Forty-two Jewish authors have written an open letter to the Jewish Book Council accusing it of "bias toward centering Israeli and Zionist voices" — which is a sophisticated way of saying that a Jewish literary institution is reflecting the views of most Jews.
The JTA story reports that the letter claims the JBC has "narrowed its vision to a Zionist approach to Jewish culture" and that this bias is "not only exclusionary but harmful, contributing to the dehumanization of Palestinians and advancing a system of cultural apartheid." These are strong words.
One might reasonably ask: which specific Zionist books are doing this dehumanizing and promoting cultural apartheid?
The letter doesn't name a single one. Because they do not exist.
This is the heart of the fraud. Since October 7, 2023, a substantial body of literature has emerged bearing witness to the Hamas massacres — Israel's National Library tracked 169 books and related publications on the topic by September 2024 alone, with hundreds more in Hebrew by 2025, and at least 29 English-language titles available as of late 2025. These works document survivor testimonies, hostage accounts, military analysis, poetry, and children's books. They center Israeli and Jewish trauma. I searched for reviews or controversies linking any of these titles to the dehumanization of Palestinians and found nothing, because the accusation has no grounding in actual content. The signatories level a charge of collective moral crime against an entire body of literature they apparently cannot be bothered to indict with a single quotation.
What the accusation does rest on is the assumption that Zionism is, by definition, racism — and therefore any Jewish author who holds Zionist views is, again by definition, dehumanizing Palestinians. The signatories don't argue this openly, because it would reveal them as the bigots they are. They simply assert it, treating "Zionist author" and "dehumanizer of Palestinians" as synonyms requiring no further demonstration. This is prejudice operating under cover of progressive vocabulary.
To them, Israel defending itself is an unspeakable crime and one that must never be portrayed as anything other than naked racism and dehumanization.
Their letter is actually worse. The authors complain that "the JBC has been disproportionately vocal about anti-Semitism while neglecting other issues of cultural concern to Jews." Excuse me? A Jewish literary institution is being accused of paying too much attention to Jew-hatred. At a time of record levels of antisemitism in the West. During the same period we saw a historic global surge in antisemitism following October 7 — harassment of Jewish students, vandalism of synagogues, assaults on visibly Jewish people — these authors' grievance is that the premier Jewish literary organization was too focused on attacks on Jews. One struggles to imagine what level of antisemitism they would consider proportionate enough to warrant the JBC's concern.
Their demand is that the JBC speak for all Jews — except when speaking for Jews means defending Jews.
One searches the letter in vain for which distinctly Jewish cultural concerns are "neglected" by JBC. The JBC covers Jewish cookbooks, Jewish history, Yiddish culture, Jews in America, Jews in politics, the Holocaust — the full range of Jewish civilization. Which suggests that "neglecting other issues of cultural concern to Jews" is simply a euphemism for "not using its platform to actively oppose Israel."
The signatories present themselves as a silenced minority struggling for representation in an institution that has shut them out. There's just one problem: several of them have been honored by the JBC itself. None have been penalized for their extreme, anomalous political positions. Buried in their own letter is the admission that many of them "refrained from submitting our books for consideration" or "declined to engage" with JBC programs. They self-censored and then accused the JBC of marginalizing them. They chose not to participate, and now complain about not being represented.
This is the literary equivalent of not showing up to vote and then claiming the election was rigged against them.
The deeper irony is in what the authors are actually demanding. They want the JBC to explicitly state that "criticism of Israel is not inherently antisemitic," to redesign its antisemitism reporting tool around their preferred definition, and to create programming that centers "non- and anti-Zionist voices." They frame this as a call for diversity. The vast majority of American Jews identify as Zionist to some degree, which means a Jewish literary institution that reflects Zionist perspectives is representing its community. Demanding that it de-center Zionism is a demand that the institution treat the mainstream Jewish worldview as a fringe position requiring correction.
That is the only censorship being discussed here - a naked demand to silence Zionist voices by calling them "dehumanizing" and "cultural apartheid." This is not an argument - it is a demand for compliance, a threat to label mainstream Jewish authors as racists unless they knuckle under to the new McCarthyists.
This is the same playbook used against PEN America, which caved — replacing its leadership and retracting a statement of solidarity with an Israeli comedian whose shows had been canceled — after months of similar pressure. The leading organization supporting freedom of speech was forced to retract support of freedom of speech. The JBC is the next target. The goal is institutional capture: forcing Jewish organizations to adopt, as their official posture, a stance that most of their constituents reject.
When an opponent's mere presence on an award list constitutes a human rights violation, the demand is not for a seat at the table. It is for everyone else to leave.
The Jewish Book Council has silenced no one. These authors are free to publish, submit, speak, and apparently write extensively for Literary Hub about their grievances. What the JBC should say — clearly and without apology — is this: submit your work, and if it meets our standards for literary excellence, we will promote it. We are a literary institution, not a political one, and we have no intention of becoming one. Instead, the JBC's CEO described the letter as representing a "difference in expectations" — a response so conciliatory it practically invites the next round of pressure. PEN America was also diplomatic, right up until it replaced its leadership and retracted statements defending free expression. Diplomatic accommodation is not a defense against institutional capture. It is the first step toward it.
These hypocrites shouldn't be coddled. They should — they must — be called out for what they are. The JBC has a rare opportunity to make a strong statement about real freedom of speech and to expose how these anti-Zionist authors are trying to subvert it. This is the time to stand up for real principles and not to knuckle under to pressure from those who want to silence their political opponents by any means necessary.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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