Shalom Collective Australian Jewish Writer Awards 2026 shortlist

The shortlists for the 2026 Shalom Collective Australian Jewish Writer Awards have been announced.

In 2026, a poetry award is being presented for the first time. The works are:

The Leslie and Sophie Caplan Award for Jewish Nonfiction ($10,000)

• Ferryman: The Life and Deathwork of Ephraim Finch (Katia Ariel, Wild Dingo Press)
• All Consuming: Germans, Jews, and the Meaning of Meat (John M Efron, Stanford University Press)
• The Holy and the Broken: A Cry for Israeli-Palestinian Peace from a Land that Must Be Shared (Ittay Flescher, HarperCollins)
• Ruptured: Jewish Women in Australia Reflect on Life Post-October 7 (edited by Lee Kofman & Tamar Paluch, Black Inc.).

The Bobby Adler Award for Young Jewish Writers ($5,000)

• Late Blossoms (Merav Fima, Vine Leaves Press)
• All Rage Blaze Light (Anna Jacobson, Upswell)
• They Found Paradise: Retracing the Jewish History of Australia’s Gold Coast (Shaina Rother, Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies).

The Edith Hausmann Award for Jewish Playwrights ($10,000)

• Sabotage (Ziggy Enoch)
• Bad Rabbis (Nomi Kaltmann).

The Chaya Fedler Award for Poetry ($500)

• “I Never Knew a Song Could Be a Knife” (Jessica Chapnik Kahn)
• “The Copper Pots” (Marcelle Freiman)
• “Sleep School” (Leah Kaminsky)
• “Travelling to Jerusalem” (Michael Leibowitz)
• “Ashlonak” (Sarah Sassoon)
• “Koldre” (Gadia Zrihan).

The Szymon (Simon) Klitenik Award for Jewish Fiction ($5,000) has not been shortlisted, but the winner will be announced alongside the winners of the shortlisted awards at an event on 3 August as part of the Festival of the Spoken Word, presented by the Sydney Jewish Writers Festival.

Australian Jewish Writer Awards program manager Sydney Aaranson said, “This year’s shortlist reflects the range of contemporary Jewish writing coming out of Australia right now, including memoir, history, fiction, and poetry, and the growing audience for these stories.”

Category: Awards Local news