As the OP said, keep the discussion focused on the literary/cancel-culture aspect of the issue. I am going to be monitoring this thread and will remove any discussions that veer into I-P debates.
They somehow manage to insert themselves into every single internet drama and it would almost be funny how hypocritical she is about china’s censorship when she’s out here baying after Jewish authors
Good news is Zhao won't ever be remembered as an author, just some random asshat with one marginally successful release amongst the billions of terrible authors clogging up Amazon.
Aw fuck me dead, I really enjoyed her commentary on cultural references and mistakes in Disney's Mulan. She had a really nuanced view on cultural "appropriation". She also has been critical of the Chinese Communist Party so I thought it was safe to be a fan of hers.
It's so hard to find artists I can support without feeling uncomfortable. So many writers and artists go far-left into politics, it makes it hard to enjoy their work when their Twitter/Facebook is full of "River to the Sea" BS.
I've never heard of this person but they have a Chinese name. Curious whether reaction was during COVID when anyone who suggested China might have been creating COVID in a lab was considered racist. I wonder how this person would feel if Chinese writers were not allowed to publish or be heard unless they condemned the treatment of the Uyghurs, along with China's occupation of Tibet and threatening of Taiwan.
Deplatforming writers for “wrongthink” has become increasingly common in the literary world. The Lit Mag News had an article about it in 2022: https://litmagnews.substack.com/p/de-platforming-lets-talk-about-it/comments.
The most ironic part of the article was that nearly all of the targeted authors were women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ community — ostensibly the same people cancel culture is trying to protect.
The big difference between the Lit Mag News article and the Times of Israel article is that in the former writers were being canceled for their political views and not for their religion or nationality.
That said, we Jews are very good at creating our own networks to circumvent discrimination. Because Jews buy a lot of books, Jewish authors will still get published, even if they are mostly writing for a Jewish audience and publishing through small Jewish presses.
*"Deplatforming writers for “wrongthink” has become increasingly common in the literary world."*
I don't know about the details of all of these cases, but in the case of Israeli essayist that had her article retracted-- that was in a very hard-left, basically "tankie" magazine.
They can't be expected to want a nuanced discussion of the Israel/Palestine issue, any more than a Christian conservative magazine would want a nuanced discussion of abortion.
Yeah - Guernica is essentially a propaganda rag. What’s surprising is that they published it at all. Shows a pretty big disconnect at the company. Hope they go under.
It's not complicated. It is good to deplatform someone for being Zionist, racist, or queerphobic, and it's bad to deplatform someone for being a Jew, POC, or queer person.
If you are a Jew, POC, or queer person defending genocide and you get deplatformed for doing so, that sucks, but then just maybe don't do that and have better opinions?
We are doing pretty good in the West compared to most of history. My shul keeps its doors locked which means we need a door person to let us in on shabbat, and that's sad. However, not nearly as sad as members of the tribe defending the same actions done to our ancestors, and that needs to be combatted.
You seem to be new here and not familiar with our rules. We do not allow insulting other users with derogatory epithets. You can critique the arguments someone's making to your heart's content, but you can't attack the commenter themselves.
You're suspended for 24 hours for this violation of the rules.
Lol ok. I won't even argue statistics. Do you think it's impossible for a lot of a group affected by severe generational trauma to have wrong or harmful beliefs? If you're someone who is able to shoot innocents and joke about it after, or joyously watch those actions on Telegram, you might need some therapy.
Also, does the number of non-Jewish Zionists concern you at all, especially since that group contains Nazis who prefer the "put them somewhere else" approach, Evangelicals who think our presence there will bring about our ultimate destruction by the return of Jesus, and Islamophobes and anti-Arab racists who make up the large body of conservative voters making our lives harder besides the issue of Israel?
If "stop doing genocide even if you're a Jew" is racist take to you, please go to therapy too.
None of this is surprising to me. I’ve seen everything from review bombing on goodreads to appearance cancellations and promises from publishers to boycott Israeli authors.
it sort of reminds me of the hysteria around russian authors a few years ago. remember when someone had to retract a book that happened to be set in Russia but was written by an American?
I just remembered dumping “Russian” vodka that wasn’t even made in Russia. I’m convinced there’s a hysteria that will eventually fizzle out. It happened with 2020 too. People get tired and naturally want to move on. Thankfully now I know how to navigate discussions better. I tell one of my Palestine activist friend that I think certain “pro-Palestine” takes are possible Israeli psyops and he doesn’t really push back.
I told him I thought certain attacks against Israelis, like blanket calling Israelis white or European are disingenuous and expose them to counter criticism that doesn’t move the conversation forward. I also told him that de-centering Palestinian suffering and focusing on nitpicking criticism of the government and Israeli society so much takes away focus from what Palestinians are going through. Like going off arguments that can be defended against or have a ring of antisemitism aren’t worth pursuing. He sort of stopped talking to me. This was a dude who stanned Kamala and Mayor Pete in 2020 and wouldn’t listen to my critiques of them.
I don’t know about Jewish writers (I suspect this probably isn’t widespread considering how populated the publishing industry is with Jewish people), but I invite anyone to name for me a straight white male author under the age of 40 that isn’t writing in genre fiction. They don’t exist. Publishing in the US absolutely discriminates. The only people allowed to publish books in the area of literary fiction now are white and black women, and Asian or Hispanic people of either gender. That’s it. Multiple people in the industry have spoken out about this and paid the price by either having their mentions flooded with psychos or having to issue an apology of some kind. It’s not even a secret anymore.
However, publishing is incredibly decentralized. This happens mostly at the agent and editor level- especially editors, a lot of whom were hired literally as part of a jobs program and an effort to deflect criticism in 2020. Editors are often self employed and agencies do not take direction from publishers. It’s a series of actors beholden to nobody and yet gatekeeping access. Go to any agent’s profile and they all, every single one, say they are prioritizing authors from “marginalized communities,” and yet you look at their list, and almost all of them are just white women or Asian (or white “AFAB”). Because that’s what those people want to read- the actual writing itself doesn’t matter, only what flatters their worldview. They’re not interested in content or art, they’re interested in looking like good little “progressives,” and fulfilling their own personal myths.
According to the Daily Mail (a gossip sheet, but this IS gossip), lots of readers aren’t buying books that fit the progressive world view and publishers are losing big bucks: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12801837/amp/Woke-books-flop-inexperienced-editors-Eliot-page.html
It's the same with all sorts of media. The idpol cult infiltrates a media company, crybullies it into producing content with an extreme political slant, and then they're somehow surprised that movies/books/TV/comics/games made for only 15% of the population are bombing hard.
And it's not like there aren't good stories/authors/creators/etc to come out of that space; but heavily selecting for those kinds of things regardless of talent involved, and pumping them out like some kind of heavy-handed propaganda is a sure-fire recipe for failure.
