Canadian Jewish Book Awards

The Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Awards are a Canadian program of literary awards, managed, produced and presented annually by the Koffler Centre of the Arts to works judged to be the year's best works of literature by Jewish Canadian writers or on Jewish cultural and historical topics. The Koffler Centre of the Arts announced in December 2014 that the Awards were being "put on hiatus for 2015 and will resume, invigorated and reinvented, in 2016" as the Koffler recalibrates and revamps several of its current programs. In its place, a group of jury members formed the Canadian Jewish Literary Awards for 2015.

In February 2016, after a one-year hiatus, the Koffler Centre of the Arts relaunched the awards as the Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature. The new awards have five categories, each with a $10,000 prize. Fiction, Non-Fiction, History and Young Adult/Children's Literature will be awarded annually; Poetry will be awarded every three years.

Winners

2008

• Joseph and Faye Tanenbaum Prize in History: Anna Porter, Kasztner’s Train: The True Story of Rezsö Kasztner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust
• Abe and Fay Bergel Award in Scholarship on a Jewish Subject: James Diamond, Converts, Heretics, and Lepers: Maimonides and the Outsider
• Abraham and Eve Trapunski Prize in Yiddish Literature and Translation from Yiddish: Marc Miller, Representing the Immigrant Experience: Morris Rosenfeld and the Emergence of Yiddish Literature in America
• Canadian Jewish News Award in Poetry: Ruth Panofsky, Laike and Nahum: A Poem in Two Voices
• Frances and Samuel Stein Memorial Award in Youth Literature: Tina Grimberg, Out of Line: Growing up Soviet
• Martin and Beatrice Fischer Award in Fiction: John Miller, A Sharp Intake of Breath
• Canadian Society for Yad Vashem Award in Holocaust Memoir and Literature: Henia Reinhartz, Bits and Pieces
• Samuel and Rose Cohen Memorial Award in Biography/Memoir: Mayer Kirshenblatt and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland Before the Holocaust

2009

• Biography and Memoir: Peter C. Newman, Izzy: the Passionate Life and Turbulent Times of Izzy Asper, Canada's Media Mogul
• Fiction: Ami Sands Brodoff, The White Space Between
• History: Barrie Wilson, How Jesus Became Christian
• Holocaust Literature: Joseph Kertes, Gratitude
• Poetry: Isa Milman, Prairie Kaddish
• Scholarship on a Jewish Subject: Reinhold Kramer, Mordecai Richler: Leaving St. Urbain
• Yiddish Literature: David G. Roskies, Yiddishlands: A Memoir
• Youth Literature: Kathy Kacer, The Diary of Laura's Twin

2010

• Fiction: Robin McGrath, The Winterhouse
• History: Allan Levine, Coming of Age: A History of the Jewish People of Manitoba
• Holocaust Literature: Michael R. Marrus, Some Measure of Justice: The Holocaust Era Restitution Campaign of the 1990s
• Youth Literature: Eva Wiseman, Puppet
• Biography and Memoir: David Sax, Save the Deli
• Jewish Thought and Culture: Kenneth Sherman, What the Furies Bring
• Scholarship on a Jewish Subject: Jeffrey Veidlinger, Jewish Public Culture in the Late Russian Empire
• Yiddish Literature: Goldie Sigal, Stingy Buzi and King Solomon
• Special Achievement Award: Howard Engel

2011

• Fiction: Alison Pick, Far to Go
• Politics and History: Tarek Fatah, The Jew Is Not My Enemy
• Holocaust Literature: Robert Eli Rubinstein, An Italian Renaissance: Choosing Life in Canada
• Biography and Memoir: Charles Foran, Mordecai: The Life and Times
• Scholarship: Harold Troper, The Defining Decade: Identity, Politics, and the Canadian Jewish Community in the 1960s
• Youth Literature: Judie Oron, Cry of the Giraffe

