Shapiro Award for Best Book in Israel Studies

The Association for Israel Studies annually awards the Shapiro Prize for the best book in Israel Studies published during the last calendar year. This award honors the memory of Yonathan Shapiro (1929-1997), one of Israel’s most distinguished and influential sociologists. The award pays tribute to outstanding scholarship in the field of Israel Studies in all disciplines, including the pre-1948 Jewish community in Palestine. 

The Shapiro Award Committee will consider books in either English or Hebrew by members registered in 2026. It is the author’s responsibility to verify. Eligible books are those published during 2025-2026. Authors can submit the same book only once, either now or next year.

Research monographs (but not a collection of articles/edited volumes), are eligible for the prize. Books translated from Hebrew into English and vice versa that were published prior to 2025 are not eligible. Books first printed in other languages that appeared in 2025 in English or Hebrew are eligible. Nominations can be made by individual scholars or by publishers.

The prize awarded is $3,000.

Deadline for submissions: February 15 2026. 

Books submitted after this date will not be considered. Author’s are responsible that books are delivered to committee members in good time and with no delivery or tax charges.

Please note that some committee members prefer hard copies and others electronic/PDF versions:

Kimmy Caplan, Chair: Hard copies and PDF files to the following address:
Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry
Bar-Ilan University
Ramat-Gan, 5290002, Israel
kimmy.caplan@biu.ac.il

Ofira Gruweis Kovalsky : Please send PDF files to the following email address:
ofiragruweis1@gmail.com

Rami Zeedan: Hard copies to the following address:
Dr. Rami Zeedan
1445 Jayhawk Blvd., 4017e Wescoe
Lawrence, KS 66045, USA

Guy Ziv: PDF files please to the following address:
ziv@american.edu

Marcela Menachem Zoufalá: Please send PDFs to:
marcela.zoufala@gmail.com

Should you have questions or inquiries please contact the Committee Chair Prof. Kimmy Caplan at: kimmy.caplan@biu.ac.il.

PAST WINNERS OF THE SHAPIRO AWARD

2025 (for books published in 2024-2025):

  • Rivka Neriya Ben-Shahar – Strictly Observant: Amish and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Women Negotiating Media (Rutgers University Press, January 2024)
  • Omri Shafer Raviv – The Landlords: The Israeli Government and the Palestinians, 1967-1969 (Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism, 2025 [Hebrew])
  • Honorable mention to Jonathan Gribetz for Reading Herzl in Beirut: The PLO Effort to Know the Enemy (Princeton University Press, July 2024) and Orit Rozin for Emotions of Conflict: Israel 1949-1967 (Oxford University Press, May 2024).

2024 (for books published in 2023):

  • Shay Rabineau – Walking the land: A History of Israeli Hiking Trails. (Indiana University Press, 2023)
  • Viola Alianov-Rautenberg – No Longer Ladies and Gentlemen: Gender and the German-Jewish Migration to Mandatory Palestine. (Stanford University Press, 2023)

2023 (for books published in 2022):

  • Giora Goodman and Tony Shaw – Hollywood and Israel: A History (Columbia University Press)

The book awarded an “Honorable Mention” as short-listed for final consideration:

  • Noa Hazan, Visual Syntax of Race: Arab-Jews in Zionist Visual Culture (University of Michigan Press)

2022 (for books published in 2021): 

  • Gali Druker Bar-Am, I am Your Dust – Representations of the Israeli Experience in Israeli Yiddish Prose 1948-1967 (Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi)

The book awarded an “Honorable Mention” as short-listed for final consideration:

  • Anat Stern, Combatants on Trial: Military Jurisdicition in Israel during the 1948 War (Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi)

2021 (for books published in 2020): 

  • Paula Kabalo, Israeli Communities in Action: Living Through the War of Independence (Indiana University Press, 2020) 

2020 (for books published in 2019): 

  • Sarah Willen, Fighting For Dignity: Migrant Lives at Israel’s Margins (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020)

Awarded an Honorable Mention:

  • Steven Wagner, Statecraft by Stealth: Secret Intelligence and British Rule in Palestine (Cornell University Press, 2019)

2019 (for books published in 2018): 

  • Diego Rotman, The Stage as a Temporary Home – On Dzigan and Shumacher’s Theater, 1927-1980 (Jerusalem, Magnes Press)

Books awarded an Honorable Mention:

  • Charles Freilich, Israeli National Security: A New Strategy for an Era of Change (Oxford University Press, 2018)
  • Dmitry Shumsky, Beyond the Nation-State: The Zionist Political Imagination from Pinsker to Ben-Gurion (Yale University Press, 2018)

2018 (for books published in 2017): 

  • Alona Nitzan-Shiftan, Seizing Jerusalem: The Architectures of Unilateral Unification (University of Minnesota Press)
  • Kimmy Caplan, Amram Blau: The World of Neturei Karta (Yad Ben-Zvi and Ben-Gurion University Press – in Hebrew).

