Hi everyone, and thanks for stopping by on Bookish Discussion Sunday. Originally, I was planning to do a different topic, but something important came up that I wanted to encourage a discussion about. I know that there are various pockets of the bookish world, so not everyone is always up on the bookish drama that occurs, but there’s a big issue that’s currently attempting to divide the bookish community into an artificial binary. If you don’t already know what I’m talking about, I’m referring to the “Is your fav author a zionist?” list that’s making the rounds. 

I was a little hesitant to post this, because I already talk a lot about Jewish topics and antisemitism, but this is Jewish American Heritage Month, and the climate has been rapidly devolving for American Jews. My father raised me to speak up about injustice whenever I see it, and to call it out, even when it isn’t the easy route. And let me tell you, it isn’t the easy route. I’ve spoken out about antisemitism and lost friends, some of them close. Personal attacks have occurred on social media and in person, and people have tried to gaslight me. But I’m still going to call it out when I see it, along with racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, or any other kind of injustice. Because none of it is okay.

If you’re curious about the list itself, you can find it here. I wasn’t sure if I should even post the link, but I think it’s important for people to see for themselves. There’s a key included on the spreadsheet, which color codes it to make it even easier to see if your favorite author is determined to be a Zionist or not, and the evidence that’s used to determine whether they should be boycotted or not. Here’s what the key looks like:

Recent years have made it clear to Jewish communities at least, that Zionist has become the new cover word that safely lets you discriminate against Jewish people without ever having to look bad and saying the word Jew. People think it’s okay when they say, “I don’t have a problem with Jewish people, just Zionists.” But when polling consistently shows that upwards of 80% of Jewish people feel a connection to Zionism, that’s a pretty significant number of Jewish people to have a problem with. And somehow, all the anger, exclusion, and violence is directed towards Jewish people—not bothering to find out if they are Zionist or not. Christian Zionists never seem to be targeted. 

I also want to define Zionism really quickly, since I constantly see it being misdefined by people who aren’t Israeli and aren’t Jewish and aren’t Zionists. Basically Zionism is the belief that Jewish people should be allowed to self-determine in their ancestral homeland, Israel. 

Making a list of “Zionists” to boycott sounds suspiciously like another group of people that did this not so many years ago. They were called Nazis, and when people didn’t speak up and do anything about this, it led to the Holocaust. There are terrifying parallels between the years leading up to the Holocaust and the present day.

Looking at some of the reasons people made it onto the list as a Zionist are laughable. Reposting a statement on Instagram about how October 7th was the largest single-day massacre of Jews was enough to get Pierce Brown, author of Red Rising, labeled as a Zionist. You can find that documentation here. Stephanie Garber, the author of multiple YA series, was labeled a Zionist as well. The explanation given was, “allegedly posted pro-palestine messaging previously, however she favorably posted a book by SJM to her instagram story, and then blocked an instagram user after they called her out for it, (sic for all of this)” and of the sources, only one of the X accounts still exists. When checking out the source that does exist, all it has is a tweet that shows this screenshot of a story from Stephanie Garber’s Instagram account:

To me, as a Jewish person, this feels like a terrifying start to the life that my own father barely survived. There are dangerous parallels that I’m seeing in our society—Jewish and Israeli intellectuals being pushed out of academia and partnerships, Jews being told to hide who they are and to avoid places for their safety, protests outright calling for violence against Jews, and amidst all of that, Jews, who make up only 0.2% of the world’s population, with our voices being drowned out by all the louder voices speaking over us. This is feeling like what McCarthyism must have been like, and it’s surreal to feel like our country is just sliding back in time and there’s nothing we can do. My only suggestion would be to check in on your Jewish friends. We’re tired, we’re scared, and we’re feeling increasingly isolated, all over an issue that doesn’t have to have sides. It’s not a football game, where you have to pick one side over another and it’s a zero-sum game—it’s possible to be a Zionist and still believe that Palestinians deserve a country, safety, and dignity, as well as freedom from Hamas. And if people just listen to us, they’ll realize that the majority of Zionists do want that for Palestinians too, but we can’t have that with Hamas in the picture.

That’s enough from me, but I want to hear more from you all. What’s your take on this?