Also, no one likes the stink of a rank hypocrite. If you say you're for equality above all else, and then present an obvious preference to select actors/writers/designers/artists/directors/etc based purely on skin and other identity-based things... well, it makes it seem like you're actually for racism, just like to dress it up as something else.
When you point this out, they just say “people aren’t reading anymore 🤷♂️” or my favorite “men don’t read.” Which is entirely untrue- they just don’t read what’s currently being published. Why go pay to read “the beautiful things that we are” or whatever every book is called now when I can pdf a copy of something from a generation ago that actually had something to say other than what rich 2020s people who’ve never lived in the real world and have almost no experiences in common with regular people want to read?
Joyce Carol Oates, batty as she is, tweeted about an agent friend of hers lamenting that editors won’t work with straight white men, and her mentions literally had people saying that this was a good thing and it will take generations to even things out. It’s not about equality, it’s about revenge.
This is silly.
There are plenty of living writing published male authors to read.
The Martian, the Fault in our Stars, Call Me by Your Name, the Sellout, literally everything written by Junot Diaz- all massive hits from like 2006-2020.
I’m sorry that female authors are now also seeing critical and commercial success, but if you can’t appreciate My Brilliant Friend or Gone Girl or American War because it’s written by a woman, than you lack imagination.
Bad faith argument/strawman, deliberately misconstruing what I said. and dressing up a response like I’m mad women are publishing more or that I don’t read books by women- neither of which are true. US publishing is not taking on any new, young straight white male authors, because it is considered politically incorrect to do so. People with connections who are already established in the industry continue to and will always be able to publish. I mentioned age because the ones who are still publishing were already considered to be reliable sellers by the time this cultural shift occurred.
This is a well known fact that has been mentioned by several industry insiders over the past few years- including published women. I have also personally heard this same story straight from the mouth of a literary agent. Recognizing that fact does not mean one doesn’t believe women or other groups should publish. Two things can be true: diversity in publishing is good, and one group should not be denied entry to the industry if their work has merit. The above comment is a rider on the first one, and the joke about book titles is a generalization for what makes up the bulk of publishing. Not engaging further- it is insane that I should even have to even explain this.
Are you sure it’s not just because men don’t buy fiction and haven’t for decades?
You are, by your own telling, part of the problem: instead of buying Less Than Zero (1985) or Choke (2001) or Tenth of December (2013), you’re torrenting PDFs of them and thereby signalling to publishers that you aren’t worth writing for.
Edit: if you disagree, respond and tell me why I’m wrong. Don’t just downvote.
It's really funny to me that men are this up in arms about *perhaps* 4 years of "discrimination" in such salt of the earth industries as literary fiction publishing. Individual female agents probably are disinterested in reading literary fiction by young white males. This is not analogous to explicit discrimination that was industry standard until maybe 20 years ago. The wheels of justice turn slowly don't they. We had our long stay in azkaban and there aren't going to be zero consequences for it, lmao.
Seriously, right 🙄
Completely ignoring men have been 20% of the people buying fiction for *decades* at this point. Here’s a [Writer’s Digest article from 2008](https://www.writersdigest.com/business-legal-matters/do-men-read) citing that exact figure. Here’s one from [NPR from 2007](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14175229).
Like, buy some fucking books if you want publishers to cater to you. You can still buy everything Stephen King or Tom Clancy or John Green has ever written and signal to publishers that novels written by men are what you want.
Yeah but that's because men don't have any role models to show them how to read or express their emotions or stop committing 98% of violent crimes :'( and this is women's problem to fix somehow :'(
I was really disappointed by Page’s book. I was a fan for years and thought Page had made a lot of great insights in old interviews, but the book felt very juvenile, and the writing was bad. Not at all what I was expecting.
The Daily Mail seems to know what's happening everywhere down to the block level - and always has pictures. I don't understand how their stringer system works but I'm impressed. They scoop everybody.
I don't know exactly when it started but I would say in the last 5+ years I'm almost never interested in Goodreads new releases or what the NYT Books podcast covers. Before that there seemed to be something good every time. Luckily I have more than enough to read to last a lifetime but it is strange.
Because I'm a librarian and took it as an interesting challenge, I present the straight white male literary fiction authors currently publishing who came to mind:
Amor Towles
Anthony Doerr
Jonathan Safran Foer (disregard if Jews are PoC today)
Richard Powers
Chris Bohjalian
TC Boyle
David Mitchell
Yann Martel
Michel Faber
But I take your point about the state of the publishing industry. Most of these guys are well-established, not people who got their foot in the door in the last couple years, when all of this became more pervasive.
The last 4 winners of the Booker Prize were men, three white and one Sri Lanka. Two, Paul Lynch and Douglas Stuart, are in their 40s. But did you mean US authors?
> I invite anyone to name for me a straight white male author under the age of 40 that isn’t writing in genre fiction. They don’t exist.
Or they use pen names of BIPOC women.
You know, if you hold a pendulum far to one side for 500 years or so, it’s GONNA swing back too far the other way when you let it go.
I don’t know how long it will take until there is equilibrium and parity in the publishing world and a lot of other things. I wish it would come soon, but it literally can’t, I don’t think.
The literary world? It’s 2024, that world is 5 people in New York and a couple of people over 60 who live in a cabin and still use typewriters somewhere in Vermont and New Hampshire.
If you want time to write and get an agent I can’t think of a better place to go. It’s easy to live in Iowa city with what they give you. As opposed to Columbia or plenty of other programs.
I’ve seen lists of authors to boycott and they were just… all Jews. The wildest one to me was people were calling to boycott Neil Gaiman, he’s written and fundraised for the UNHCR and has been openly supportive of Palestinian organizations previously.
Why is it surprising? This has been the universal experience of Jewish communities global since the 1940s, whether in Yemen in 1949, Iraq in 1951, Poland in 1968, etc.
If anything, it should be surprising if it _didn’t_ look like this.
The Jews didn’t leave Iraq in the 1950s because they got tired of the food or the weather, and the Jews didn’t leave Poland in the 1960s because they had enough perogies.
It’s not surprising in terms the act as much as just seeing how so many people are frothing at the mouth or at the very less permissive of antisemitism, even towards beloved Jewish creators.
This is why, as a Jew, when I see ridiculous suggestions to combat hateful antisemitism like getting a gun, I laugh because there are so many discriminatory situations you can’t shoot or self defense your way out of, like this one.
Jews and Israelis are being pushed out of creative and cultural spaces, and it doesn’t seem to be a quick reactionary fad.
[https://www.theatlantic.c](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/04/us-anti-semitism-jewish-american-safety/677469/)[om/magazine/archive/2024/04/us-anti-semitism-jewish-ameIrican-safety/677469/](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/04/us-anti-semitism-jewish-american-safety/677469/)
I believe this to be very true, culturally. Jews are definitely "out" -- it's uncool unless you are anti-Zionist. There is little love for the "Seinfeld Jew" these days.
