I hate writing about cancellations like this day after day, but I see it as part of my brief to let people know what’s going on. This time we have writer Elisa Albert canceled—or rather, a panel she was scheduled to be on was canceled—because she was a “Zionist”, even though she wasn’t going to talk about Judaism. (To a very large extent, “Zionist” has become a euphemism for “Jews,” as nearly all Jews in America are Zionists—i.e., support the existence of Israel—and the only anti-Zionists I know who aren’t really anti-Semites are some Orthodox Jews, mostly in Israel.)
But I digress. The Free Press article below (click headline to read, or see it archived here), writer Elisa Albert was canceled because she was a Zionist Jew, even though the panel she was supposed to be on—a discussion of four women’s books at the University of Albany’s New York State Writer’s Festival—wasn’t going to be about Zionism. This is the kind of cancelation that seems to me to presage a growing wave of anti-Semitism in America. The story is below:
Excerpts (the author is Joe Nocera, and the subject, Elisa Albert, is in the photo above). Bolding is mine:
For the last seven years, the New York State Writers Institute has held an annual book festival at the University at Albany. It’s where notable authors come together and discuss big ideas like climate change, feminism, and immigration. But this year, the festival, which was held on Saturday, was disrupted because two authors refused to discuss their books with the panel’s moderator. Why? Because she is a “Zionist.”
The Zionist in question was Elisa Albert, a 46-year-old progressive feminist author whose novels—she’s written three of them—are dark comedies about subjects like modern motherhood and fame. She had agreed to moderate the panel months earlier, and she was looking forward to it. “I was going to be like a game-show host,” she told me in a phone interview. “Congenial and respectful. Have some fun in the process.”
But on Thursday afternoon, just as she was preparing to read the books by her fellow panelists, she received an email out of the blue from Mark Koplik, the assistant director of the Writers Institute. “Basically, not to sugar coat this, Aisha Gawad and Lisa Ko don’t want to be on a panel with a ‘Zionist,’ ” he wrote in an email shared with The Free Press. “We’re taken by surprise, and somewhat nonplussed, and want to talk this out.”
Albert was stunned. Though she described herself to me as “a proud Jew” who has been fiercely outspoken since October 7, there had been no hint of trouble in the months leading up to the festival. And the panel’s topic—“Girls Coming of Age”—seemed utterly benign.
But Aisha Abdel Gawad, a Muslim writer in her mid-30s whose novel Between Two Moons was published last year to considerable acclaim, and Lisa Ko, whose first book, The Leavers, was nominated for a National Book Award, were no longer willing to share the stage with a Jew who supports Israel. Unsure how to proceed, Koplik and the institute’s director Paul Grondahl contacted the third writer on the panel, the crime novelist Emily Layden who, according to Albert, told them she was dropping out as well because she wanted to avoid the controversy. (Gawad and Ko did not respond to emails, sent both to them and their literary agents, requesting comment.A request for comment was also emailed to Layden’s publicist, who did not respond.)
At that point the Writers Institute and the University at Albany, which administers the program, had to make a choice: They could publicly condemn the antisemitism displayed by Gawad and Ko and make sure the festival-goers were aware of what had happened. In a series of phone calls Thursday afternoon, Albert says she tried to convince them to do just that. Or they could capitulate to the bigotry by trying to sweep the whole thing under the rug, and listing the cancellation on the festival’s website as the result of “unforeseen circumstances.”
The institute chose the latter course.. . .
Albert suggested that they keep the panel, showing three empty chairs, but director Grondahl said that wouldn’t be fair if attendees were expecting a full panel. I can see the point there, but surely the Institute should have given Albert a chance to speak on her own: she even could have spoken about her cancellation. But it didn’t fly. The article goes on to discuss the problems currently facing Jewish writers (I simply can’t imagine any adult fiction being written that is sympathetic to Jews or Israel). The issue was highlighted this year in a NYT op-ed column by James Kirchick, who gives examples of “anti-Zionism” in the literary world. Click below to read, or find it archived here: Kirchick’s thesis is that Jews have a hard time making it in the literary world unless they’re willing to denounce Israel.
