Winner Announcement: 2026 Shalom Collective Australian Jewish Writer Awards 

Sydney, August 2026 – Winners have been announced for the 2026 Shalom Collective Australian Jewish Writer Awards, recognising the best Australian writing on Jewish subjects published in 2025, with the winners revealed at the Awards Ceremony on 3 August, opening night of the Festival of the Spoken Word, presented by Sydney Jewish Writers Festival.

Now in its third year, the Australian Jewish Writer Awards recognise excellence in contemporary Australian writing on Jewish subjects, promoting the reading of these texts and inspiring current and future authors. Each award category is supported by donors, categories on offer vary from year to year.

 

The Leslie and Sophie Caplan Award for Jewish Non-Fiction

Winner: John M. Efron, All Consuming: Germans, Jews, and the Meaning of Meat, published by 

Stanford University Press

About the award: $10,000 for works of significant relevance to the Jewish experience.

Highly Commended:

• Katia Ariel, Ferryman: The life and deathwork of Ephraim Finch

Shortlist:

• 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 7.

 Previous winners

• 2025: Jana Vytrhlik. Treasures of Old Jewish Sydney
• 2024: Michael Gawenda, My Life as a Jew

 

The Bobby Adler Award for Young Jewish Writers

Winner: Anna Jacobson, All Rage Blaze Light, published by Upswell Publishing

About the Award: $5,000 for works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry on Jewish subjects by authors aged 18-40.

2026 Shortlist

• Merav Fima, Late Blossoms
• Shaina Rother, They Found Paradise: Retracing the Jewish History of Australia’s Gold Coast

 Previous winners (awarded as The Jewish Independent Award for Young Jewish Writers):

• 2025: Ellie Bouhadana, Ellie’s Table: Food from Memory and Food from Home
• 2024: Anna Jacobson, Anxious in a Sweet Store

 

The Edith Hausmann Award for Jewish Playwrights

Winner: Ziggy Enoch, Sabotage

About the award: $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.

2026 Shortlist

• Nomi Kaltmann, Bad Rabbis 

Previous winners

2025: Elise Hearst, Batsheva

The Szymon (Simon) Klitenik Award for Jewish Fiction

Winner: Merav Fima, Late Blossoms published by Vine Leaves Press

About the award: $5,000 for a fiction book (novel or a collection of short stories).

This award is not shortlisted.

Previous winners

2025: Linda Margolin Royal, The Star on the Grave

 

The Chaya Fedler Award for Poetry

Winner: Koldre, Gadia Zrihan

About the award: $500 for a poem that captures an aspect of the Jewish experience and has a Jewish ‘neshama’ (soul or spirit).

Highly commended:

• Jessica Chapnik Kahn, I Never Knew a Song Could Be a Knife  
• Leah Kaminsky, Sleep School 

2026 Shortlist

• Marcelle Freiman, The Copper Pots
• Michael Leibowitz, Travelling to Jerusalem 
• Sarah Sassoon, Ashlonak

“This year’s winners and shortlisted writers deserve recognition, support and visibility. It takes courage to put work out into the world, particularly at a time when it is challenging to tell Jewish stories. But there’s real value in it — seeing our own culture and our own lives reflected in a book or on a stage is deeply moving and strengthens our community. This year’s shortlists capture an exciting snapshot of Jewish writing in Australia — from memoir and history to fiction and poetry, with a growing audience for all of it. Thanks to our donors, we’ve expanded the awards this year and can offer even more Australian Jewish writers the recognition their work deserves.” – Sydney Aaranson, Program Manager of The Australian Jewish Writer Awards