish home of the great books and authors throughout history, and we are honored to have the tradition of the Sami Rohr Prize as part of our community."