Amir Tibon’s memoir about his household’s ordeal in the course of the Oct. 7 assaults on Israel and Laura Hobson Faure’s historical past of Jewish youngsters who fled from Germany to France throughout World Battle II are among the many finalists for the 2026 Sami Rohr Prize.
The annual award — which alternates annually between works of fiction and nonfiction and which honors rising Jewish writers — is taken into account probably the most outstanding awards in Jewish literature.
The winner of the award, which comes with a $100,000 prize, can be introduced on June 16.
A panel of judges will resolve amongst 4 nonfiction finalists for this yr’s award. Because the prize was established in 2006 — the primary award was offered in 2007 — Sami Rohr Prize panelists and advisors have included historian and diplomat Deborah Lipstadt, historian Jonathan Sarna and longtime Columbia College journalism professor Sam Freedman.
“What strikes me about this yr’s finalists for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature is the exceptional vary of tales they inform and the depth of perception they bring about to Jewish life and historical past,” Debra Goldberg, director of the Sami Rohr Prize, stated in an e-mail. “Every of the 4 books explores questions of reminiscence, identification, displacement, resilience and accountability by way of deeply private narratives that really feel each well timed and enduring.”
The 2026 Sami Rohr Prize finalists are:
Laura Hobson Faure, “Who Will Rescue Us?: The Story of the Jewish Youngsters who Fled to France and America In the course of the Holocaust.” Faure is a professor of recent Jewish historical past at Université Paris 1-Panthéon-Sorbonne. Yale College Press, her writer, describes “Who Will Rescue Us” as “the primary complete examine of Jewish youngsters’s flight from Nazi Germany to France — and their subsequent escape to America from the Vichy regime.” It’s her second ebook.
Shaul Kelner, “A Chilly Battle Exodus: How American Activists Mobilized to Free Soviet Jews.” A professor of Jewish research and sociology at Vanderbilt College, Kelner’s second ebook particulars how American Jews remodeled a largely missed human rights subject right into a landmark Twentieth-century mass-mobilization effort.
Jordan Salama, “Stranger within the Desert: A Household Story.” Salama, an creator and contributor to The New Yorker, Nationwide Geographic and different publications, traces his Jewish household’s historical past “from Moorish Spain and Ottoman Syria to Argentina and past.” A mixture of travelogue, memoir, historical past and reportage, “Stranger within the Desert” is his second ebook.
Amir Tibon, “The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel’s Borderlands.” The primary ebook by the Israeli journalist is a first-person account of his household’s ordeal as residents of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, which was violently attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. Alongside accounts of the day’s losses, Tibon additionally recounts the heroic efforts by his father, a retired main normal, to race into the battle zone and rescue his son, daughter-in-law and two granddaughters from Hamas gunmen.
“Because the Prize approaches its Twentieth yr, I hope it would proceed to help writers whose work expands our understanding of the Jewish expertise and sparks significant dialog for generations to return,” Goldberg stated. “I’m immensely grateful to share within the Prize’s mission to honor excellence, nurture expertise and join Jewish voices throughout the globe.”
The Sami Rohr Prize, named for the late American actual property developer and philanthropist who fled Nazi Germany as a boy, is run in affiliation with the Nationwide Library of Israel. 70 Faces Media, the mother or father firm of the Jewish Telegraphic Company, is the prize’s media accomplice.
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