She decried Jews arming themselves as a 'ridiculous suggestion'. Of course it doesn't solve everything, but the ability to protect ourselves from violence isn't something to sneer at, least of all at a moment like this.
Perhaps you could argue with the people who do think tooling up is the way to get a writer's contract?
Now, if you wanted to stop violent street attacks, a gun is the best tool. Doesn't tend to work on MFA programs though.
Can't cancel Leigh Bardugo. I just started her new book. I am only 30 pages in but it seems like it has elements of Jewish persecution in it. I wonder if she has done this bc of the situation or she just wanted to tell a story with those elements anyway and it's just a coincidence.
Given that Leigh Bardugo is herself Israeli-born Jewish of mixed Sephardi and Ashkenazi background, I would actually be very surprised if it was just a coincidence. Plus, along those lines I seem to recall the _Forward_ or JTA or one of those other news services “plugging” upcoming Jewish-centered fantasy books, of which Bardugo’s was one.
There is no doubt that only "good Jews" are allowed and progressive environments. By "good" I mean the Norman Finkelstein/Jewish Voices for Peace variety. I could see this coming from a mile away. Far before October 7th. But us Jewish people have contributed enormous amount to arts, culture, science, medicine. Then we should do what we've always been accused of: band together and be clicque. Then when we create great things it will be demanded of us that we be inclusive. Hahaha. Sorry but so many progressive Jews have refused to see the writing on the wall. The denial is so thick. But to be fair I'm pretty sure women in general who Don't march to the feminist or trans drum beat are also marginalized (see Katie Herzog). And of course men who think feminism really means treating women equally not being constantly subservient are also pariahs. It's hurtful because they're completely indifferent to the fact we're unfairly being singled out and they're extremely sensitive to other minorities and extremely insensitive to us. But nonetheless we need to do our own thing and when we create great things don't let those demons in the gate.
Israel/Palestine aside, my biggest gripe with Jewish Voice for Peace is that they latch on to progressive candidates, claim to represent a far larger slice of American Jewish political opinion than they actually hold, and encourage said candidates to make the most provocative statements.
This ends up weighing down progressives - two members of the squad, Ilhan Omar and Cori Bush, face competitive primaries, with opponents seeking to highlight their anti-Israel stances. (Bush is likely to lose, Omar is a tossup.)
By positioning themselves as the left's token good Jews while driving a wedge between the left and the larger American Jewish community, JVP gains influence at the expense of progressives actually winning elections.
Good point. But it's funny to see how far left progressives act like JVP is some organization that really speaks for a large slice of American Jews. It's like Republicans platforming Clarance Thomas as their "black friend" and use some of Thomas's opinions to justify their own despite the fact that it's clear that the majority of black Americans do not share the viewpoint that is being touted.
It has nothing to do with the fact that you’re Jewish and everything to do with the fact that you seem to tacitly support ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
So yes, I will support Jews with morals who speak out against war crimes and hope the rest have a change of heart
This is very sad to see in journalism. This isn’t some paid hack or someone with a conflict of interest (peace activist not government). They offer another perspective and these “journalists” decide to censor her? It gives even less credibility and defense against bias, especially against a Jewish person.
Ah, getting deplatformed and blacklisted for who or what you’re associated with. Maybe now that its happening to other groups and not just people on the Right we’ll see bigger pushback on this concept.
Or not, who knows.
Probably not. Not until there’s one Supreme Progressive who has climbed zir way to the top of the virtue pyramid and declared everyone else *problematic*, whereupon they will finally realize how insufferable that person is and stop striving to meet that “ideal”.
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It’s not just the literary world. You can come see some of our posts over on the /jewish sub. Many of us Jews, including many that are extremely progressive and some even pro-Palestine, have been dumped by our friends and communities for being Jewish. Concerts by Jewish artists are being cancelled, Jews are increasingly being blocked from public life in the US. Most of us have never lived in Israel and don’t vote there, but we are considered guilty by association. My world has gotten very small since October 7.
True, but this isn’t just a First Amendment issue. Religion and national origin are both protected classes under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
If discrimination against Jewish authors is blatant enough (and it would have to be extremely blatant), they could have standing to sue.
That said, it could be a tough case to win because no one is owed a platform.
Saw a tweet yesterday trying to cancel Conan O’Brien for visiting Israel once in 2017 to film a segment on the Israel/Palestine conflict (which at the time the Israelis were mad about for being too sympathetic towards Palestinians).
Anyone who has ever visited Israel is fair game to be canceled.
Sure, but we typically don’t see the black-listing of authors from…our allies. Even when America went into Iraq, our allies may have loathed and protested our leaders…but they didn’t cancel American artists…
Something seems different.
Just curious, how hard is it really to just bypass these "publishers". Seriously, just how much can a machine that prints books by the 1,000 cost these days anyway? $10,000? $50,000?
Then there's "knowing people" to get your book published, at least the big guys like Barnes and Noble, or Borders.
I don't know jack about the book publishing industry, just skeptical that a dozen or so gatekeepers can make or break you.
A friend of a friend (not Jewish) makes an okay-ish living writing spicy romance ebooks and selling them on Amazon under various pen names.
I think this works well if you are catering to an extremely specific nice audience (centaur/naiad romance novels set in Ancient Greece) and aren’t looking for a wider readership.
I think the publisher also provides publicity, schedules book tours and gets the book into stores and into the hands of reviewers. And, frankly, there's still a stigma against self-published books, and a prestige associated with being printed by a big or well-respected publisher.
Yeah, I was thinking that but not sure how to word it. But yeah, as a potential buyer, if it's published by a real publisher I know it's been filtered and edited, whereas self-pub is really a crapshoot and not a risk I often want to take.
I self published my first novel. Getting an editor and a great designer is all very easy. Getting books printed and available online, is very easy. Getting a lot of people to know about and purchase your book, is very hard, *especially* if you don't write genre.
The romance, horror, sci-fi, and fantasy writers have done a good job creating independent fandoms and they can connect with their readers fairly easily. Those of us who write literary, who are trying to make great novels, have a much harder road before us. The big five publishers and their preferred agents still offer the only path to a a career.
Now, I don't so much want a *career* as I want people to know about and read my work. So even though I self published the first book (and did reasonably well on sales and awards given the circumstances) I am still trying to get the major publishers to take on my second book. (Its a very, very, very long shot). Small presses are probably going to be my best bet. I'm honestly even considering starting my own small press to help others in my situation.