There has been some pushback. For one thing, banning someone from a state-sponsored panel because of their religious views is probably illegal:
In addition to failing to uphold its moral responsibility in the face of antisemitism, legal experts told me that the New York State Writers Institute may well have violated the law.
David Schizer, the dean emeritus of Columbia Law School—and the co-head of Columbia’s Task Force on Antisemitism—told me that because the Writers Institute is part of the University at Albany, which is state-funded, it must adhere to laws that outlaw discrimination. And the Department of Education has been clear that boycotting someone because of their religion is in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. “If a university that takes government money says it will not have panels with Jews, that is clearly a problem,” he told me. “That is clearly illegal.”
He added, “If an institution formally condemns the antisemitism and the exclusion of Jews from a panel, that could have gone a long way to mitigate the issue.” The institute could also have let Albert go on by herself, he said. Both options are precisely what Albert said she had asked the directors of the Writers Institute to do, but they refused.
This sentiment was echoed by the head of the whole SUNY system:
On Saturday, as the festival was taking place, King sent an angry email to Albany’s president, Havidán Rodríguez, which Albert obtained and showed to The Free Press. Expressing shock at learning “from media coverage” about the canceled panel, he said the festival should have issued “an unequivocal statement that bigotry and antisemitism are absolutely unacceptable and the panel would proceed with or without these people participating.” He added: “SUNY’s content-neutral commitment to free expression and our fidelity to the protections guaranteed by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would have led to a response along the lines the author suggested. As I wrote in a recent public letter and have emphasized to all SUNY campus presidents: Antisemitism is antisemitism whatever ‘code words’ are used, including if ‘Zionist’ is intended to mean the same thing as ‘Jewish.’ ”
King concluded: “I believe the only appropriate response at this point is to ensure that Ms. Albert is afforded the opportunity to have her views expressed to the greatest extent possible, whether that is during the remaining hours of the festival or at a subsequent event held by the Institute.”
As for Albert, she took it like a mensch, though she’s not sure she’ll participate in the Writers festival any more:
. . . But she imagined a different way this could have played out—one in which Gawad and Ko had stayed on the panel instead of walking away.
“Had they been even slightly more evolved thinkers, I can easily imagine a scenario in which they might have chosen to come to Albany with open minds and hearts,” she said. “Perhaps they might have hopped that train to Albany with some awareness that, while the moderator of their panel is a fellow novelist whose lived experience and history and inheritance and education and understanding and fear and trauma and grief and shame are profoundly different from their own, there might still be something—no matter how minor, or how seemingly banal—to learn from me. Perhaps, in my wishful scenario, they might even have found it within themselves to hold space for difference, and to maybe, just maybe, grow ever so slightly in the process. Perhaps, were they just that smallest bit more open-minded, they would have managed to teach me something in turn.
“Anyway,” she concluded, “I’m sorry we won’t have the chance to meet and talk, because it would have been super cool to understand them better. And, dare to dream, I could have offered them some understanding of myself in turn.”
Bravo for Albert, and boos to the hateful Aisha Gawad and Lisa Ko, as well as the cowardly Emily Laden! I sympathize with Albert even more because my own children’s book, initially met with enthusiasm by a respected editor and a famous illustrator, wasn’t published because the editor wouldn’t dare show it to publishers. The problem: it was a fantasy book about cats in India, and I am not Indian. I had no credibility to write about Indian cats because. . . I was a white man! (Are there any publishers out there with guts? If so, I have a book to sell!)
Remember, this was a literary festival, and in publishing all points of view are considered by good editors. To cancel a book discussion because one of the authors supports Israel is simply beyond the pale. But these days it seems almost normal. This normalization of anti-Zionism is, frankly, scary.
Here’s a short clip of Albert at that Festival in 2015. She seems “cool” and funny:
I agree that they should have continued without the drop outs, & maybe they could have got some emergency guests? If you disagree with someone, & they are willing, you should discuss your differences, & attempt to find common ground. I think this is a responsibility. Dropping out & ignoring questions is the worst position to take.
I’m for one glad you keep up with this and present it to us.
Thank you.
An aside:
In the past year there have been some maneuvers – mainly on our now useless uni campuses – to include Jews as “marginalized minorities” (how I hate that term) to be included under the DEI umbrella. What a terrible idea. And it’ll only be horrible for Jews in the end.
