Michael Gawenda’s My Life as a Jew wins literary prize

Australia's first Jewish book award for non-fiction has been awarded to journalist and author Michael Gawenda for his memoir examining the trajectory of his personal Jewish identity.

My Life as a Jew won the $10,000 Leslie and Sophie Caplan Award for Jewish Non-Fiction at the inaugural Australian Jewish Book Awards, presented at the closing of the Sydney Jewish Writers Festival on Sunday night.  

The judges described My Life as a Jew as "a bold, fearless, unapologetic, deeply personal and
deeply intelligent exploration of Jewishness, of what it is like to be a Jew in today's world of
rampant antisemitism".

Anna Jacobson received the inaugural Young Jewish Writers Award, sponsored by The Jewish Independent, for her second illustrated poetry collection, Anxious in a Sweet Store.

My Life as a Jew was published just three days before the seismic shifts prompted by the October 7 massacre and addresses the growing tensions that have come to the fore during the Israel-Hamas war.

In accepting the award, Gawenda told the SJWF audience that what has happened since its publication has confirmed what he wrote.

“After October 7, I thought my book was kind of prophetic. It couldn’t predict October the 7th, but it did predict what the aftermath of something terrible happening in Israel would mean on the left in Australia and around the world. We were on a road, I felt, where Jews like me, who consider themselves part of the left, would be rejected by the left because I was a lover and supporter of Israel,” he said.

My Life as a Jew explores Gawenda's personal journey, including his growing identification with Zionism after a lifetime as a secular Yiddishist, his personal experience of rejection by Jews on the left because of his support of Israel, and explores the parting between the left and Zionism.

“I’ve had hundreds of messages that Jews in Australia and Jews elsewhere have been on a similar journey to the one I describe in my book. It’s offered people comfort in some ways,” he said.

A former Editor of The Age, Gawenda also discusses the role of the media in the Australian conversation about Israel and the truths and myths of the Jewish lobby in his memoir.

Gawenda told the SJWF audience that the hostility Jews were now feeling required Jews to respond with positive action.

“We are now in a situation where what we have to do is become involved in Jewish life, in Jewish culture, in Judaism, in Jewish music, in Jewish writing. Enrich our lives as Jews. Don’t accept what the people who don’t like us define us as; let us define ourselves by the lives that we live as Jews.”

The other shortlisted authors were: Deborah Conway, Book of Life; Rachelle Unreich, A Brilliant Life; Karen Kirsten, Irena’s Gift; Debbie Haski- Leventhal,Make it Meaningful; Jonathan C Kaplan-Wajselbaum, Jews in Suits.