For reconsidering the relationship between disability and spirituality, Georgetown University professor of Jewish Studies, Rabbi Julia Watts Belser will receive the 2025 Grawemeyer Award for Religion, the University of Louisville and Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary announced Dec. 5.
Not only younger people with apparent disabilities, but also all those who manage to grow old — and everyone who loves a member of either group — will appreciate the ideas Belser set down in her book “Loving Our Own Bones,” which also won a National Jewish Book Award. In it, Belser uses disability theory and her own experience to rethink Biblical texts and rabbinic literature. The result is a rereading of Biblical characters such as Moses, Isaac, and Jacob, leading to an engaging analysis of ableism, and a refreshing political and social view of disability.
“Instead of grounding her work in the standard question of what the Jewish and Christian traditions say about disability, Belser asks how disability experience can serve as a ‘generative force,’ a ‘source of embodied knowledge’ about our spiritual lives,” said Grawemeyer Religion Award Director and Interim Dean of the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary Tyler Mayfield. “’Loving Our Own Bones’ and Rabbi Belser are worthy additions to our revered list of Grawemeyer winners.”
The first Grawemeyer Religion Award went to E.P. Sanders in 1990 for his provocative book “Jesus and Judaism.” Acclaimed author Marilynne Robinson won the 2006 Grawemeyer Religion Award for “Gilead“ – the only time a novel has won. Rabbi Belser also joins the company of distinguished professors Stephen L. Carter (“The Culture of Disbelief”) and Diana Eck (“Encountering God“) in winning the Grawemeyer Religion Award.
Charles Marsh, who won the 1998 Grawemeyer Award in Religion for “God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights,” later described the impact the prize had on his career: “The Grawemeyer Award encouraged me to imagine concrete strategies for integrating the lessons I had learned into the practices of academic teaching and research of a new generation. It inspired me to think creatively of ways I might encourage other scholars to make journeys of their own.”
Rabbi Belser will accept her award at a ceremony in Louisville on April 10.
About the Grawemeyer Awards
Each year the Grawemeyer Awards honor the power of creative ideas to improve our culture via music composition, education, religion, psychology, and world order. Business executive and family man H. Charles Grawemeyer established the awards in 1984 at the University of Louisville in collaboration with Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Academics and community members choose among nominees from around the world to ensure that each winning idea is relevant to society at large. The University of Louisville announces the winners in December and presents the awards at a ceremony the following April. Each award winner receives $100,000, which they may use, if they choose, to develop and accelerate the spread of their powerful ideas. Learn more at grawemeyer.org.
