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.”