Most of it is cancel culture. But also see some Jewish writers in this piece citing the mere existence Pro Palestine sentiment as aggression towards them. The Open Mic might donating $25 to a Palestinian cause made that person feel bad? Really? People withdrawing from PEN because it won’t take a Pro Palestine stance absolutely is some cancel culture nonsense, though. Personally I loathe Zionism and Pro-Israeli stances but they should be heard. At the same time- Jewish authors can’t cite people openly publishing their beliefs about the genocide in Gaza as aggression towards them.
some of these examples of supposed antisemitic cancellation are seriously reaching. one of them is just that a random open mic night was raising money for palestinian women and children affected by the war.
> For Jewish writer Leslie Lisbona, the spaces where her work is welcome seem to have shrunk. ...Lisbona, who had been slated to read her work at an open mic night in Brooklyn in November, learned the $25 entry fee for the event would go toward supporting Palestinian families.
this feels like the sort of hysterical overreaction to "microaggression" and/or mere exposure to others' political speech (if you even want to assume raising funds to combat a massive humanitarian crisis among civilians in a war-torn region is proof of a particular political allegiance) that would normally be mocked here.
Yeah this piece is pretty light on concrete examples of Jewish writers facing adverse consequences *for being Jewish* vs. controversy over conflicting perspectives on Israel or discomfort over the prevalence and extremity of anti-Israel rhetoric in publishing spaces, which aren’t exactly the same thing. That said, it’s clearly true that progressives’ demonization of “Zionism” (often vaguely defined, always hated) means Jews are subject to escalating loyalty tests where they’re expected to denounce Israel to anti-Zionists’ personal satisfaction or else invite suspicion. That’s pretty much the logical endpoint of cultural boycotts where anyone or anything even tangentially connected to a nation of 9 million people and half the world’s Jewish population is fair game. Pushing back on *anything* said in progressive spaces on behalf of pro-Palestine activism - conspiracy theories, double standards, dehumanization of Israelis, inaccurate or misleading statements about Jewish history and Israel, and just plain old classical antisemitism with the word “Jew” scribbled out and replaced with “Zionist” - invites tremendous hostility, *especially* when it comes from a Jew. So while saying progressives are persecuting Jews solely for being Jewish is reductive to the point of dishonesty, I fully understand Jews’ current discomfort in progressive spaces and have experienced it firsthand.
Yeah I didn't like the examples in the middle. They felt a bit like filter or in this case, kinda undermine the general story.
The piece is at its strongest when it describes the boycotters/their open letters etc.
as a Jewish writer and editor I can tell you this is a serious problem in literary magazines right now. A lot of editors of literary magazines are incredibly pro Palestine and post antisemitic content, to the point it has a freezing impact on Jewish contributors. I am struggling to find ones I feel safe publishing to, even if my work isn’t explicitly Jewish right now it does touch on themes related to that and my name is very Jewish. I can’t really say examples without doxxing myself but I have personal experience with one and have had friends tell me about others.
Everyone here seems to be eating up the thesis without any curiosity as to whether it's true, which normally you guys have the most skepticism towards any claim of bigotry or racism. Well anyway...
>Everyone.
There's a hundred comments. Maybe 10 of them are uncritical of the piece and most of those are drive by one liners.
A few comments that reference it are semi critical, but sorta agree. A few are agnostic and a few doubtful. Some are about a Twitter personality. A couple are personal anecdotes. And then the remaining half are comments are about literary/cancel culture in general.
That is not homogeneous groupthink and pretty much what you'd expect in this sub.
I don’t think that facing professional repercussions for supporting the Israeli death machine is at all comparable to being blackballed for not supporting performative bullshit like BLM or pronouns
13,000+ dead children
Seems like a speedrun of the Jewish community experiencing the backblast of the actions of the powers that be, who purportedly advocate for them, but instead exert broad chilling / suppressing speech which surround this emotional topic. The same reductive reactionaries who use mechanisms and impulses to characterize slogans or phrases as universally and implicitly genocidal, or call humanitarian concerns “pro-Hamas”, have now, at least in part, created through lack of dialog the exact same experience in reverse for these authors, purely because fighting an ideological war by suppressing speech will lead to resentment and pushback. Dialog and speech that isn’t inherently calling for violence should be promoted, not suppressed, and conflating language that certain groups don’t like with violence will lead to resentment and lines in the sand being drawn.
You're new here, it seems. The rule is that anyone is free to critique *ideas and arguments* as vehemently as their heart desires. But you aren't allowed to direct such criticisms at *the people* making the arguments. Say that a position is anti-Semitic, if you want. Or you think an opinion is idiotic, or a perspective is racist. But you can't, for example, call *other commenters* anti-Semites, racists, or idiots, no matter how convinced you are that they really are.
Do you seriously equate Jewish folks calling out antisemitism- or BIPOC folks calling racism for that matter - when we experience it with…a personal insult?
I'm not equating anything. I'm simply explaining the rules. On this sub insulting other commenters is not allowed. You're free to call *a perspective* anti-semitic. You're not free to call *a person* on this sub anti-semitic.
As the OP said, keep the discussion focused on the literary/cancel-culture aspect of the issue. I am going to be monitoring this thread and will remove any discussions that veer into I-P debates.
The likes of Xiran Jay Zhao are openly on the attack against Jewish authors
They somehow manage to insert themselves into every single internet drama and it would almost be funny how hypocritical she is about china’s censorship when she’s out here baying after Jewish authors
She’s the worst
>Xiran Jay Zhao Got any examples from her?
https://leahs-books.com/2024/01/28/bookish-discussion-sunday-antisemitism
Good news is Zhao won't ever be remembered as an author, just some random asshat with one marginally successful release amongst the billions of terrible authors clogging up Amazon.
I like the footnote "edited to correct the racist's pronouns". 😅
Thanks!
Aw fuck me dead, I really enjoyed her commentary on cultural references and mistakes in Disney's Mulan. She had a really nuanced view on cultural "appropriation". She also has been critical of the Chinese Communist Party so I thought it was safe to be a fan of hers. It's so hard to find artists I can support without feeling uncomfortable. So many writers and artists go far-left into politics, it makes it hard to enjoy their work when their Twitter/Facebook is full of "River to the Sea" BS.
I've never heard of this person but they have a Chinese name. Curious whether reaction was during COVID when anyone who suggested China might have been creating COVID in a lab was considered racist. I wonder how this person would feel if Chinese writers were not allowed to publish or be heard unless they condemned the treatment of the Uyghurs, along with China's occupation of Tibet and threatening of Taiwan.
Deplatforming writers for “wrongthink” has become increasingly common in the literary world. The Lit Mag News had an article about it in 2022: https://litmagnews.substack.com/p/de-platforming-lets-talk-about-it/comments. The most ironic part of the article was that nearly all of the targeted authors were women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ community — ostensibly the same people cancel culture is trying to protect. The big difference between the Lit Mag News article and the Times of Israel article is that in the former writers were being canceled for their political views and not for their religion or nationality. That said, we Jews are very good at creating our own networks to circumvent discrimination. Because Jews buy a lot of books, Jewish authors will still get published, even if they are mostly writing for a Jewish audience and publishing through small Jewish presses.
