The Jews are known as the people of the book. Not many people are aware that this expression originated in Islam and refers to those who received the divine word of Allah in the form of scripture. The phrase has become a proud and gentle chide among Jews, conjuring memories of a people with their noses in books as the world either passed them by or persecuted them.
That a group of authors — including Sally Rooney, Jhumpa Lahiri and Jonathan Lethem — have signed an open letter calling for a boycott of Israeli cultural institutions, including publishers, festivals, literary agencies and publications said to be “complicit in violating Palestinian rights,” strikes us as a counterproductive and misguided rebuff by the very people who have been our comrades in the sacred mission of making books.
This attack on culture divides the very people who should be in direct dialogue, reading one another’s books. It cannot be that the solution to the conflict is to read less, not more. For authors who would in any other case denounce book bans and library purges, what do they hope to accomplish with this?
We are Jerusalem-based literary agents, operating a small independent company built over 35 years, with partnerships in more than 50 countries. Our mission is to bring Israeli literature to the world. Among our clients, David Grossman was a recipient of the 2017 Man Booker International Prize. Yuval Noah Harari’s “Sapiens” was translated into more than 60 languages. Our writers have earned international reputations by inspiring readers and exploring the complex texture of Israeli life — writers like Meir Shalev, Yehuda Amichai, Tom Segev, Zeruya Shalev, Matti Friedman and Hila Blum, who more often than not challenge the powerful with the truth.
Some readers may view this column as a gripe of the privileged Israeli creative class. But if they believe that we sit here in comfort and tacit approval of the war in Gaza, that means they don’t know that many Israelis are desperate for this war to end. We are traumatized, we are burying our dead, we are caught in the dread and anguish of what this war has wrought here and in Gaza and in Lebanon — if they don’t know those things, do the writers who signed that letter even read?
As urgent as this latest open letter purports to be, a chill descended over the world of Israeli literature over a decade ago. We would know. It was our books that were rejected at acquisitions meetings. It was our inboxes that were filled with letters from editors with an open disdain for anything Israeli. The gates have been closing well before this latest war.
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