Books: 2010 Sami Rohr Prize finalists

Five non-fiction finalists, from among 25 entries, were announced for the 2010 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, the fourth year the award has been given.

Topics range from the role rabbis and Jewish intellectuals have played in forming American public identity, a candid and quirky spiritual memoir, the Jewish renaissance in Russia at the time of the Russian Revolution, the involvement of Jews in the international feather trade and Yiddish radio in America.

The prize is administered by the Jewish Book Council.

The winner gets $100,000, and the first runner-up will receive $25,000. The five finalists will meet with judges on December 6 in New York. The winners will be announced in January 2010, and the awards ceremony will take place March 31 in Jerusalem.
The finalists and their books:

-- Lila Corwin Berman - Speaking of Jews: Rabbis, Intellectuals, and the Creation of an American Public Identity (University of California Press)

-- Ari Y. Kelman - Station Identification: A Cultural History of Yiddish Radio in the United States (University of California Press)

-- Kenneth B. Moss - Jewish Renaissance in the Russian Revolution (Harvard University Press)
-- Danya Ruttenberg - Surprised by God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion (Beacon Press)

-- Sarah Abrevaya Stein - Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce (Yale University Press)

To read the complete press release, please click here.