Announcing the 2026 Shalom Collective Australian Jewish Writer Awards shortlists for books published in 2025. Winners to be announced on 3 August. 

The Leslie and Sophie Caplan Award for Jewish Non-Fiction, in its third year, awards $10,000 for works of significant relevance to the Jewish experience. The 2025 winner was art historian and curator Jana Vytrhlik for Treasures of Old Jewish Sydney. This year, the judges selected a range of books across various genres: Jewish studies, journalism, memoir, and history.

• Katia Ariel, Ferryman: The life and deathwork of Ephraim Finch
• John M. Efron, All Consuming: Germans, Jews, and the Meaning of Meat
• Ittay Flescher, The holy and the broken: A cry for Israeli-Palestinian peace from a land that must be shared
• Lee Kofman & Tamar Paluch (eds), Ruptured: Jewish Women in Australia Reflect on Life Post-October 

The Bobby Adler Award for Young Jewish Writers, awards $5,000 for works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry on Jewish subjects by authors aged 18-40. The 2025 winner was self-taught chef Ellie Bouhadana for Ellie’s Table: Food from Memory and Food from Home. This year’s shortlist includes poetry, fiction and non-fiction:

• Merav Fima, Late Blossoms
• Anna Jacobson, All Rage Blaze Light
• Shaina Rother, The Found Paradise: Retracing the Jewish History of Australia’s Gold Coast

The Edith Hausmann Award for Jewish Playwrights, in its second year, awards $10,000 for full-length unproduced plays of any genre that engages in some capacity with Jewish subjects written by a Jewish Australian writer aged 18-45. The 2025 winner was author, playwright and performer Elise Hearst for Batsheva. This year’s shortlist:

• Ziggy Enoch, Sabotage
• Nomi Kaltmann, Bad Rabbis

The Szymon (Simon) Klitenik Award for Jewish Fiction with a prize of $5,000 for a fiction book (novel or a collection of short stories). The 2025 winner was author Linda Margolin Royal for The Star on the Grave.

The Chaya Fedler Award for Poetry, in its first year, awards $500 for a poem that captures an aspect of the Jewish experience and has a Jewish ‘neshama’ (soul or spirit). This year’s shortlist:

• Gadia Zrihan, Koldre
• Jessica Chapnik Kahn, I NEVER KNEW A SONG COULD BE A KNIFE
• Leah Kaminsky, Sleep School
• Marcelle Freiman, The Copper Pots
• Michael Leibowitz, Travelling to Jerusalem
• Sarah Sassoon, Ashlonak

The winners of all the awards will be announced at the awards ceremony on 3 August. The Awards evening will kick off the Festival of the Spoken Word, presented by Sydney Jewish Writers Festival and wiil include a panel conversation with international authors Ayelet Tsabari and Yishay Ron Ishi. They will be in conversation with Michaela Kalowski.

Thank you to our partner Melbourne Jewish Book Week for bringing them to the awards night. The awards night kicks off Shalom Collective’s Festival of the Spoken Word

“The remarkable response to this year’s awards, with an exceptional number of entries across the categories, is a testament to the vibrancy and diversity of Australian Jewish writing today. We are delighted to welcome the awards back for another year and to celebrate the extraordinary creativity, insight and talent of writers from across the community. These awards are an important opportunity to champion Australian Jewish voices, foster emerging talent, and encourage young writers to continue developing their craft. We hope that recognition through the awards inspires both our entrants and readers alike, while introducing wider audiences to the richness, complexity and breadth of contemporary Australian Jewish literature and research.” Sydney Aaranson, Project Manager of The Australian Jewish Writer Awards

About the Awards

Shalom Collective creates contemporary Jewish experiences to celebrate culture, strengthen identity and build a thriving community. Through these awards, Shalom Collective aims to inspire and support current and future Australian Jewish authors, and to promote their writing to wide audiences. Shalom Collective also runs the Sydney Jewish Writers Festival, and this award has received support from Melbourne Jewish Book Week.

About Shalom Collective

Through innovative programs and strategic partnerships, we provide opportunities for deep, meaningful engagement with Jewish identity and culture, offering individuals experiences to explore and connect with their heritage through a contemporary lens. Our goal is to cultivate inclusive spaces where each individual program participant feels valued, challenged, and inspired, sparking connections that strengthen community ties to share in the experience of Jewish life together.