The Jewish Book Council has revealed the winners of the 75th National Jewish Book Awards, which are given to “English-language books of Jewish interest published in 2025, which represent the best of Jewish literature and authors and their contributions.”
Hostage by Eli Sharabi won the Everett Family Foundation Book of the Year award. The memoir is Sharabi’s account of the 491 days he spent as a captive of Hamas following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel.
Julia Ioffe won the autobiography and memoir prize for Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, From Revolution to Autocracy, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. The biography award went to Jack Fairweather for The Prosecutor: One Man’s Battle to Bring Nazis to Justice.
Allison Epstein was awarded the fiction prize for Fagin the Thief, and Zeeva Bukai won the debut fiction award for The Anatomy of Exile. The children’s fiction prize went to The Remembering Candle, written by Alison Goldberg and illustrated by Selina Alko, while Janice Shapiro won the middle-grade literature prize for Honoria: A Fortuitous Friendship, and Eugene Yelchin took home the young adult literature award for I Wish I Didn’t Have To Tell You This.
The National Jewish Book Awards were established in 1950. A full list of this year’s winners and finalists is available here.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