Books awarded an Honorable Mention:

  • Yuval Jobani and Nahshon Perez, Women of the Wall: Navigating Religion in Sacred Sites (Oxford University Press)
  • Nir Kedar, Blue and White Law: Identity and Law in Israel: A Century-Long Polemic (Ben-Gurion University Press – in Hebrew)

2017 (for books published in 2016): 

  • Abigail Jacobson and Moshe Naor, Oriental Neighbors: Middle Eastern Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine (Brandeis University Press)

Books awarded an Honorable Mention:

  • Tamar S. Hess, Self as Nation: Contemporary Hebrew Autobiography (Brandeis University Press)
  • Yoav Mehozay, Between the Rule of Law and States of Emergency: The Fluid Jurisprudence of the Israeli Regime (SUNY Press) 
  • Noa Roei, Ciivil Aesthetics: Militarism, Israeli Art and Visual Culture (Bloomsbury Academic)

2016 (for books published in 2015) Co-winners:

  • Tamir Sorek, Palestinian Commemoration in Israel: Calendars, Monuments and Martyrs (Stanford University Press)
  • Noam Zadoff, From Berlin to Jerusalem and Back: Gershom Scholem between Israel and Germany, Jerusalem (Carmel Publishing House) (in Hebrew)

2015 (for books published in 2014):

  • Liora Halperin, Babel in Zion: Jews, Nationalism, and Language Diversity in Palestine, 1920-1948 (Yale University Press, 2014)

2014 (for books published in 2013):

  • Guy Ben Porat, Between State and Synagogue: The Secularization of Contemporary Israel (Cambridge University Press, 2013)

2013 (for books published in 2012):

  • Irit Keynan, Like a Hidden Wound: War Trauma in Israeli Society (Am Oved, 2012)
  • Yagil Levy, Israel’s Death Hierarchy: Casualty Aversion in a Militarized Democracy (New York University Press, 2012)

2012 (for books published in 2011):

  • Oded Haklai, Palestinian Ethnonationalism in Israel (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011)

2011 (for books published in 2010):

  • Michelle U. Campos, Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2010)

2010 (for books published in 2009) Co-winners:

  • Michael Feige, Settling in the Hearts. Jewish Fundamentalism in the Occupied Territories (Wayne State University Press, 2009)
  • Nir Kedar, Mamlakhtiyut. Hatefisah He’ezrahit shel David Ben-Gurion. (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2009)

2009 (for books published in 2008) Co-winners:

  • Orit Rozin, Duty and Love; Individualism and Collectivism in 1950s Israel (Hebrew: Am Oved, 2008)
  • Menachem Mautner, Law and Culture in Israel at the Threshold of the Twenty First Century (Hebrew: Am Oved, 2008)

2008 (for books published in 2007) Co-winners:

  • Uri Ram, The Globalization of Israel: McWorld in Tel Aviv, Jihad in Jerusalem (Routledge)
  • Anat Helman, Or v’Yam Hekifuha: Urban Culture in 1920s and 1930s Tel Aviv (Haifa University Press, [Hebrew])

2007 (for books published in 2006) Co-Winners:

  • Aviva Halamish,  Be’merutz Kaful Neged Hazeman [A Dual Race Against Time: Zionist Immigration Policy in the 1930s] (Yad Ben Zvi) 
  • Assaf Likhovski, Law and Identity in Mandate Palestine (University of North Carolina Press)

2006 (for books published in 2004-2005, biannual award):

  • Orit Kamir, She’ela shel Kavod: Yisraeli’ut U’khevod Ha’adam [Israeli Honor and Dignity: Social Norms, Gender Politics and the Law]. (Carmel Publishers, 2004)

2004 (for books published in 2002-2003, biannual award) Co-winners:

  • Yehouda Shenhav, Heyehudim Ha’araviim: Leumiut, Dat v’Etniut [The Arab Jews: Nationality, Religion, and Ethnicity]. (Am Oved, 2003)
  • Gad Barzilai, Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities (University of Michigan Press, 2003)