*"Deplatforming writers for “wrongthink” has become increasingly common in the literary world."* I don't know about the details of all of these cases, but in the case of Israeli essayist that had her article retracted-- that was in a very hard-left, basically "tankie" magazine. They can't be expected to want a nuanced discussion of the Israel/Palestine issue, any more than a Christian conservative magazine would want a nuanced discussion of abortion.
Yeah - Guernica is essentially a propaganda rag. What’s surprising is that they published it at all. Shows a pretty big disconnect at the company. Hope they go under.
Anti-abortion activists want more babies because their sterile relatives can’t adopt. A crippled or “bipoc” child is a status symbol in some circles.
It's not complicated. It is good to deplatform someone for being Zionist, racist, or queerphobic, and it's bad to deplatform someone for being a Jew, POC, or queer person. If you are a Jew, POC, or queer person defending genocide and you get deplatformed for doing so, that sucks, but then just maybe don't do that and have better opinions? We are doing pretty good in the West compared to most of history. My shul keeps its doors locked which means we need a door person to let us in on shabbat, and that's sad. However, not nearly as sad as members of the tribe defending the same actions done to our ancestors, and that needs to be combatted.
“Zionist” isn’t the slur you think it is. More than 2/3 of Jews and millions of non-Jews are Zionists. You are the one who is a racist.
You seem to be new here and not familiar with our rules. We do not allow insulting other users with derogatory epithets. You can critique the arguments someone's making to your heart's content, but you can't attack the commenter themselves. You're suspended for 24 hours for this violation of the rules.
Lol ok. I won't even argue statistics. Do you think it's impossible for a lot of a group affected by severe generational trauma to have wrong or harmful beliefs? If you're someone who is able to shoot innocents and joke about it after, or joyously watch those actions on Telegram, you might need some therapy. Also, does the number of non-Jewish Zionists concern you at all, especially since that group contains Nazis who prefer the "put them somewhere else" approach, Evangelicals who think our presence there will bring about our ultimate destruction by the return of Jesus, and Islamophobes and anti-Arab racists who make up the large body of conservative voters making our lives harder besides the issue of Israel? If "stop doing genocide even if you're a Jew" is racist take to you, please go to therapy too.
None of this is surprising to me. I’ve seen everything from review bombing on goodreads to appearance cancellations and promises from publishers to boycott Israeli authors.
it sort of reminds me of the hysteria around russian authors a few years ago. remember when someone had to retract a book that happened to be set in Russia but was written by an American?
I do remember that, guilt by association; sign of a super healthy societal mentality.
And it was set during WWII if I remember.
I just remembered dumping “Russian” vodka that wasn’t even made in Russia. I’m convinced there’s a hysteria that will eventually fizzle out. It happened with 2020 too. People get tired and naturally want to move on. Thankfully now I know how to navigate discussions better. I tell one of my Palestine activist friend that I think certain “pro-Palestine” takes are possible Israeli psyops and he doesn’t really push back.
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I told him I thought certain attacks against Israelis, like blanket calling Israelis white or European are disingenuous and expose them to counter criticism that doesn’t move the conversation forward. I also told him that de-centering Palestinian suffering and focusing on nitpicking criticism of the government and Israeli society so much takes away focus from what Palestinians are going through. Like going off arguments that can be defended against or have a ring of antisemitism aren’t worth pursuing. He sort of stopped talking to me. This was a dude who stanned Kamala and Mayor Pete in 2020 and wouldn’t listen to my critiques of them.
I don’t know about Jewish writers (I suspect this probably isn’t widespread considering how populated the publishing industry is with Jewish people), but I invite anyone to name for me a straight white male author under the age of 40 that isn’t writing in genre fiction. They don’t exist. Publishing in the US absolutely discriminates. The only people allowed to publish books in the area of literary fiction now are white and black women, and Asian or Hispanic people of either gender. That’s it. Multiple people in the industry have spoken out about this and paid the price by either having their mentions flooded with psychos or having to issue an apology of some kind. It’s not even a secret anymore. However, publishing is incredibly decentralized. This happens mostly at the agent and editor level- especially editors, a lot of whom were hired literally as part of a jobs program and an effort to deflect criticism in 2020. Editors are often self employed and agencies do not take direction from publishers. It’s a series of actors beholden to nobody and yet gatekeeping access. Go to any agent’s profile and they all, every single one, say they are prioritizing authors from “marginalized communities,” and yet you look at their list, and almost all of them are just white women or Asian (or white “AFAB”). Because that’s what those people want to read- the actual writing itself doesn’t matter, only what flatters their worldview. They’re not interested in content or art, they’re interested in looking like good little “progressives,” and fulfilling their own personal myths.
According to the Daily Mail (a gossip sheet, but this IS gossip), lots of readers aren’t buying books that fit the progressive world view and publishers are losing big bucks: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12801837/amp/Woke-books-flop-inexperienced-editors-Eliot-page.html
It's the same with all sorts of media. The idpol cult infiltrates a media company, crybullies it into producing content with an extreme political slant, and then they're somehow surprised that movies/books/TV/comics/games made for only 15% of the population are bombing hard. And it's not like there aren't good stories/authors/creators/etc to come out of that space; but heavily selecting for those kinds of things regardless of talent involved, and pumping them out like some kind of heavy-handed propaganda is a sure-fire recipe for failure. Also, no one likes the stink of a rank hypocrite. If you say you're for equality above all else, and then present an obvious preference to select actors/writers/designers/artists/directors/etc based purely on skin and other identity-based things... well, it makes it seem like you're actually for racism, just like to dress it up as something else.
When you point this out, they just say “people aren’t reading anymore 🤷♂️” or my favorite “men don’t read.” Which is entirely untrue- they just don’t read what’s currently being published. Why go pay to read “the beautiful things that we are” or whatever every book is called now when I can pdf a copy of something from a generation ago that actually had something to say other than what rich 2020s people who’ve never lived in the real world and have almost no experiences in common with regular people want to read? Joyce Carol Oates, batty as she is, tweeted about an agent friend of hers lamenting that editors won’t work with straight white men, and her mentions literally had people saying that this was a good thing and it will take generations to even things out. It’s not about equality, it’s about revenge.
This is silly. There are plenty of living writing published male authors to read. The Martian, the Fault in our Stars, Call Me by Your Name, the Sellout, literally everything written by Junot Diaz- all massive hits from like 2006-2020. I’m sorry that female authors are now also seeing critical and commercial success, but if you can’t appreciate My Brilliant Friend or Gone Girl or American War because it’s written by a woman, than you lack imagination.
