JUDGE

Joan Leegant is the author of two collections of short stories and a novel. Her most recent collection, Displaced Persons, was a finalist for the 2025 National Jewish Book Award and the Association of Jewish Libraries Fiction Award. Two of the stories in the book were Moment Magazine Karma Prize winners. For five years, Joan taught in the creative writing masters program at Bar Ilan University outside Tel Aviv while also lecturing on American literature and culture under the auspices of the US State Department and serving as a volunteer ESL teacher for African refugee and asylum seekers. Formerly a lawyer, Joan has taught at Harvard, Oklahoma State and elsewhere. She lived in Jerusalem for several years before she began writing fiction. 

WATCH Joan’s conversation with Moment Editor Sarah Breger. “Writing Between Two Homelands: Fiction at the Crossroads of Israel and America” with Maya Arad—in celebration of the Moment-Karma Fiction Contest.

FIRST PLACE

Miryam Sivan is a former New Yorker who has lived in Israel for over thirty years. She teaches literature and writing at the University of Haifa. Her collection of short stories, SNAFU & Other Stories, was published in 2014, and her novel, Make it Concrete, in 2019. Make it Concrete was a Finalist in the First Novel category of the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. An early unpublished novel, The Heights, was nominated for the Pushcart Press’s Editor’s Book Award. Her stories have appeared in numerous journals in the US and UK. Her most recent novel, Love Match, is a Romeo and Juliet story linking medieval Andalucia and contemporary Haifa, a love story that plays itself out over the centuries, hoping against the odds for a happy ending.

WATCH Miryam’s interview

SECOND PLACE

Harris Kauffman is a writer and producer whose work spans film and literature. He is the founder and editor of DEVOUR, a digital journal of cinematic speculative fiction. In film, he serves as Head of Development at Storyboard Entertainment and is a Sundance Institute Creative Producing Fellow and Film Independent Fast Track Fellow. Raised in California’s San Joaquin Valley, he studied English and Creative Writing at UC Berkeley. He is currently at work on his first novel and a collection of short stories.

WATCH Harris’ interview

Don’t miss this exciting collection of Jewish-themed short stories selected from among the winners of the Moment Magazine-Karma Foundation Short Fiction Contest, featuring award-winning writers Jason K. Friedman, Miriam Karmel, Racelle Rosett, Leah Lax, Steven Volynets and Lauren Watel. An exclusive Moment e-book! (MomentBooks)

Visit the Moment Shop to download your complimentary copy of Good Karma using the coupon code “karma” during check-out.