Each year BIAJS awards a prize of £1000 for the best monograph submitted, with the focus alternating between books on the ancient to medieval period and early modern to modern period. For the 2026 prize, we invite submissions focused on topics relating to the ancient and medieval periods. The winner will be announced at the annual BIAJS conference in July 2026.
Eligibility Criteria:
- Subject matter: Books in any area of academic Jewish Studies related to the the ancient and medieval periods are eligible for consideration.
- Eligibility: Submissions must have been completed by scholars based at British or Irish universities, or based on work substantially undertaken at UK or Irish universities. All scholars are eligible to submit books regardless of current membership, but if not already BIAJS members they will be expected to join the association for at least one year including during the review process.
- Nominations: Those eligible may submit their books for consideration, or be nominated by a publisher, or be nominated by another member of BIAJS.
- Publication date: Only volumes with a copyright date of 2024 or after are eligible.
- Type of book: Only monographs are accepted, including translations, critical editions, and commentaries of sources. Reference works and edited volumes will not be considered. Monographs by multiple co-authors are acceptable and in the event of winning the prize is usually split equally between the authors.
- Hard copies: Authors/publishers must send physical/hard copies of their books to the prize committee chair. E-books and PDFs only will not be considered.
Submission Instructions:
Please first notify the Secretary Dr Lindsey Davidson acting on behalf of the anonymous prize committee panel (secretarybiajs@gmail.com), of your intention to submit a monograph for the prize, so that we can look out for the hard copies of the monographs in the post.
The submission process can be conducted by the author(s), the publishers, or both.
Your intention to submit message should include the following information:
- Contact details (name and email address)
- Confirmation of eligibility
- Details of the publication, including title, publisher and copyright date
The Secretary will then help authors/publishers arrange for three physical/hard copies of the monograph (do ask your publisher if you don’t have that many hard copies yourself!) to be mailed to the members of the prize committee panel.
The deadline for sending message of your intention to submit is Friday 27 March 2026. All physical volumes must be received in the post latest by the end of May (Friday 29 May) or the submission will become ineligible.
Previous winners of the BIAJS Book Prize
The 2025 winner:
Anna Koch, Home after Fascism: Italian and German Jews after the Holocaust. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2023.
Honourable mention:
Jane Brooks, Jewish refugees and the British nursing profession: A gendered opportunity. Manchester University Press 2024.
The 2024 Winner:
Aaron D. Hornkohl, The Historical Depth of the Tiberian Reading Tradition of Biblical Hebrew (Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures 17. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers). Full details about the book are available here.
Honourable mention:
Sara Parks, Shayna Sheinfled, Meredith J. C. Warren,Jewish and Christian Women in the Ancient Mediterranean. Full details about the book are available here.
The 2023 Winner:
Jan Rybak, for Everyday Zionism in East-Central Europe: Nation-Building in War and Revolution, 1914–1920 (Oxford University Press). Full details about the book are available here.
Honourable mention:
Jaclyn Granick, for International Jewish Humanitarianism in the Age of the Great War (Cambridge University Press). Full details about the book are available here.
Honourable mention:
Emily Michelson, for Catholic Spectacle and Rome’s Jews: Early Modern Conversion and Resistance (Princeton University Press). Full details about the book are available here.
The 2022 Winner:
Nick Posegay (Cambridge), for Points of Contact: The Shared Intellectual History of Vocalisation in Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew (Open Book Publishers, 2021). Full details about the book are available here.
Honourable mention:
Joan Taylor (KCL), for Philo of Alexandria, On the Contemplative Life: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Brill, 2020). Full details about the book are available here.
The 2021 Winners:
- Brendan McGeever (Birkbeck), for Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Full details about the book are available here.
Honourable mentions:
Rebecca Clifford (Swansea University), for Survivors: Children’s Lives After the Holocaust (Yale University Press, 2020). Full details about the book are available here.
Hannah Ewence (University of Chester), for The Alien Jew in the British Imagination, 1881-1905: Space, Mobility and Territoriality (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). Full details about the book are available here.
The 2020 Winners:
- Dr Lindsey Askin (University of Bristol), for Scribal Culture in Ben Sira published with Brill in 2018. Full details about the book are available here.
- Professor Sacha Stern (University College London), for The Jewish Calendar Controversy of 921/2 CE published with Brill in 2019. Full details about the book are available here.
The 2019 Winner:
- Dr Seth Anziska (UCL), Preventing Palestine: A Political History from Camp David to Oslo published by Princeton University Press. Full details about the book are available here.
Yulia Egorova awarding the 2019 BAJS Book Prize to Seth Anziska and a special mention for Shirli Gilbert for “From Things Lost: Forgotten Letters and the Legacy of the Holocaust”