Let’s get rid of all ID based dumbassery. Don’t let’s join a losing team (“marginalized minorities”) bc it offers “protection”.
DEI has to go, root and branch and multi-million buck funding.
And I disagree with the Economist that DEI/aff’ve action is in decline. The data which suggests this ignores the huge effect and changes past and current DEI culture has already polluted our society with.
D.A.
NYC
I’m “for two” very glad Jerry stays with this also. I saw this FP article this morning but skipped it in favor of reading its companion piece about campus antisemitism. Glad that I read this one too, now.
Yup, David. DEI is a really crap idea as in implementation it is pure racism, but masquerading to the superficial observor as social good. Purely pernicious.
David,
The dismantling of DEI in the Republican parts of America continues [that is, in states where the Republican Party has a legislative majority]:
The problem is that in states controlled by Democrats there seems to be no effective political oversight of public universities.
And without external political pressure there will be no meaningful reform in US academia – because too many administrators and academics are woke (students don’t matter).
I just purchased two of Albert’s books. Let’s hope others do the same and publishers take note.
We needn’t hold our breaths waiting for Gawad and Ko to cast out their smartphones and computers—devices which depend on microprocessors developed by Zionists who actually work at Intel labs in (gasp!) Israel. But US universities will display many more similar examples of the Leftism of fools, a form of amateur theater popularized long ago in 1890s Vienna.
Is Albert’s pose in the above photo deliberately evoking the Star of David? I like to think so.
Regarding the difficult time facing Jews who are unwilling to denounce Israel. We opened the door to this with the banning of Russians from all manner of events unless they were to either leave their homeland or denounce it publicly. Before somebody protests that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is illegal and immoral and the defense of Israel is legitimate, I would ask: according to whom? Setting aside the inevitable “one man’s terrorist” arguments, for contending parties are never going to reach agreement over these disputes, what right do we have to demand that another human being denounce his country, his fellow citizens, and in some cases, his family? This is particularly galling when we make such demands of people who live under oppressive regimes and who are in no position to change the direction of events. (I am not including Israel in the latter.)
On the you tube short, I am thinking Sarah Silverman for some reason.
It’s all so depressing. The world seems hardly worth bothering with, anymore; every day there are spiteful absurdities such as this, and from people in fields that center on the expression and sharing of ideas. I hope at least that the people who cancelled the festival and swept their reasons under the rug feel at least some form of repercussions. I wouldn’t want anything that would endanger their careers, but just something that might encourage them to think better next time.
Robert, as a consolation:
Bertrand Russell: An outline of intellectual rubbish: A hilarious catalogue of organized and individual stupidity. 1943, 26 pages
https://www.personal.kent.edu/~rmuhamma/Philosophy/RBwritings/outIntellectRubbish.htm
From the first paragraph of this essay written in 1943 (in the 5th year of World War II, a war that claimed the lives of between 75 and 80 million people; World War I’s death toll was between 15 and 24 million; Russell was born in 1870):
There’s an old joke:
Well, that’s essentially how I feel about life: full of loneliness and misery, and suffering and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.
(From the movie Annie Hall, 1977)
Ty for sharing this Peter, great post.
+1
The University of Albany and the Institute need to make amends for cowardice in the face of bigotry. One possible way would be to host a panel of Zionist and Palestinean writers who can discuss the complexities of the region’s conflicts. I envision a moderator who would briefly describe the history of the Jewish people and the Palestineans and historical conflicts in the region and among the various groups of people who live there today followed by brief statements by each participant and a conversation on identified issues. I’d watch that on C-SPAN if covered.
Jerry, regarding getting your children’s book published: There are conservative book publishers. Have you contacted any of them?
I just did a Google search: list of conservative book publishers usa
Here’s one result:
https://writingtipsoasis.com/conservative-book-publishers/
I can’t see any defence of this. This is more cancel culture.
Another victory for bigotry, alas.
On a trivial, semantic note is ‘Zionist’ a euphemism for ‘Jew’ or a pejorative?
I think it is both, as well as a neutral political term.
