KORET INTERNATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARDS:
FINALISTS NAMED
VOTING BEGINS ON PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD

(SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 12, 2006) —  While judges are making their final selections for the Koret International Jewish Book Awards, which announced category finalists today, readers the world over can be part of the process by voting for the decade’s best work of Jewish fiction in the program’s People’s Choice Award at JBooks.com. 

Prizes totaling $25,000 will be awarded to winning authors in the categories of fiction, Jewish thought, Jewish life & living, children’s literature and — new this year — the JBooks.com People’s Choice Award. Each voter will automatically be entered in a sweepstakes to win one of eight Amazon.com gift cards ranging in value from $25 to $250. The finalists are:

  • Ravelstein by Saul Bellow
  • Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
  • In the Image by Dara Horn
  • The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick
  • The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
  • The Wedding Jester by Steve Stern

The Koret International Jewish Book Awards, managed for the first time this year by Jewish Family & Life! (JFL) in cooperation with the National Foundation for Jewish Culture (NFJC), will present the awards at 7 p.m. on Nov. 15 at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. The awards ceremony, emceed by Broadway legend Theodore Bikel and scheduled to coincide with International Jewish Book Month, is open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis.

Winners will be selected from the following finalists:
Fiction:

  • The Seventh Beggar by Pearl Abraham
  • Her Body Knows by David Grossman
  • A Changed Man by Francine Prose

Jewish Life & Living:

  • The JGirls' Guide by Penina Adelman, Ali Feldman and Shulamit Reinharz
  • Dignity Beyond Death by Rochel Berman
  • History on Trial by Deborah Lipstadt
  • Sex, God, Christmas and Jews by Gil Mann

Jewish Thought:

  • Betraying Spinoza by Rebecca Goldstein
  • Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple by Jonathan Klawans
  • The Personhood of God by Yochanan Muffs
  • Caviar and Ashes by Marci Shore

BabagaNewz Children’s Literature:

  • Shlemiel Crooks by Anna Olswanger, illustrated by Paula Goodman Koz
  • Before You Were Born by Howard Schwartz, illustrated by Kristina Swarner
  • Butterflies Under Our Hats by Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, illustrated by Joani Keller Rothenberg

A celebration of the Koret International Jewish Book Award winners is scheduled at New York City’s 92nd Street Y on Nov. 21.

“This year’s finalists have helped shape some of the most thought-provoking Jewish ideas and values, advancing the international Jewish dialogue,” said book awards chairman and JFL founder Yosef I.Abramowitz. “And with the launch of the JBooks.com People’s Choice Award this year, we have been able to engage the reading public on a much more participatory level.”

Judges, by category, are:
Fiction

  • Nessa Rapoport, Tova Mirvis and Rachel Kadish

Jewish Life & Living

  • Rabbi Harold Kushner, Joel Grishaver and Dr. Wendy Mogel

Jewish Thought

  • Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, Avivah Zornberg and Rabbi Ed Feld

BabagaNewz Children’s Literature

  • Mark Levine, Andrew Ackerman and Elizabeth Swados

In the JBooks.com People’s Choice category, judges reviewed more than a hundred nominated books to narrow the field to the finalists posted at JBooks.com. Judges were: Sanford Pinsker, Rebecca Philips and Judy Bolton-Fasman.

The November award ceremony will also showcase the winner of the NFJC’s Samuel Goldberg & Sons Foundation Prize for Emerging Writers, Kevin Haworth, who wrote The Discontinuity of Small Things; the Union for Reform Judaism’s Prize for Jewish Fiction; and Julie Orringer, winner of the Anne and Robert Cowan Writer’s Award of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund.

For complimentary tickets to the Nov. 15 awards ceremony in San Francisco, contact the JCCSF box office at (415) 292-1233 or email koretbookawards@jflmedia.com.

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About Koret
An entrepreneurial spirit guides Koret in addressing societal challenges and strengthening Bay Area life. Investing in strategic, local solutions, Koret helps to inspire a multiplier effect – encouraging collaborative funding and developing model initiatives.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, Koret adds to the region’s vitality by promoting educational opportunity, contributing to a diverse cultural landscape, and bolstering organizations that are innovative in their approaches to meeting community needs.

Koret has supported the book awards program since 1998.

About Jewish Family & Life!
JFL, a dynamic Jewish media organization committed to connecting Jews to Jewish life, was selected to reimagine Koret’s book awards. JFL’s deep understanding of the literary field through longstanding management of JBooks.com, its experience in forging partnerships with other organizations, and its media reach to targeted audiences of all ages through GenerationJ.com, BabagaNewz magazine for middle school students, and other websites and magazines, bring the promise of sustained excellence and increased accessibility, both priorities stemming from the Koret mission.

Released jointly by Koret Foundation Funds, Jewish Family & Life! and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture.

CONTACTS:
Susan Wolfe
Koret Foundation Funds
(415) 882-7740
swolfe@koretfoundation.org

Yosef I. Abramowitz
Jewish Family & Life!
011-972-54-692-2008
yabramowitz@jflmedia.com

Jill Baker
Jewish Family & Life!
(617) 581-6849
jbaker@jflmedia.com

Richard Siegel
National Foundation for Jewish Culture
(212) 629-0500
rsiegel@jewishculture.org

Emily Grotta
Union for Reform Judaism
(212) 650-4227
esgrotta@urj.org