1000+ literary, entertainment personalities reject boycott of Jewish and Israeli authors, writers

More than 1,000 literary and entertainment personalities have signed a letter that rejects attempts “to boycott, harass and scapegoat Jewish and Israeli authors and literary institutions” amid the ongoing war in Gaza between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization.

Prominent signatories include the French-Jewish intellectual Bernard Henri-Lévy, British author Howard Jacobson, American-Israeli writer Yossi Klein Halevi, Israeli-American businessman and social entrepreneur Haim Saban and U.S. actresses Debra Messing and Mayim Bialik.

The initiative came in response to an anti-Israel letter that called for the boycott of Israeli writers and cultural institutions in Israel due to the war. The signatories vowed not to work with Israeli festivals, publications and writers that are “complicit in violating Palestinian rights” as well as “whitewashing and justifying Israel’s occupation, apartheid, or genocide.”

The more than 1,000 pro-Israel signatories rejected the allegations against the State of Israel, emphasizing that the Jewish state is fighting for its existence on multiple fronts.

“Israel is fighting existential wars against Hamas and Hezbollah, both US, UK, and European Union-designated terrorist groups. The exclusion of anyone who doesn’t unilaterally condemn Israel is an inversion of morality and an obfuscation of reality,” the letter stated.

They stressed they were “shocked and disappointed to see members of the literary community harass and ostracize their colleagues because they don’t share a one-sided narrative in response to the greatest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.”

Hamas terrorists massacred 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 251 Israelis and foreign nationals on Oct. 7 of last year – the Saturday morning that Israelis refer to as the "Black Shabbat."

“Regardless of one’s views on the current conflict, boycotts of creatives and creative institutions simply create more divisiveness and foment further hatred,” the pro-Israel signatories argued.

“We call on our friends and colleagues worldwide to join us in expressing their support for Israeli and Jewish publishers, authors, and all book festivals, publishers, and literary agencies that refuse to capitulate to censorship based on identity or litmus tests,” the letter urged.

The letter noted that “history is full of examples of self-righteous sects, movements and cults who have used short-lived moments of power to enforce their vision of purity, to persecute, exclude, boycott and intimidate those with whom they disagreed, who made lists of people with ‘bad’ views, who burned ‘sinful’ books (and sometimes ‘sinful’ people).”

“The instincts and motivations behind cultural boycotts, in practice and throughout history, are directly in opposition to the liberal values most writers hold sacred,” they wrote.

In November 2023, just one month after the Hamas invasion and attack, Jewish celebrities like Sacha Baron Cohen, Amy Schumer, and Messing condemned TikTok for enabling the mass spread of online antisemitism.