The Holocaust is prominent enough in our shared cultural memory that antisemitic groups in the west know that standing outside a deli in an SA uniform screaming “Juden Raus!” is bad optics.
They are not introspective enough to see that they need to change their stance, so they look for ways to denounce the Jews while being able to claim they are not doing so.
Probably, most non-Islamic folks doing this do not have deep personal or intellectual reasons to hate the Jews. Instead, they are just going along with what the cool kids seem to be doing. That is no excuse, as many people who participated in enormously destructive movements over history were not deep thinkers.
I would not concede a victory I see it as knowledge about two writers who don’t and won’t grasp what their chosen field is about. Exchange and understanding.
What we do know, as Albert points out, IS they, Ko & Gawad, will shove their ideology in front as a substitute for both.
In the land of writers’ tradition and history it is a hollow victory.
“Unsure how to proceed…”
Well that right there is where their unfitness to hold their current position was demonstrated.
The way “to proceed” was to caution the complainers not to let the door hit them in the ass on their way out. Period. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.
One way to combat cancel culture is shame. Albert should’ve been allowed to speak but the moderator should’ve said publicly that “speakers Aisha Gawad and Lisa Ko emailed me right before this meeting to inform me that they have cancelled last minute for fear of appearing on stage with a Zionist, fellow speaker Elisa Albert, wishing not to court controversy. Given the theme of this session is essentially apolitical and about writers discussing “coming of age,” I regret that this session will be shorter than planned because the other speakers are bigoted. One hopes that their talks won’t get cancelled sometime in the future if other invited speakers hate their respective identities. Now, please welcome our first and last speaker, the distinguished Elisa Albert.”
The shit seems to be hitting the fan on Israel as a settler colonial project. Excellent critique of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ latests book which explores Israel as a white supremacist state: https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/09/ta-nehisi-coates-message-essays-israel-palestine/680001/#:~:text=It%20feels%20devoid%20of%20the,the%20moral%20and%20the%20humane.
I’m not a subscriber but thanks for the link.
I suppose there are two ways to answer the claim that Israel is a white-supremacist settler colonial project. The first way is to explain in detail why the claim isn’t true, it’s just using words adopted from other situations (which won’t convince him.) The second way is to wait for the hyperventilating claimant to stop for a breath, fix him in the eye, and ask, mildly, “So?….Your point?”
(I think Hitchens used that.)
Here’s the archieved piece from The Atlantic:
Thanks. That illuminates a lot.
Thx Leslie. Keep up our battle against the woke nonsense.
“Settler Colonialism”.
When you see that…. you know there’s a deeply stupid “argument” following.
cheers from NYC my friend,
D.A.
NYC
I am not Jewish, but without reservations, I am now a Zionist.
“In the past year there have been some maneuvers – mainly on our now useless uni campuses – to include Jews as “marginalized minorities” (how I hate that term) to be included under the DEI umbrella. What a terrible idea. ”
Seems to me to be pretty savvy move to explode the hypocrisy of the DEI polemic. Let them try to defend their unvetted propositions.
Not really, unfortunately. In the intersectionality game, they will still be ranked lower than the Jew-haters. The system has to go, as well as the social group pressure that makes it easier for administrators to cancel Jews than Jew-haters.
This is absolutely scandalous.
It’s noteworthy that areas supposedly most committed to plurality and to the exchange of ideas (such as literature, publishing and universities)have become so censorious (and arguably racist).
If this happened in the UK it would almost certainly be a breach of the Equality Act. In comparable situations we have seen many cases of sex realist women successfully suing institutions following their “cancellation” (usually on a crowdfunded basis).
Hopefully Albert will be looking at her options.
Jews living in Mandatory Palestine constituted only a tiny minority of the world’s Jews. At the beginning of the 20th century, less than 1 percent of the world’s Jews lived in Palestine and on the eve of World War II, the weight of Palestine in the world Jewish population was 2.84 percent.
Eastern and Central European Jews comprise the largest group of contemporary Jews, accounting for approximately 90% of over 13 million worldwide Jews. Eastern European Jews made up over 90% of European Jews before
World War II.
In the nineteenth century, the largest Jewish community the modern world had ever known lived in hundreds of towns and shtetls in the territory between the Prussian border of Poland and the Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea.