Natan Notable Books at the Jewish Book Council

In 2019, Natan and Jewish Book Council launched Natan Notable Books, a twice-yearly award for nonfiction books on Jewish themes. Natan Notable Books is a new iteration of the “Natan Book Award.”

Natan Notable Books brings Natan’s values of infusing Jewish life with creativity and meaning into the intellectual arena by supporting and promoting breakthrough books intended for mainstream audiences that will catalyze conversations around the issues that Natan grapples with in its grantmaking.

Natan Notable Book winners receive a Natan Notable Book seal and $5,000 for the author, marketing/distribution coaching and promotion from Jewish Book Council and Natan, and customized support designed to bring the book and/or the author to new audiences.

For more information or to submit a title, click here. Inquiries can be directed to natannotable@jewishbooks.org.

Summer 2025: Natan Notable Book Award

Natan and Jew­ish Book Coun­cil are thrilled to announce the Sum­mer 2025 Natan Notable Book: As a Jew: Reclaim­ing Our Sto­ry From Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us by Sarah Hur­witz (Harper­One, Sep­tem­ber 9, 2025). 

At a time when Jew­ish iden­ti­ty is worn with pride and dis­com­fort, joy and fear, Hurwitz’s book takes a dis­cern­ing look back to the sources of it all, told with the empa­thet­ic voice of one who is famil­iar with the full range. Want­i­ng to account for the dis­con­nect or dis­in­ter­est that many Jews express when think­ing about their own reli­gion, As a Jew begins to peel away the sto­ries that shaped per­cep­tions of Jews, the anti-semit­ic pro­pa­gan­da that sub­tle­ty or inten­tion­al­ly hid the core of Judaism and Jew­ish life from the out­side world, but also from Jews them­selves. And as Hur­witz her­self dives deep­er into Jew­ish his­to­ry, tra­di­tion, schol­ar­ship, and obser­vance, she brings her read­ers along to dis­cov­er the depth of wis­dom, the root­ed­ness that is found­ed on rit­u­al, and above all, the joy that Judaism has to offer. As Hur­witz writes in her intro­duc­tion to As a Jew, ​“This book is an account of how I got to this point: how I sought to engage with Judaism on its own terms, not those of oth­ers who mis­un­der­stand or dis­dain it; how I stripped away the lay­ers of dis­tor­tions and slan­ders that made me recoil from my own tra­di­tion; and how I have learned, and am still learn­ing to live, as a Jew.”

In choos­ing As a Jew for the Sum­mer 2025 Natan Notable Book award, the selec­tion com­mit­tee rec­og­nized the impor­tance of this book at this moment in his­to­ry. As a Jew is told by an author with a clear-sight­ed view not only of the chal­lenges fac­ing the Amer­i­can Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, but also of the path through the tan­gled inter­sec­tions of this cur­rent time and for­ward into the future. Com­mit­tee mem­ber Daniel Bon­ner reflect­ed: ​“We are in the midst of a renais­sance in Amer­i­can Jew­ish life, and we could ask for no more pow­er­ful a mes­sen­ger than Sarah Hur­witz.” Bon­ner describes As a Jew ​“as a bold, elo­quent, pow­er­ful call to Jews to own their Jew­ish iden­ti­ty, deep­en their Jew­ish knowl­edge, and cul­ti­vate a sense of Jew­ish peo­ple­hood. This award has long rec­og­nized authors — Mat­ti Fried­man, Ilana Kur­shan, Bari Weiss, Ari Shav­it, and oth­ers — whose books spur con­ver­sa­tions about impor­tant issues in con­tem­po­rary Jew­ish life. In this book, Sarah address­es them all and offers a mas­ter-class on a thou­sand years of anti-Semi­tism, makes the case for inte­grat­ing Jew­ish wis­dom into our lives, and con­sid­ers Israel’s place among the nations. She is empa­thet­ic, draw­ing on her expe­ri­ence as a hos­pi­tal chap­lain. She is a great sto­ry­teller, owing to her years a White House speech­writer. And she is unshak­ably, unapolo­get­i­cal­ly proud, in the knowl­edge that she now owns her people’s story.”

Twice a year, Natan Notable Books recognizes recently published or about-to-be-published non-fiction books that promise to catalyze conversations aligned with the themes of Natan's grantmaking: reinventing Jewish life and community for the twenty-first century, shifting notions of individual and collective Jewish identity, the history and future of Israel, understanding and confronting contemporary forms of antisemitism, and the evolving relationship between Israel and world Jewry.

Natan Book Award Committee
Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen (Chair)
Daniel Bonner
Jeremy Dauber
Felicia Herman
Matthew Hiltzik
Sarah Gould Steinhardt
Michael Wigotsky

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