The As-A-Jew Writers Guild

By Seth Mandel

Monday, April 13, 2026

 

See if you can find the failure of self-awareness in the following excerpt. It’s from a story about Jewish non-Zionist and anti-Zionist authors complaining that the Jewish Book Council ignores writers like them:

 

Notable signatories include Israeli-Dutch novelist Yael van der Wouden, whose 2024 debut ‘The Safekeep,’ a Jewish LGBTQ romance set in postwar Amsterdam, was shortlisted for a Booker Prize and won an award from the Jewish Book Council; memoirist Qian Julie Wang, whose book ‘Beautiful Country’ was a New York Times bestseller, recommended by former President Barack Obama and winner of an award given by the council; novelist Adelle Waldman, author of ‘Help Wanted’; and Michael David Lukas, a professor at San Francisco State University and past winner of both the National Jewish Book Award and Jewish literature’s prestigious Sami Rohr prize for his 2018 novel ‘The Last Watchman of Old Cairo.’

 

Did you notice it? Yes, it’s the fact that a bunch of JBC award winners complained they don’t win enough JBC awards.

 

So since the stated complaint is obviously false and therefore not the purpose of the letter, what is the purpose of the letter? The answer can be found in sentences like the following:

 

Because the JBC is our most visible and longstanding Jewish literary institution, its focus on Zionist authors and books gives both Jewish and non-Jewish readers the false impression that Jewish books are inherently Zionist.

 

And:

 

We were — and remain — concerned that the institution’s apparent bias toward centering Israeli and Zionist voices is not only exclusionary but harmful, contributing to the dehumanization of Palestinians and advancing a system of cultural apartheid.

 

The complaint is that the Jewish Book Council is too Jewy.

 

The whole thing is odd, because these writers are fairly successful. So I’m not sure why they would fear having to compete with Jewish writers who actually like Jews. They’re doing just fine! What these anti-Zionist Jews want is DEI for Israel-haters. They would like their disdain for their fellow Jews to earn them protected-class status. They want to be rewarded materially not for their talent but for their viewpoint, and they want those who share their opinions but lack their talent to be rewarded materially, too.

 

In one fell swoop, this open letter entirely debunks the notion that one must possess empathy if one is to be a successful novelist. The line about featuring Jewish Israeli writers being insulting to non-Jews in Gaza and Judea and Samaria is exceptionally daft: The organization is called the Jewish Book Council. How much anti-Judaism do you expect them to spotlight?

 

Complaining that the Jewish Book Council engages with too many Israelis is not the kind of thing that is meant to open a good-faith dialogue about Jewish diversity. Which is why I think at least part of this temper tantrum is geared toward de-Judaizing the culture more broadly.

 

The Jewish Book Council is a rare lighthouse in the storm for Diaspora Jewish creatives in the post-October 7 world. Israelis are being full-on blacklisted and Jews are being sidelined throughout the arts world, unless they are confessional as-a-Jews who use their voices to denounce their coreligionists. The writers of this open letter want that same discrimination applied to Jews by the Jewish Book Council. I would say you have to at least admire their chutzpah, but I don’t want to offend them by using Jewish terminology.