The National Jewish Book Awards selected the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ “Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times” as the most notable Jewish book of 2020.
Sacks, a prolific author and a leader in modern Jewish thought, has won several prizes at the awards program, which the Jewish Book Council has operated since 1950. But this one will likely be his last: The awards committee chose to posthumously honor Sacks, who died in November 2020 at the age of 72.
Other big winners included Laura Arnold Lieberman, who won awards in three categories for the historical study “The Art of the Jewish Family: A History of Women in Early New York in Five Objects” and the Monday Morning Cooking Club, a group of recipe writers in Australia who snagged a food writing award for their cookbook “Now For Something Sweet.” Publishing agent Deborah Harris won the Jewish Book Council’s Carolyn Starman Hessel Mentorship Award.
“Our tradition teaches that if you have saved one life, it’s as if you’ve saved the entire world, so I can’t tell you how meaningful and rewarding it is to be able to facilitate these life-saving appointments for the most vulnerable members of our community,” said the synagogue s Rabbi Jonathan Berkun.
One of the seniors who received their dose was Esther Ross, a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor who was 14 when the German army herded her family into hiding in Lodz, Poland.
“I never knew what it meant to be a teenager,” Ross said.
The pandemic has been a trying time for everyone, especially senior citizens, but those who have already gone through the unimaginable have a different perspective on the meaning of hard times.
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There are no intermissions in the eternal drama of history. All things are in motion, or being set so, churning, for the most part, below the surface. But there are times when it’s clear to even the least perceptive among us that we are in the vortex of historic change. 2020 was epochal and we will be swept in its swirl for the foreseeable future. We knew it and, as every aspect of our reality was rearranged, Times of Israel bloggers wrote oh, did they write generating far more posts than we have published any other year since the site’s founding.
The Abraham Accords marked a historic turning point after decades of Arab and Muslim antisemitism. This year, for the first.
The Emiratis do not bemoan colonialism in their past. They do not wail about anti-Arab discrimination, nor do they blame others or seek scapegoats. For an Israeli, this is so refreshing! Alas, so many Arab countries keep their people in the dark ages, and wallow in negativity. We have gotten used to self-pity and bitterness from many of Israel’s Arab neighbors, along with complaints, false allegations, vituperation, and other attacks against Israel.
The Emiratis see no need to buy into anti-Jewish conspiracy theories like
What Dubai taught me about Israel
That this country is admired when it is strong and believing.
(December 23, 2020 / JNS) In my wildest dreams, I never imagined lighting a menorah in the United Arab Emirates on the eighth day of Hanukkah. Nor had I contemplated saying Kaddish for my father on his 14th
yahrzeit last week in the desert dunes on the periphery of Dubai. (My father would have been amused and excited about both moments, I think.)
And yet, there I was in an Arab country, newly at peace with Israel, on Hanukkah the holiday of Jewish spiritual resistance and military victory. Amazingly, there was no reason to hide my Jewish religious affiliation or my national citizenship as an Israeli. Just the opposite was true. Everyone in Dubai was thrilled to meet a religious Jew and a real Israeli. Emiratis are proud to be associated with us.