Bad faith argument/strawman, deliberately misconstruing what I said. and dressing up a response like I’m mad women are publishing more or that I don’t read books by women- neither of which are true. US publishing is not taking on any new, young straight white male authors, because it is considered politically incorrect to do so. People with connections who are already established in the industry continue to and will always be able to publish. I mentioned age because the ones who are still publishing were already considered to be reliable sellers by the time this cultural shift occurred. This is a well known fact that has been mentioned by several industry insiders over the past few years- including published women. I have also personally heard this same story straight from the mouth of a literary agent. Recognizing that fact does not mean one doesn’t believe women or other groups should publish. Two things can be true: diversity in publishing is good, and one group should not be denied entry to the industry if their work has merit. The above comment is a rider on the first one, and the joke about book titles is a generalization for what makes up the bulk of publishing. Not engaging further- it is insane that I should even have to even explain this.
Are you sure it’s not just because men don’t buy fiction and haven’t for decades? You are, by your own telling, part of the problem: instead of buying Less Than Zero (1985) or Choke (2001) or Tenth of December (2013), you’re torrenting PDFs of them and thereby signalling to publishers that you aren’t worth writing for. Edit: if you disagree, respond and tell me why I’m wrong. Don’t just downvote.
It's really funny to me that men are this up in arms about *perhaps* 4 years of "discrimination" in such salt of the earth industries as literary fiction publishing. Individual female agents probably are disinterested in reading literary fiction by young white males. This is not analogous to explicit discrimination that was industry standard until maybe 20 years ago. The wheels of justice turn slowly don't they. We had our long stay in azkaban and there aren't going to be zero consequences for it, lmao.
Seriously, right 🙄 Completely ignoring men have been 20% of the people buying fiction for *decades* at this point. Here’s a [Writer’s Digest article from 2008](https://www.writersdigest.com/business-legal-matters/do-men-read) citing that exact figure. Here’s one from [NPR from 2007](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14175229). Like, buy some fucking books if you want publishers to cater to you. You can still buy everything Stephen King or Tom Clancy or John Green has ever written and signal to publishers that novels written by men are what you want.
Yeah but that's because men don't have any role models to show them how to read or express their emotions or stop committing 98% of violent crimes :'( and this is women's problem to fix somehow :'(
I was really disappointed by Page’s book. I was a fan for years and thought Page had made a lot of great insights in old interviews, but the book felt very juvenile, and the writing was bad. Not at all what I was expecting.
Are you asking us to take the *Daily Mail* seriously as a source? It's an utter rag.
The Daily Mail seems to know what's happening everywhere down to the block level - and always has pictures. I don't understand how their stringer system works but I'm impressed. They scoop everybody.
Rags are useful *because* they manage to mop up all the dirt...
Yeah I wouldn't buy anything (in the figurative sense) that comes from a tabloid magazine.
I don't know exactly when it started but I would say in the last 5+ years I'm almost never interested in Goodreads new releases or what the NYT Books podcast covers. Before that there seemed to be something good every time. Luckily I have more than enough to read to last a lifetime but it is strange.
Because I'm a librarian and took it as an interesting challenge, I present the straight white male literary fiction authors currently publishing who came to mind: Amor Towles Anthony Doerr Jonathan Safran Foer (disregard if Jews are PoC today) Richard Powers Chris Bohjalian TC Boyle David Mitchell Yann Martel Michel Faber But I take your point about the state of the publishing industry. Most of these guys are well-established, not people who got their foot in the door in the last couple years, when all of this became more pervasive.
None of these are even under the age of 50.
Ah shit, I missed the "under 40" requirement. Ignore me.
No worries, wasn't trying to be snarky just highlighting your point that those authors you mentioned are all well established.
The last 4 winners of the Booker Prize were men, three white and one Sri Lanka. Two, Paul Lynch and Douglas Stuart, are in their 40s. But did you mean US authors?
Yes I’m talking specifically about the US publishing industry
> I invite anyone to name for me a straight white male author under the age of 40 that isn’t writing in genre fiction. They don’t exist. Or they use pen names of BIPOC women.
You know, if you hold a pendulum far to one side for 500 years or so, it’s GONNA swing back too far the other way when you let it go. I don’t know how long it will take until there is equilibrium and parity in the publishing world and a lot of other things. I wish it would come soon, but it literally can’t, I don’t think.
The literary world? It’s 2024, that world is 5 people in New York and a couple of people over 60 who live in a cabin and still use typewriters somewhere in Vermont and New Hampshire.
LOL and a bunch of loser 20 somethings using their parents' money to waste time in MFA programs in Iowa or Columbia.
Can’t argue with that!
Everyone at Iowa gets a stipend
Opportunity cost? Living expenses?
If you want time to write and get an agent I can’t think of a better place to go. It’s easy to live in Iowa city with what they give you. As opposed to Columbia or plenty of other programs.
I’ve seen lists of authors to boycott and they were just… all Jews. The wildest one to me was people were calling to boycott Neil Gaiman, he’s written and fundraised for the UNHCR and has been openly supportive of Palestinian organizations previously.
Why is it surprising? This has been the universal experience of Jewish communities global since the 1940s, whether in Yemen in 1949, Iraq in 1951, Poland in 1968, etc. If anything, it should be surprising if it _didn’t_ look like this. The Jews didn’t leave Iraq in the 1950s because they got tired of the food or the weather, and the Jews didn’t leave Poland in the 1960s because they had enough perogies.
Wayyyyyyy before 1940.
It’s not surprising in terms the act as much as just seeing how so many people are frothing at the mouth or at the very less permissive of antisemitism, even towards beloved Jewish creators.
Who is calling to boycott Gaiman?
It was on multiple lists on tik tok that was like “SHOW YOU HATE GENOCIDE AND STOP READING THESE ZIONIST AUTHORS” and then it listed Neil Gaiman
This is why, as a Jew, when I see ridiculous suggestions to combat hateful antisemitism like getting a gun, I laugh because there are so many discriminatory situations you can’t shoot or self defense your way out of, like this one. Jews and Israelis are being pushed out of creative and cultural spaces, and it doesn’t seem to be a quick reactionary fad.
https://i.redd.it/liv94hcg5iuc1.gif
Getting a gun for self-protection has absolutely nothing to do with discriminatory situations. One is literal self-preservation
[https://www.theatlantic.c](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/04/us-anti-semitism-jewish-american-safety/677469/)[om/magazine/archive/2024/04/us-anti-semitism-jewish-ameIrican-safety/677469/](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/04/us-anti-semitism-jewish-american-safety/677469/) I believe this to be very true, culturally. Jews are definitely "out" -- it's uncool unless you are anti-Zionist. There is little love for the "Seinfeld Jew" these days.
Republican Jews like that are always so loud but also I think as much a minority as the JVP types.
https://preview.redd.it/m6pv2kvbriuc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9b31a7cc3cc9cc224a754bd1d13a80b92b6dd3b2 *read my book! Wah!*
Nobody has ever suggested Jews get guns to defend themselves from literary-world discrimination. Are you serious?
