New York Book Festival Uninvites Jewish Writer Ahead Of Oct. 7 

Monday is the anniversary of the beginning of Hamas and Hezbollah’s reign of terror in Israel. We’ve heard countless horrific stories of the events of Oct. 7, while the Foundation for Defense of Democracies reports that, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) over the past year, 19,000 unguided rockets have been fired at the Jewish state. We’ve also been horrified and outraged by the vicious attacks and threats directed at Jews in our own country, including those on prestigious college campuses and in major cities.

Still, if you are not literary-minded and not Jewish, you may not be aware of what happened to the writer Elisa Albert when she tried to take the stage at the Albany Book Festival last month.

Although our politics clash (Albert’s an ardent feminist and passionate leftist), I’ve long admired the author. Primarily a fiction writer, she has published three novels and a volume of short stories. But like me, Albert is also an essayist. Her work is honest, funny, and irreverent. She is a wife, mother, ex-New Yorker, Albany resident, and doula. Elisa Albert is also a Jew.

As an accomplished local literary figure, the author was scheduled to moderate a panel on Sept. 21 at the Albany Book Festival, an event she has supported every year since its inception in 2017. The session entitled, “Girls, Coming of Age,” featured three writers in addition to Albert.

Two days before the event, Albert received an email from one of the organizers letting her know about “a crazy situation developing.” He suggested they speak by phone. “Basically, not to sugar coat this,” he explained, “Aisha Gawad and Lisa Ko don’t want to be on a panel with a Zionist.”

Aisha Abdel Gawad is a Muslim writer in her mid-30s, so her withdrawal may not be a complete surprise. But Chinese American Lisa Ko won the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, and her first book was nominated for a National Book Award. Meanwhile, the third panelist, crime writer Emily Layden, decided to drop out because, as she explained, she wished to “avoid controversy.”

Layden won’t win any awards for bravery, but Albert should. She was completely taken aback by being canceled by an organization she had been dedicated to for years. “I love them. I’ve been working with them for years. I’m like a friend to the Writers Institute,” she told WAMC, Northeast Public Radio.

Yet, she still volunteered to appear onstage alone. But the organizers, too cowardly to stand up to hate, refused. Then, instead of enlightening festival participants as to why the session was cancelled, administrators at the Writers Institute at the University of Albany chose to ignore the rabid antisemitism put forth by Gawad and Ko and issued a statement that the panel was canceled due to “unforeseen circumstances.”

Albert considers herself a “proud Jew,” with strong ties to Israel. Even before Oct. 7, she wrote openly about her Jewish identity, including her contribution to the 2005 anthology, The Modern Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt. “The New York Times Divorce Announcement” is a poignant, funny and honest account of the bitter breakup of her perfect-on-paper first marriage.

Over the last year, the author has become much more serious in her Jewish commentary and outspoken in her condemnation of antisemitism. Albert published a piece on Nov. 2 in the Jewish online magazine Tablet as part of their “Hamas’ War on Israel: Everything You Need to Know.” The section, which began one day after the attacks, includes articles by Jewish writers, intellectuals, survivors, and relatives of victims of the terror.

As news of the cancellation of “Girls, Coming of Age” spread, many Jewish and non-Jewish writers and journalists wrote of their shock and support. But Albert’s own Facebook post on Sunday hit the nail on the head. “Bigotry and hate are part of human nature, but it’s our job as writers/entertainers/comedians/artists/intellectuals to transcend that smallness. To confront and name and metabolize it.”

It is unfortunate that the other panelists and organizers didn’t share the same commitment to truth. The whole premise of the DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiative enforced by many arts and cultural institutions is one which allegedly celebrates the inclusion of all people. Except, it seems, Jewish people.

“The weaponization of the word Zionist as a permissible pejorative is a foul, hateful tactic used to dehumanize the people of Israel, wherever we reside,” Albert added, in an email to the online journal The Free Press. Later she told a Free Press reporter covering her story, “Let’s face it. The word Zionist is a newfangled word for Jew. Refusing to participate on a panel with a Zionist is a straight-up, bare-assed excuse for antisemitism.”

This very initiative, inclusion and tolerance for all — except for those who disagree with our politics — has commandeered the arts. But now the attitude that art and literature should stand free of politics and ideology seems like a quaint memory. Many accomplished artists I know produce nothing these days but political posters and flyers. The DEI initiative has no room for dissenters. No one is given a pass, not even staunch feminists and card-carrying liberals.

With characteristic biting wit and the ability to get to the core of the situation, one day after the panel was scheduled to take place, Albert wrote on Facebook “… if anyone knows or is connected to these two writers, could you let them know they’re always welcome at our Shabbes table? Elul (a time of reflection in preparation for the Jewish High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) is an especially good time for apology and reconciliation.”

Those three writers and the festival organizers could learn a thing or two about diversity and inclusion, should they ever again have the opportunity to be seated around a table with Elisa Albert.

Beth Herman is an artist, essayist, and school docent at The National Gallery of Art. In addition to The Federalist, her essays have been published in The Wall Street Journal, Legal Times, The Washington Times, and on NPR. When not at her easel or writing desk, Beth can be found out running with her husband of over 37 years, author and historian Arthur Herman. Check out her blog at releasethebeast.home.blog