Sami Rohr Prize awarded for Jewish literature

By Miriam Abraham

Issue of May 29, 2009 / 6 Sivan 5769

The $100,000 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature was awarded to a 29-year-old immigrant from the former Soviet Union. Sana Krasnikov was

honored at the third annual award ceremony, held last week at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park, which fittingly overlooks the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. Four of five of this year’s awardees are immigrants.

Krasnikov’s book of short stories, “One More Year,” captured the experience of immigrants from the Soviet Union who made their way to the northern suburbs of New York. The Choice Award was given to Dalia Sofer for her book “Septembers of Shiraz,” chronicling the travails of a Jewish family in Iran in the period after the Islamic Revolution.

Finalists also included Anne Landsman, an immigrant from South Africa, Anya Ulinich, who immigrated from the former Soviet Union, and one American, Elisa Albert.

Immigrants have fresh points of view and can relay the ongoing Jewish immigrant story, each one unique, opening up to readers a fascinating and touching new world.

We Jews are commanded to repeat the telling of our stories to remember what happened to us, observed winner Sana Krasnikov on the subject of Jewish writing. We read the weekly portion of the Torah, the Megillot and the Hagaddah, she commented, but we can also look at our history from another angle - perhaps all that our people experienced has occurred in order that we can continue to tell our story to our children and the next generations.

A guest speaker, Aaron Lansky, founded and heads the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA. He spoke about the future of Jewish literature and said that while we may not notice in New York, out in

Massachusetts where he lives, and in the heartland where Jews are mostly integrated and are considered “normal” people, there may not be many fresh stories left to tell. For that reason, he said Jewish literature’s future might indeed have to come from immigrants as they did last year and this year. Last year’s award winner for non-fiction was Lucette Lagnado for “The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit,” an account of her family’s life in Egypt and the hardship of their emigration from Cairo to Brooklyn.

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin was the master of ceremonies.

The Jewish Book Council is the only American Jewish organization whose sole mission is the promotion of Jewish books. It promotes Jewish Book Month, the Jewish Book Network and its annual conference, and publishes the quarterly magazine Jewish Book World, known as the Publisher’s Weekly of the Jewish world. Geri Gindea, a former head of the Five Towns Jewish Council, heads it.

I was part of a small contingent from the Five Towns at the awards; Sarajane Giddings, beloved book group facilitator and long time employee of the recently closed Borders in Cedarhurst, with her husband, as well as Jane and Joel Shiff and Gladys and Matthew Maryles and Hillel Goldman.

One of the many authors in attendance was Alana Newhouse, former arts and culture editor for The Forward who became editor of nextbook.org.

As an immigrant with my own family’s story to tell I enjoyed reading the award winning books and meeting the authors. It felt wonderful to be surrounded by great literary minds whose creativity will keep all of us avid readers engaged and stimulated through the upcoming years. I’ve got a pile of interesting and varied “summer reading” books to plow through and I just can’t wait to get started.

Miriam Bradman Abrahams is One Region/One Book Chair for Hadassah Nassau Region, Reviewer for Jewish Book World, HAFTR HS Book Fair Chair, Editor of Hadassah Hewlett Herald, and is currently writing her father’s immigrant memoir.