Assistant Professor Simcha Gross Wins Jewish Book Council Award

Simcha Gross

Simcha Gross, Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations in the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, has received the Schol­ar­ship Nahum M. Sar­na Memo­r­i­al Award from the Jewish Book Council for Baby­lon­ian Jews and Sasan­ian Impe­ri­al­ism in Late Antiq­ui­ty.
 
Published by Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Press in April 2024, the book builds on recent scholarship. It “advances a radically different understanding of Babylonian Jewish history and Sasanian rule” and “portrays a more immanent model of Sasanian rule, within and against which Jews invariably positioned and defined themselves.”
 
The National Jewish Book Awards began in 1950, the longest-running and most prestigious awards program of its kind. The aim is to “rec­og­nize authors and encour­age read­ing of outstand­ing Eng­lish-lan­guage books of Jew­ish interest.” Previous notable winners include Philip Roth, Elie Wiesel, and Jonathan Safran Foer. This year, authors were honored in 26 categories ranging from scholarship to visual arts.

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