The Israel and Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies at York University hosted the awards ceremony for winners of the 2017 Canadian Jewish Literary Awards on Sunday, Oct. 15.
The event took place 2pm in the Tribute Communities Recital Hall, and featured a reception and book signing after the awards. This event was free and open to the public.
The annual awards recognize the finest books with Jewish themes and subjects by Canadian authors. The works enrich Canadian Jewish writing and culture and enable readers to better to understand the Jewish collective past, shared present and the world of the future.
Awards were given in nine categories:
Biography/Memoir – Pumpkinflowers by Matti Friedman
Fiction – Yiddish for Pirates by Gary Barwin
History – Not In My Family: German Memory Responsibility After the Holocaust by Roger Frie
Holocaust Literature – Before All Memory Is Lost: Women’s Voices from the Holocaust by Myrna Goldenberg, Ed.
Jewish Thought and Culture – Les Revolutions de Leonard Cohen by Chantal Ringuet and Gerard Rabinovitch
Scholarship – The Zohar: Pritzker Edition Volume 11 by Joel Hecker
Youth Literature – Another Me by Eva Wiseman
Yiddish – Strangers in Berlin: Modern Jewish Literature Between East and West 1919-1935 by Rachel Seelig
Poetry – A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent by Stuart Ross
This event celebrated some of the finest writing in 2016/2017 on Jewish themes and topics.
About the awards
The Canadian Jewish Literary Awards was founded by a group of prominent writers, editors and scholars to celebrate the vibrancy of Jewish literature and culture in Canada. The awards are hosted and sponsored by the Israel & Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies at York University, with the co-sponsorship of a consortium of other programs, including Western University’s Holocaust Literature Research Institute, the Concordia University Chair in Canadian Jewish Studies, the journal Parchment in the Faculty of Arts at Ryerson University, McGill University’s Department of Jewish Studies, and the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto.
Organizers of the Canadian Jewish Literary Awards would like to express gratitude for the support of The Gerald Sheff & Sanitha Kachan Charitable Foundation, the lead benefactor for the Canadian Jewish Literary Awards, and to the major donors. They thank all the members of the community who have contributed to the sustenance of Jewish literature and thought in Canada.