Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

July 3, 2019

British Cultural Groups Won’t Host a Best-Selling Novelist—because He Is a Jew

Dark days for Jews in literature.

A few months ago, a publisher canceled its plans to release a novel by the journalist Hesh Kestin because of its pro-Israel sympathies. More recently, the distinguished British writer Richard Zimler found out from a friend that two important organizations had declined to invite him to speak about his latest book when they learned he is Jewish. Zimler’s publicist, anonymously expressing shock about the incident to a journalist, noted that, “everyone who knows Richard knows he is his own person.” Abe Greenwald comments:

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