Congratulations to David Kaufman, whose recent photography book, The Posthumous Landscape: Remnants of Jewish Life in Eastern Europe, has been awarded the 2026 Canadian Jewish Literary Award in the Holocaust category.

The writers of the winning books will be awarded at a gala ceremony at Miles Nadal JCC in Toronto on Sunday, October 25, 2026. Registration is now available for in-person and virtual attendance for the event.

The book is a photographic tribute that highlights the stories behind remnants of Jewish communal life in post-war Poland, western Ukraine, Lithuania, and Latvia.

Praise from the CJLA award jury:

The Posthumous Landscape: Remnants of Jewish Life in Eastern Europe by David Kaufman (Figure 1 Publishing) is more than an act of preserving memory, it is a visual landscape that bears witness to the vitality and creativity of Eastern European Jewry before its destruction. The book is a masterpiece. It is the work of a wonderful photographer working as a visual historian. This book does not dwell on the Holocaust as a primary subject, yet that history is on every page. The haunting photographs and accompanying texts describe a historic community that played a major role in the development of eastern European society and left behind half-destroyed synagogues, community buildings and grand industrial complexes, as well as vast cemeteries, and haunting memorials. The landscapes of death speak silently of the drama that engulfed Poland and surrounding countries during the Shoah. The Posthumous Landscape is a tribute to a community that met a tragic end, and a testament to how we are inextricably bound to the places of our past.

Download the full press release here.