2012

• Biography: Fraidie Martz and Andrew Wilson, A Fiery Soul: The Life and Theatrical Times of John Hirsch
• Fiction: David Bezmozgis, The Free World
• History: Denis Vaugeois, Les Premiers Juifs d’Amérique 1760-1860: L’extraordinaire histoire de la famille Hart
• Holocaust Literature: Eli Pfefferkorn, The Muselmann at the Water Cooler
• Memoir: Richard Marceau, Juif, Une histoire québécoise
• Poetry: S. Weilbach, Singing from the Darktime: A Childhood Memoir in Poetry and Prose
• Scholarship: Kalman Weiser, Jewish People, Yiddish Nation: Noah Prylucki and the Folkists in Poland
• Yiddish Literature: Rebecca Margolis, Jewish Roots, Canadian Soil: Yiddish Culture in Montreal, 1905-1945
• Youth Literature: Lesley Simpson, Yuvi’s Candy Tree

2013

• Biography: Aili and Andres McConnon, Road to Valour: A True Story of World War II Italy, the Nazis, and the Cyclist Who Inspired a Nation (Doubleday)
• Fiction: Nancy Richler, The Imposter Bride (Harper Collins)
• History: Matti Friedman, The Aleppo Codex: A True Story of Obsession, Faith, and the Pursuit of an Ancient Bible (Algonquin Books)
• Holocaust Literature: Julija Šukys, Epistolophilia: Writing the Life of Ona Simaite (University of Nebraska Press)
• Poetry: Isa Milman, Something Small To Carry Home (Quattro Books)
• Scholarship: L. Ruth Klein, Nazi Germany, Canadian Responses: Confronting Antisemitism in the Shadow of War (McGill-Queen's University Press)
• Yiddish: Pierre Anctil, Jacob-Isaac Segal 1869-1954, Un poète yiddish de Montréal et son milieu (Presses de l'Université Laval)
• Children and Youth Literature: Sharon E. McKay, Enemy Territory (Annick Press)

2014

• Holocaust Literature: Ken Setterington, Branded by the Pink Triangle (Second Story Press)
• Fiction: Kenneth Bonert, The Lion Seeker (Knopf Canada)
• Yiddish: Frieda Forman, The Exile Book of Yiddish Women Writers (Exile Editions)
• Jewish Thought and Culture: Josh Lambert, Unclean Lips: Obscenity, Jews, and American Culture (New York University Press)
• Poetry: Anne Michaels, Poetry, and Bernice Eisenstein, Portraits, Correspondences (McClelland and Stewart)
• Scholarship: Albert Kaganovitch, The Long Life and Swift Death of the Jewish Reschitsa (The University of Wisconsin Press)
• Biography/Memoir: Renée Levine Melammed, An Ode to Salonika: The Ladino Verses of Bouena Sarfatty (Indiana University Press)
• Youth: Carol Matas, Dear Canada: Pieces of the Past: The Holocaust Diary of Rose Rabinowitz, Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1948 (Scholastic)
• History: Jeffrey Veidlinger, In the Shadow of the Shtetl (Indiana University Press)

2015 (as the Canadian Jewish Literary Awards)

• Novel: Nora Gold, Fields of Exile (Dundurn Press).
• Scholarship: James A. Diamond, Maimonides and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon (Cambridge University Press).
• Biography/Memoir: Alison Pick, Between Gods: A Memoir (Doubleday Canada).
• History: Joseph Hodes, From India to Israel: Identity, Immigration, and the Struggle for Religious Equality (McGill-Queen’s University Press)
• Youth Literature: Suri Rosen, Playing with Matches (ECW Press)
• Poetry: Robyn Sarah, My Shoes Are Killing Me (Biblioasis).
• Holocaust Literature: Beverley Chalmers, Birth, Sex and Abuse: Women's Voices Under Nazi Rule(Grosvenor House)
• Short Fiction: Mireille Silcoff, Chez l’Arabe (House of Anansi).
• Yiddish: Ruth Panofsky, The Collected Poems of Miriam Waddington: A Critical Edition (University of Ottawa Press).

External links

• Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature
• Canadian Jewish Literary Awards