Natan and Jew­ish Book Coun­cil are thrilled to announce the Win­ter 2026 Natan Notable Book: Out of the Sky: Hero­ism and Rebirth in Nazi Europe by Mat­ti Fried­man (Sig­nal Books, March 26, 2026). With this selec­tion, Mat­ti Fried­man becomes the first author to win this award twice.

Out of the Sky is a deep dive into an episode in his­to­ry that quick­ly became more influ­en­tial than the facts might sug­gest. In 1944, a team of young Jews who had escaped the hor­rors unfold­ing in Europe for the dream of liv­ing in the land of Israel vol­un­tar­i­ly returned as para­chutists as part of a British mil­i­tary oper­a­tion. Though the mis­sion did not seem to accom­plish any mil­i­tary or human­i­tar­i­an vic­to­ries – no Jews were saved due to the efforts of the para­chutists, no Nazis harmed – the sto­ry became leg­endary, par­tic­u­lar­ly the name of one of team mem­bers, Han­nah Senesh, whose name would become syn­ony­mous with hero­ics and brav­ery for gen­er­a­tions. Using thou­sands of orig­i­nal doc­u­ments to pro­file four of the para­chutists, includ­ing Han­nah, and detail­ing the his­tor­i­cal occur­rences of the months lead­ing up to and dur­ing the oper­a­tion, Mat­ti Fried­man begins to untan­gle the threads and bring the true pur­pose of the mis­sion into focus.

In today’s world, shap­ing the nar­ra­tive – whether in a social media post, a news arti­cle, or a geopo­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion – is one of the most pow­er­ful tools avail­able. The last­ing impact of an event is deter­mined by the sto­ry that is told, both at the time and into the future. And it is this under­stand­ing of sto­ry­telling that is at the heart of both that mis­sion and this book. As Fried­man writes, ​“In this sto­ry, Jews will not be vic­tims but heroes. This won’t change the war, but it will change how peo­ple remem­ber the war, and there­fore change the future.” It is this mes­sage that res­onat­ed with the Natan Notable Books selec­tion com­mit­tee. Com­mit­tee mem­ber Daniel Bon­ner reflect­ed on the poignan­cy of these young para­chutists know­ing that they were not like­ly to suc­ceed but jump­ing any­way, and, in doing so, tak­ing hold of their own nar­ra­tives and those of the Jew­ish peo­ple in Europe and in Israel. Their strength was root­ed in their pride in being Jews, and their deter­mi­na­tion to be in con­trol of their own stories.