by Barbara Bibel
Good Reading!
The American Library Association has announced the 2026 winners of the Sophie Brody Medal for achievement in Jewish literature. As a member of the committee, I am happy to share with you these books published in 2025 and to let you know that they are now in our shul library.
The winner is Fagin the Thief by Allison Epstein, a retelling of Dickens’s Oliver Twist through a Jewish lens. Epstein humanizes Fagin, but does not redeem him, while exploring questions of identity and survival in the often antisemitic London of the 1800s.
Honorable mentions were awarded to Heart of a Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi’s Story of Faith, Identity, and Belonging by Angela Buchdahl; Hostage by Eli Sharabi; The Many Lives of Anne Frank by Ruth Franklin; and Song of a Blackbird by Maria van Lieshout. These deal with interesting and important issues. Rabbi Buchdahl discusses issues of identity and belonging. Eli Sharabi provides a heart wrenching account of his time as a hostage captured on October seventh. Ruth Franklin shows us how Anne Frank has been used in literature, art, and politics. Maris van Lieshout has created a beautiful graphic novel that recounts the history of a Dutch family during the Holocaust.
All of these will enrich your reading life.
NOTE: The Sophie Brody Medal, administered by the American Library Association, honors outstanding adult literature that explores the Jewish experience. First awarded in 2006, it is funded by the Sophie and Arthur Brody Foundation. Works for adults published in the United States in the preceding year are eligible for the award. The award is named for Sophie Brody (1922-2004), a philanthropist and community volunteer who served as a member of the Executive Board and Board of the Women’s Division of United Jewish Federation.