Dec. 10, 2004 Jewish authors reap awards By URIEL HEILMAN NEW YORK It wasn't exactly the red carpet on Oscar night, but a few luminaries of the Jewish book world turned out last Wednesday night for an evening of moderate pomp, pleasant conversation and thank you-laden speeches at the 54th National Jewish Book Awards. Fans of Philip Roth and Arthur Miller might have been disappointed, but there were plenty of rabbis and academics to talk to among the 15 prize winners at the awards ceremony and the dinner that preceded it. The big winner of the night was Jonathan Sarna, who took home the Everett Family Jewish Book of the Year award for "American Judaism," his masterful treatment of the story of Jewish religion and life in America in the 350 years since Jews first landed in New Amsterdam in 1654. Sarna is a professor at Brandeis University, which counted several alumni among the winners on prize night. "Most Jews today are woefully ignorant concerning their history in this country," Sarna said in a speech after receiving his prize. "We need to change that." Noting the long, tragic history of Jews in the Diaspora, Sarna said, "The 350 years of American Jewish history by and large stand as the great exception to this melancholy story. Persecution, expulsion, tragedy and mass murder are not the themes of American Jewish life." Two of the books that won awards were born of tragedy. "The Blessing of a Broken Heart," by Sherri Mandell, won in the category of Contemporary Jewish Life and Practices. Mandell's son, Koby, was killed in 2001 by Arab terrorists while hiking in a cave near Tekoa. He was 13. Mandell's book about coping with the loss of her son interweaves a tragic story with one of Jewish faith. The parents of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl won the Anthologies and Collections award for "I am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl," a collection of 147 essays by writers, scientists, rabbis, political figures, entertainers and others on the title's subject. Daniel Pearl's sister, Tamara Pearl, accepted the award on her parents' behalf. She called the collection a "new survival kit" for American Jews. "For us Jews, ideas breed debate, debate breeds clarity, and clarity breeds strength and resilience," she said. The evening at the Center for Jewish History, in Manhattan, was emceed by journalists Ari Goldman and Sam Freedman, now both professors at Columbia University's School of Journalism and authors in their own right. The plurality of the winners were academics-perhaps a natural result of having such categories as Scholarship, Modern Jewish Thought, Holocaust, History, Education and Women's Studies in the program. Those winners included Marc Brettler and Adele Berlin for "The Jewish Study Bible;" Steve Oney for "And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank;" Hannah Naveh for "Gender and Israeli Society;" Barry Holtz for "Textual Knowledge: Teaching the Bible in Theory and Practice;" Christopher Browning for "The Origins of the Final Solution," and Daniel Matt for "The Zohar: Pritzker Edition." "Kabbalah is attracting and inspiring people today from all communities, from all walks of life," Matt said, explaining that his translation of the Zohar, the central work of Jewish mysticism, had the good fortune of coinciding with popular interest in the subject. "The Zohar is both new and ancient simultaneously." For a collection of book editors, publishers, authors and admirers that spends more time than most wringing their hands about the rising average age of today's readers, the awardees this year represented a relatively young crowd. One of them, Sarna, was the son of an awardee from four decades ago, Nahum Sarna. The gathering was alternately lighthearted and solemn, and it included a tribute to Henry Everett, a philanthropist and supporter of the Jewish Book Council, who died in May. Everett's widow, Edith, presented the award named after her family. Marjorie Sander took home the fiction prize for "Portrait of my Mother who Posed Nude in Wartime." Winners in two categories of children's books were Eric Kimmel, for "Wonders and Miracles: A Passover Companion," and Michelle McCann for "Luba: The Angel of Bergen-Belsen." Frederic Brenner won the Visual Arts prize for "Diaspora: Homelands in Exile," a two-volume photographic account of Jewish culture and community culled from more than 80,000 photographs taken over the course of 25 years.