Four awards with total cash prizes of $700 for the best 1957 works of Jewish interest in the fiction, poetry and juvenile fields, were made today at the annual meeting of the Jewish Book Council of the National Jewish Welfare Board.
The $250 Harry and Ethel Daroff Memorial Fiction Award went to Bernard Malamud, for his novel. “The Assistant.” The award, presented by Samuel H. Daroff of Philadelphia, was for the best work of fiction of Jewish interest in 1957.
The Harry Kovner Memorial Awards of $100 each went to I. J. Schwartz, for cumulative contributions to Yiddish poetry, and to Aaron Zeitlin for his volume of Hebrew “Bein Ha-Esh Veha-Yesha,” published in Tel Aviv. The Kovner awards, given to writers of poetry dealing with Jewish life and thought in Hebrew and Yiddish, were made by Bernard and Milton Kovner.
The $250 Pioneer Women’s Hayim Greenberg Memorial Juvenile Award for the best Jewish juvenile in English during 1957 was given to Naomi Ben-Asher and Hayim Leaf for their “Junior Jewish Encyclopedia.” The presentation was made by Mrs. Chaya Surchin.
Rabbi A. Alan Steinbach, spiritual leader of Temple Ahavoth Shalom of Brooklyn and president of the New York Board of Rabbis, was elected president, succeeding Rabbi Ely E. Pilchik of Newark.
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