Toronto author Joseph Kertes has won the 59th annual National Jewish Book Award for Fiction for his novel, “Gratitude.”
Kertes’ Holocaust-themed novel, which was first published in Canada in 2008, is one of 18 books in various categories recognized by the awards overseen by the Jewish Book Council in New York City.
The book is set in German-occupied Hungary during the final months of World War II. Kertes, a native of Hungary, escaped with his family to Canada after the 1956 revolution.
Rabbi Daniel Gordis, the founding dean of Los Angeles’ Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at American Jewish University, received the Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice Award for his book, “Saving Israel: How the Jewish People Can Win a War That May Never End” (John Wiley & Sons). Gordis moved from Los Angeles to Israel in 1998 and is now senior vice president of the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem-based research and educational institute.
Other winners include Hasia Diner, author of “We Remember with Reverence and Love: American Jews and the Myth of Silence after the Holocaust, 1945-1962” (New York University Press), the American Jewish Studies’ Celebrate 350 Award; and Melvin Urofsky, the Everett Family Foundation Jewish Book of the Year Award for “Louis D. Brandeis: A Life (Pantheon Books).
The winners will be honored March 9 in New York City.
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