A Free-Speech Meltdown
PEN America's president, Dinaw Mengestu, resigned after the organization published an article about the isolation and exclusion of Israeli and Jewish writers. The article detailed the experiences of writers who have been blacklisted, boycotted, and pressured to downplay their Jewishness. The resignation highlights the tension between old-school liberalism and the surging ideological left, which sees Israel and Zionism as its enemy.
- ▪PEN America published an article about the isolation and exclusion of Israeli and Jewish writers, which led to the resignation of its president, Dinaw Mengestu.
- ▪The article detailed the experiences of writers who have been blacklisted, boycotted, and pressured to downplay their Jewishness.
- ▪Mengestu resigned in protest, citing concerns that the article could be used to target proponents of the BDS movement.
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BooksA Free-Speech MeltdownPEN America’s president resigned over an article detailing the isolation and exclusion that many Israeli and Jewish writers feel after October 7.By Gal BeckermanIllustration by The AtlanticJuly 11, 2026, 7:56 PM ET ShareSave On Thursday morning, PEN America, the free-speech organization, posted an article detailing the “isolation and exclusion” many Israeli and Jewish writers have felt since October 7, 2023. The authors describe being blacklisted at publishing houses, boycotted by activists, pressured to downplay their Jewishness, and called out in online witch hunts including a viral crowdsourced spreadsheet that asked: “Is your fav writer a Zionist???”Drawing attention to such suppression would seem to fall squarely within the mandate of this watchdog group,…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at The Atlantic.
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