This April, a group of anti-Zionist Jewish writers penned an open letter to the Jewish Book Council, accusing the organization of being “disproportionately vocal about antisemitism” and discriminatory toward pro-Palestinian Jewish authors. The timing is striking. Since the October 7 massacre in 2023, publishing giants — from Penguin Random House to HarperCollins — have released a steady stream of anti-Zionist Jewish titles, including Peter Beinart’s “Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza,” Molly Crabapple’s much-anticipated “Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund,” and Benjamin Moser’s “Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History.”
At the same time, the Jewish Book Council has said the post–October 7 climate became hostile enough that it launched a hotline to document antisemitism in the literary world, after reports of blacklist-style targeting, threats, and review-bombing began to mount. And yet, the publishing industry has largely sidelined Zionist voices, even those of former Israeli hostages.
The marginalization of Zionist Jewish authors since that day is more than anecdotal; it is a trackable pattern. Lists purporting to identify or expose “Zionist” or Jewish authors — even those with only marginal connections to Israel or Jewish communal life — have circulated online, creating an atmosphere in which writers are subjected to political litmus tests simply for being publicly associated with Jewish identity.
Their book events have been canceled under pressure. Actor and author Brett Gelman, for instance, said that Los Angeles bookstore Book Soup canceled his March 2024 signing after antisemitic threats, a case he described as capitulation to intimidation. Threats and professional retaliation have become part of the environment Jewish writers now navigate. Meanwhile, the Jewish Book Council’s reporting initiative has explicitly cited review-bombing, with Jewish authors’ ratings plummeting on platforms such as Amazon.
Bookstore after bookstore has refused to stock Jewish and Israeli authors, while proudly displaying pro-Hamas material. Anti-Zionist authors have dropped their Jewish literary agents, and anti-Zionist literary agents have dropped their Jewish clients. Even bestselling Jewish authors like Sarah J. Maas, whose work has nothing to do with Israel, have found themselves drawn into political scrutiny, as readers and activists increasingly treat Jewish identity itself as grounds for ideological suspicion.
In that climate, publishers have grown increasingly wary of a particular kind of Jewish writer: the Zionist author, or even the author who might simply be perceived as one.
Even Eli Sharabi, a survivor of Hamas captivity, struggled to secure a U.K. publisher for his memoir, “Hostage.” The book later became a major success, with Swift Press calling it the fastest-selling book in Israel’s history, and it went on to reach the U.K. bestseller list.
I know this dynamic all too well. My own book proposal has been on submission for several years. The feedback I’ve received has been overwhelmingly positive. And yet, publishers have hesitated. “I think you should leave October 7 out of it,” one publisher suggested. Everything else, they said, worked. I declined.
The Jewish Book Council was quick to identify this problem, going so far as to create a marketing grant for books that “enrich conversations about Jewish and/or Israeli identity, history, culture, tradition, or thought,” an effort designed, in part, to encourage publishers to take chances they might otherwise avoid. Meanwhile, a number of new Jewish publishing initiatives have emerged to create space for voices struggling to find a home in the mainstream industry.
There is a bitter irony here, one that echoes patterns seen in other fields, from Hollywood to medicine. The publishing industry itself was, in many ways, built by Jews who were excluded from existing literary and cultural institutions. Random House, Simon & Schuster, Pantheon Books, and many more were founded or shaped by Jews who navigated antisemitism by creating their own opportunities. That history makes the current moment feel less like an anomaly and more like a familiar turn of the wheel.
Anti-Zionist Jews, of course, are entitled to write and publish their perspectives, just as Zionist Jews are. One of the greatest strengths of literature is its diversity of opinion. It thrives on disagreement, competing narratives, and the friction of ideas. But that principle cuts both ways. While 42 anti-Zionist Jewish authors lambast the Jewish Book Council — an institution created to support Jewish writers — it is Zionist Jews who are increasingly being pushed to the margins of the industry.
Originally Published Apr 16, 2026 01:48PM EDT
