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The 2012 Jewish National Book Awards

A Tablet favorite Jewish Jocks is among the winners

by
Natalie Schachar
January 15, 2013
Clockwise from top left: Benny Leonard, Renee Richards, Nancy Lieberman, Dolph Schayes, Daniel Mendoza, Bobby Fischer, and Howard Cosell(Collage Tablet Magazine; Benny Leonard and Dolph Schayes illustrations Mark Ulriksen, courtesy of Twelve; Renee Richards photo Wikipedia; Nancy Lieberman photo Tim DeFrisco/Allsport/Getty Images; Daniel Mendoza Wikimedia; Bobby Fischer Wikimedia; Howard Cosell Wikimedia)
Clockwise from top left: Benny Leonard, Renee Richards, Nancy Lieberman, Dolph Schayes, Daniel Mendoza, Bobby Fischer, and Howard Cosell(Collage Tablet Magazine; Benny Leonard and Dolph Schayes illustrations Mark Ulriksen, courtesy of Twelve; Renee Richards photo Wikipedia; Nancy Lieberman photo Tim DeFrisco/Allsport/Getty Images; Daniel Mendoza Wikimedia; Bobby Fischer Wikimedia; Howard Cosell Wikimedia)

Winners of the prestigious 2012 National Jewish Book Awards were released today, and we are pleased to announce that Marc Tracy, editor emeritus of The Scroll and former staff writer of Tablet, co-edited the winning anthology Jewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame with Frank Foer.

The collection includes fifty essays about both athletic and non-athletic Jewish superstars, some of which were written by members of the Tablet staff and its contributors including Liel Leibovitz, Etgar Keret, Joshua Cohen, Deborah Lipstadt, Howard Jacobson, and many others. We dropped Marc a line to get his reaction on this most joyous day, here’s what he had to say:

“I’m flattered and honored to receive the award. Frank and I could not have done it without other people– not in the faux-modest way that people say that, but, literally, 48 of the 50 essays were written by our talented contributors, and so we actually could not have done it without them. Moreover, I personally couldn’t have done it without the support of Tablet and its staff.”



And hey: Youkilis in New York, Trestman in Chicago (maybe), Stern to be succeeded by Silver. As Tony Kushner said: ‘the Great Work continues,’” he added.

Among other great books that were finalists this year was Jonathan Sarna’s When Grant Expelled the Jews, one of our own Nextbook beauties about General Ulysses S. Grant’s decision to expel the Jews from the territory under his command during the Civil War.

Check out our Vox Tablet podcast with Marc from earlier this fall.

Natalie Schachar is an editorial intern at Tablet. A recent graduate of Barnard College, she has written for the Times of Israel, The Atlantic, The Argentina Independent and Lilith Magazine.