Today, the Jewish Book Council revealed the winners of the 2019 National Jewish Book Awards, which span 24 categories. Winners include Bari Weiss, whose book How to Fight Anti-Semitism was written in the aftermath of the 2018 attack on a synagogue in Pittsburgh; Dani Shapiro for her bestselling memoir Inheritance; and Ilya Kaminsky for his poetry collection Deaf Republic, which was also a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry.

Biblical historian and translator Robert Alter took home a Lifetime Achievement Award. Alter’s annotated translation of the Hebrew Bible, published in 2018, has been hailed as a landmark achievement that centers the literary qualities of the text. The Alter Bible is also notable for being a one-man translation. Pamela Nadell received the Book of the Year Award for America’s Jewish Women, a 400-year history of Jewish women in the United States.

A selection of this year’s winners are featured below. You can find the full list here.

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Jew­ish Book of the Year

Amer­i­ca’s Jew­ish Women: A His­to­ry from Colo­nial Times to Today
Pamela S. Nadell
W. W. Nor­ton & Company

Life­time Achieve­ment Award

The Hebrew Bible: A Trans­la­tion with Com­men­tary 
Robert Alter
W. W. Nor­ton & Company

Auto­bi­og­ra­phy and Memoir

Inher­i­tance: A Mem­oir of Geneal­o­gy, Pater­ni­ty, and Love
Dani Shapiro
Alfred A. Knopf

Biog­ra­phy

Touched with Fire: Mor­ris B. Abram and the Bat­tle against Racial and Reli­gious Dis­crim­i­na­tion
David E. Lowe
Potomac Books

Con­tem­po­rary Jew­ish Life and Practice

How to Fight Anti-Semi­tism 
Bari Weiss
Crown

Debut Fic­tion

Naamah 
Sarah Blake
River­head Books

Fic­tion

Fly Already: Sto­ries 
Etgar Keret
River­head Books

His­to­ry

The Guard­ed Gate: Big­otry, Eugen­ics and the Law That Kept Two Gen­er­a­tions of Jews, Ital­ians, and Oth­er Euro­pean Immi­grants Out of America
Daniel Okrent
Scribner

Poet­ry

Deaf Repub­lic
Ilya Kaminsky
Gray­wolf Press

Aaron Robertson

Aaron Robertson

Aaron Robertson has written for The New York Times, The Nation, Foreign Policy, and elsewhere. His translation of Igiaba Scego's novel Beyond Babylon (Two Lines Press, 2019) was shortlisted for the PEN Translation Prize and Best Translated Book Award.