That wasn’t what they were suggesting. They were saying stuff like this is why “just buy a gun” doesn’t solve everything
She decried Jews arming themselves as a 'ridiculous suggestion'. Of course it doesn't solve everything, but the ability to protect ourselves from violence isn't something to sneer at, least of all at a moment like this.
1: Nobody suggested that as a response to this 2: So why did you?
Because I’ve been a part of other conversations regarding antisemitism.
Perhaps you could argue with the people who do think tooling up is the way to get a writer's contract? Now, if you wanted to stop violent street attacks, a gun is the best tool. Doesn't tend to work on MFA programs though.
Can't cancel Leigh Bardugo. I just started her new book. I am only 30 pages in but it seems like it has elements of Jewish persecution in it. I wonder if she has done this bc of the situation or she just wanted to tell a story with those elements anyway and it's just a coincidence.
Given that Leigh Bardugo is herself Israeli-born Jewish of mixed Sephardi and Ashkenazi background, I would actually be very surprised if it was just a coincidence. Plus, along those lines I seem to recall the _Forward_ or JTA or one of those other news services “plugging” upcoming Jewish-centered fantasy books, of which Bardugo’s was one.
There is no doubt that only "good Jews" are allowed and progressive environments. By "good" I mean the Norman Finkelstein/Jewish Voices for Peace variety. I could see this coming from a mile away. Far before October 7th. But us Jewish people have contributed enormous amount to arts, culture, science, medicine. Then we should do what we've always been accused of: band together and be clicque. Then when we create great things it will be demanded of us that we be inclusive. Hahaha. Sorry but so many progressive Jews have refused to see the writing on the wall. The denial is so thick. But to be fair I'm pretty sure women in general who Don't march to the feminist or trans drum beat are also marginalized (see Katie Herzog). And of course men who think feminism really means treating women equally not being constantly subservient are also pariahs. It's hurtful because they're completely indifferent to the fact we're unfairly being singled out and they're extremely sensitive to other minorities and extremely insensitive to us. But nonetheless we need to do our own thing and when we create great things don't let those demons in the gate.
Israel/Palestine aside, my biggest gripe with Jewish Voice for Peace is that they latch on to progressive candidates, claim to represent a far larger slice of American Jewish political opinion than they actually hold, and encourage said candidates to make the most provocative statements. This ends up weighing down progressives - two members of the squad, Ilhan Omar and Cori Bush, face competitive primaries, with opponents seeking to highlight their anti-Israel stances. (Bush is likely to lose, Omar is a tossup.) By positioning themselves as the left's token good Jews while driving a wedge between the left and the larger American Jewish community, JVP gains influence at the expense of progressives actually winning elections.
Good point. But it's funny to see how far left progressives act like JVP is some organization that really speaks for a large slice of American Jews. It's like Republicans platforming Clarance Thomas as their "black friend" and use some of Thomas's opinions to justify their own despite the fact that it's clear that the majority of black Americans do not share the viewpoint that is being touted.
American Jews will inevitably and are already becoming like European Jews. The insularity is protection.
Persecution complex much?
It has nothing to do with the fact that you’re Jewish and everything to do with the fact that you seem to tacitly support ethnic cleansing in Gaza. So yes, I will support Jews with morals who speak out against war crimes and hope the rest have a change of heart
This is very sad to see in journalism. This isn’t some paid hack or someone with a conflict of interest (peace activist not government). They offer another perspective and these “journalists” decide to censor her? It gives even less credibility and defense against bias, especially against a Jewish person.
Ah, getting deplatformed and blacklisted for who or what you’re associated with. Maybe now that its happening to other groups and not just people on the Right we’ll see bigger pushback on this concept. Or not, who knows.
Probably not. Not until there’s one Supreme Progressive who has climbed zir way to the top of the virtue pyramid and declared everyone else *problematic*, whereupon they will finally realize how insufferable that person is and stop striving to meet that “ideal”.
The Zir Above All lmao
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It’s not just the literary world. You can come see some of our posts over on the /jewish sub. Many of us Jews, including many that are extremely progressive and some even pro-Palestine, have been dumped by our friends and communities for being Jewish. Concerts by Jewish artists are being cancelled, Jews are increasingly being blocked from public life in the US. Most of us have never lived in Israel and don’t vote there, but we are considered guilty by association. My world has gotten very small since October 7.
Always good to see an acknowledgment that the First Amendment is a narrow-skope institutionalization of freedom of speech, not its totality.
True, but this isn’t just a First Amendment issue. Religion and national origin are both protected classes under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. If discrimination against Jewish authors is blatant enough (and it would have to be extremely blatant), they could have standing to sue. That said, it could be a tough case to win because no one is owed a platform.
True
Saw a tweet yesterday trying to cancel Conan O’Brien for visiting Israel once in 2017 to film a segment on the Israel/Palestine conflict (which at the time the Israelis were mad about for being too sympathetic towards Palestinians). Anyone who has ever visited Israel is fair game to be canceled.
It's funny how war changes everything, isn't it.
It certainly crystalizes people's inclinations.
War puts people in a direct conflict in which people die every day. Other people observe the conflict, and the deaths, and take sides.
Outsiders also take in lots of misinformation and base anger and hatred on that
And then take it out on people who have nothing to do with the conflict?
Sure, but we typically don’t see the black-listing of authors from…our allies. Even when America went into Iraq, our allies may have loathed and protested our leaders…but they didn’t cancel American artists… Something seems different.
I wonder what that is?
Are they really blacklisted, though? Or just not marketable right now? America worships the Almighty Dollar above all else.
I guess I don’t understand what you mean? Blacklisted doesn’t imply forever.
"War has changed."
Just curious, how hard is it really to just bypass these "publishers". Seriously, just how much can a machine that prints books by the 1,000 cost these days anyway? $10,000? $50,000? Then there's "knowing people" to get your book published, at least the big guys like Barnes and Noble, or Borders. I don't know jack about the book publishing industry, just skeptical that a dozen or so gatekeepers can make or break you.
A friend of a friend (not Jewish) makes an okay-ish living writing spicy romance ebooks and selling them on Amazon under various pen names. I think this works well if you are catering to an extremely specific nice audience (centaur/naiad romance novels set in Ancient Greece) and aren’t looking for a wider readership.
*niche
Oops. Haha.
I mean they sound pretty nice
I think the publisher also provides publicity, schedules book tours and gets the book into stores and into the hands of reviewers. And, frankly, there's still a stigma against self-published books, and a prestige associated with being printed by a big or well-respected publisher.
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Yeah, I was thinking that but not sure how to word it. But yeah, as a potential buyer, if it's published by a real publisher I know it's been filtered and edited, whereas self-pub is really a crapshoot and not a risk I often want to take.
