Brandeis Press, alumni win Jewish Book Award honors

Four Brandeis Press books, works by four graduates cited

A Brandeis University Press book captured a National Jewish Book Award and three others were honored as finalists. In addition, Brandeis alumni won two National Jewish Book Awards and two other graduates were finalists in the annual competition, which recognizes outstanding books of Jewish interest.

The awards are sponsored by the Jewish Book Council.

The honorees:

-- Jonathan Krasner ’88, Ph.D. ’02, won the Celebrate 350 Award, the top prize in the American Jewish Studies category, for “The Benderly Boys and American Jewish Education.” The book, which was published by Brandeis University Press in the Brandeis Series on American Jewish History, Culture and Life, tells the story of Samson Benderly, the founder of the Bureau of Jewish Education. Krasner is an assistant professor of American Jewish history at Hebrew Union College/Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati.

-- Three books published by Brandeis University Press were finalists in their respective categories: Tauber Institute Series book “Moses Mendelssohn: Writings on Judaism, Christianity and the Bible,” edited by Michah Gottlieb, Anthologies and Collections; and HBI Series books “Sephardi Family Life in the Early Modern Diaspora,” edited by Julia Lieberman, Scholarship; and “Sexual Violence Against Jewish Women during the Holocaust,” edited by Sonja Hedgepeth and Rochelle Saidel, Women’s Studies.

-- Deborah Dash Moore ’67 served as co-editor with Marion Kaplan of “Gender and Jewish History,” which won the National Jewish Book Award in the Anthologies and Collections category. Written in honor of the late Yale professor Paula Hyman, the book brings together a wide-ranging collection of original essays that, in highlighting several aspects of her pioneering work, offer a fresh look, informed by gender, at modern history.

-- Deborah Lipstadt, M.A. ’72, Ph.D. ’76, was a finalist in the Holocaust category for “The Eichmann Trial.” She is the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University.

-- Eliyana Adler, M.A. ’95, Ph.D. ’03, wrote “In Her Hands: The Education of Jewish Girls in Tsarist Russia,” which was a finalist in the Women’s Studies category. She is a former visiting assistant professor and current research associate at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Additionally, the Jewish Book Council for the first time presented the Myra H. Kraft Memorial Award for the top book in the Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice category. Kraft ’64 was a longtime member of the council board and was dedicated to the world of Jewish literature. The gift was established by her husband, Robert, and their family.

Winners will be honored on March 14 at a gala awards ceremony to the Center for Jewish History in New York.