Insane anti-Israel Censorship

Ad for Bernard Henri-Levy's "Israel Alone" Cancelled

This kind of censorship has been happening for a long time. I know because it's happened to me, to others, (such as Howard Rotberg in Canada), and it's happened to anyone and anything having to do with "Israel." 

Today, the ad for Bernard Henri Levy's book, titled "Israel Alone," which had been accepted and paid for--was cancelled by Shelf Awareness; publisher, Matt Baldacci feared that it would "cause trouble" for the 250 independent bookstores Shelf Awareness serviced. What kind of trouble? Would employees  protest, demonstrate, walk out of the bookstore, damage the book?

In late 2007-early 2008, another ad with the word "Israel," also bought and paid for, was cancelled by Ms Magazine. The ad featured three prominent Israel women's faces: that of Dorit Beinish, the then-President of the Israeli Supreme Court; Tzipi Livni, the vice minister and minister of foreign affairs; and Dahlia Itzik, the speaker of the Knesset (Parliament). The ad said: "This is Israel."

The powers that be at Ms. Magazine simply said that it would cause a "firestorm" among it's readers.

The American Jewish Congress had paid for the ad and organized a press conference in which, together with Francine Klagsbrun and Blu Greenberg, I participated. No press came. Once again, the powers that be managed to sabotage our conference. Neat trick. A video of it is up on You Tube somewhere. 

I published an article all about this in 2008. It's one of the many reasons that the feminist silence about 10/7 did not surprised me, not at all. I was disgusted and enraged--yes, but not surprised.

I've been dealing with such censorship ever since the 1970s, definitely as of the early 1980s. In 1980,(!)  I proposed a book about the global rise in antisemitism. My agent at the time absolutely refused to handle it--and so I dropped the idea. Guess what? My book, "The New Antisemitism," (2003), was never published in Hebrew in Israel, only, eventually, by the only English language publisher based in Israel, the principled, unique, and creative Gefen Publishing, founded by hero, Murray Greenfield (z”l), and now expertly run by his son, Ilan Greenfield. Gefen also published my Collected Writing on the subject, "Living History: On the Front Lines for Israel and the Jews, 2003-2014.

But as important: Quite aside from the dis-invitations and the invitations that never materialized (but should have), other books and articles of mine, on other subjects, were rejected, slandered, or sabotaged, primarily because of my known Zionism. and my even more feared truth-telling. 

Despite by alleged “iconic” status, the history of my feminist work has been increasingly disappeared. There is a book about radical Jewish Second Wave feminists that had no intention of including me—until a major historian persuaded the author otherwise. So, yes, there I am, at the end of the book, quite out of place—but still there.

On the night my book “An American Bride in Kabul” received a National Jewish Book Award, I noticed an exhibit of photographs of Jewish women. How interesting! With one exception, that of the magician of storytelling Cynthia Ozick, every single Jewish woman was a left-wing feminist. My face was not among those chosen.

I take none of this personally. It is all political and part of the seemingly eternal war against the Jews.