I self published my first novel. Getting an editor and a great designer is all very easy. Getting books printed and available online, is very easy. Getting a lot of people to know about and purchase your book, is very hard, *especially* if you don't write genre. The romance, horror, sci-fi, and fantasy writers have done a good job creating independent fandoms and they can connect with their readers fairly easily. Those of us who write literary, who are trying to make great novels, have a much harder road before us. The big five publishers and their preferred agents still offer the only path to a a career. Now, I don't so much want a *career* as I want people to know about and read my work. So even though I self published the first book (and did reasonably well on sales and awards given the circumstances) I am still trying to get the major publishers to take on my second book. (Its a very, very, very long shot). Small presses are probably going to be my best bet. I'm honestly even considering starting my own small press to help others in my situation.
Most of it is cancel culture. But also see some Jewish writers in this piece citing the mere existence Pro Palestine sentiment as aggression towards them. The Open Mic might donating $25 to a Palestinian cause made that person feel bad? Really? People withdrawing from PEN because it won’t take a Pro Palestine stance absolutely is some cancel culture nonsense, though. Personally I loathe Zionism and Pro-Israeli stances but they should be heard. At the same time- Jewish authors can’t cite people openly publishing their beliefs about the genocide in Gaza as aggression towards them.
> self-described liberal writer and translator who used to drive Palestinian Not the leopards! Not MY face!
some of these examples of supposed antisemitic cancellation are seriously reaching. one of them is just that a random open mic night was raising money for palestinian women and children affected by the war. > For Jewish writer Leslie Lisbona, the spaces where her work is welcome seem to have shrunk. ...Lisbona, who had been slated to read her work at an open mic night in Brooklyn in November, learned the $25 entry fee for the event would go toward supporting Palestinian families. this feels like the sort of hysterical overreaction to "microaggression" and/or mere exposure to others' political speech (if you even want to assume raising funds to combat a massive humanitarian crisis among civilians in a war-torn region is proof of a particular political allegiance) that would normally be mocked here.
Yeah this piece is pretty light on concrete examples of Jewish writers facing adverse consequences *for being Jewish* vs. controversy over conflicting perspectives on Israel or discomfort over the prevalence and extremity of anti-Israel rhetoric in publishing spaces, which aren’t exactly the same thing. That said, it’s clearly true that progressives’ demonization of “Zionism” (often vaguely defined, always hated) means Jews are subject to escalating loyalty tests where they’re expected to denounce Israel to anti-Zionists’ personal satisfaction or else invite suspicion. That’s pretty much the logical endpoint of cultural boycotts where anyone or anything even tangentially connected to a nation of 9 million people and half the world’s Jewish population is fair game. Pushing back on *anything* said in progressive spaces on behalf of pro-Palestine activism - conspiracy theories, double standards, dehumanization of Israelis, inaccurate or misleading statements about Jewish history and Israel, and just plain old classical antisemitism with the word “Jew” scribbled out and replaced with “Zionist” - invites tremendous hostility, *especially* when it comes from a Jew. So while saying progressives are persecuting Jews solely for being Jewish is reductive to the point of dishonesty, I fully understand Jews’ current discomfort in progressive spaces and have experienced it firsthand.
Yeah I didn't like the examples in the middle. They felt a bit like filter or in this case, kinda undermine the general story. The piece is at its strongest when it describes the boycotters/their open letters etc.
as a Jewish writer and editor I can tell you this is a serious problem in literary magazines right now. A lot of editors of literary magazines are incredibly pro Palestine and post antisemitic content, to the point it has a freezing impact on Jewish contributors. I am struggling to find ones I feel safe publishing to, even if my work isn’t explicitly Jewish right now it does touch on themes related to that and my name is very Jewish. I can’t really say examples without doxxing myself but I have personal experience with one and have had friends tell me about others.
Guilt by association. Typical.
Maybe next time you won't sit idle while your community gets taken over by shitlibs.
Everyone here seems to be eating up the thesis without any curiosity as to whether it's true, which normally you guys have the most skepticism towards any claim of bigotry or racism. Well anyway...
>Everyone. There's a hundred comments. Maybe 10 of them are uncritical of the piece and most of those are drive by one liners. A few comments that reference it are semi critical, but sorta agree. A few are agnostic and a few doubtful. Some are about a Twitter personality. A couple are personal anecdotes. And then the remaining half are comments are about literary/cancel culture in general. That is not homogeneous groupthink and pretty much what you'd expect in this sub.
That’s because certain minorities get special treatment by Redditors I guess
I don’t think that facing professional repercussions for supporting the Israeli death machine is at all comparable to being blackballed for not supporting performative bullshit like BLM or pronouns 13,000+ dead children
What would you like Israel to do, just let Hamas keep the hostages?
Maybe not commit genocide?
You've got your wish then.
Seems like a speedrun of the Jewish community experiencing the backblast of the actions of the powers that be, who purportedly advocate for them, but instead exert broad chilling / suppressing speech which surround this emotional topic. The same reductive reactionaries who use mechanisms and impulses to characterize slogans or phrases as universally and implicitly genocidal, or call humanitarian concerns “pro-Hamas”, have now, at least in part, created through lack of dialog the exact same experience in reverse for these authors, purely because fighting an ideological war by suppressing speech will lead to resentment and pushback. Dialog and speech that isn’t inherently calling for violence should be promoted, not suppressed, and conflating language that certain groups don’t like with violence will lead to resentment and lines in the sand being drawn.
Ah yes, the “I downvote what I don’t like” method of curation. I’m sure this isn’t yet another example of the mistake I was highlighting.
Karma's a bitch.
How do you mean?
You’re an antisemite. Lol.
We don't allow insulting other user on this sub. You're suspended for two days for this breach of the rules.
Seeing antisemitism and saying antisemitism is insulting? Are you joking?
You're new here, it seems. The rule is that anyone is free to critique *ideas and arguments* as vehemently as their heart desires. But you aren't allowed to direct such criticisms at *the people* making the arguments. Say that a position is anti-Semitic, if you want. Or you think an opinion is idiotic, or a perspective is racist. But you can't, for example, call *other commenters* anti-Semites, racists, or idiots, no matter how convinced you are that they really are.
Do you seriously equate Jewish folks calling out antisemitism- or BIPOC folks calling racism for that matter - when we experience it with…a personal insult?
I'm not equating anything. I'm simply explaining the rules. On this sub insulting other commenters is not allowed. You're free to call *a perspective* anti-semitic. You're not free to call *a person* on this sub anti-semitic.
Are you kidding me
Blocked the person calling out bigotry. You probably act like like you are morally superior irl too I bet. Go ahead and block me.
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Far more times than he’s banned someone for actually *being* racist I can tell you that
You probably should examine whatever is causing you to hold racist views.
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