'The Cossacks are Always Coming'

At AWP, I spoke on a panel focusing on antisemitism in the literary world. Yes, there was a protester (of course), but the climate was not hateful. Also, my report from the Jewish Writers Caucus.

I recently returned from Los Angeles, where I attended the annual AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs), and there is so much to report from there, I hope I can fit it all into one newsletter. I’ll be drawing from that experience for at least the next year. First, simply being among other writers—and Jewish authors— is nourishment for me.

I was nervous about attending AWP because of what I heard about last year’s climate for Jewish authors at this conference. Many did not feel safe after being verbally and physically abused by “Pro-Palestine” protesters. I heard so many awful stories that I felt like I needed to go and see for myself. I have a novel coming out in a month, so I decided to join my fellow authors at Vine Leaves Press, help out at the booth, and sell advance copies of my book.

Separately, I was honored to be asked to participate in a panel with accomplished Jewish authors

Sarah Einstein

,

Elissa Wald

, Jennifer Friedman Lang, and Amy Fish. It was called “A Narrow Bridge: Jewish Writers on Resilience in an Antisemitic Climate,” and it was one of the few pro-Israel Jewish panels amid a sea of literary hostility. The panel was initially rejected by AWP but was later accepted under the sponsorship of the Jewish Book Council, which also worked tirelessly to make sure a repeat of last year’s AWP hate-fest was not repeated.

Many, many people have asked me how the panel went, and it seemed as though the entire Jewish literary world was with us, if not physically, then in spirit. I was nervous about meeting expectations and also about the reception we might receive from the anti-Israel literati.

But before I discuss the specifics of the panel, I want to talk briefly about the event that preceded us in the same conference room. It was a group of anti-Zionist Jewish authors with a panel called "Our Own Name: Writing Jewishness Beyond Zionism, Assimilation & Fear." I sat in on some of it and eventually left after I had heard enough. At one point, one author was going through a bit of background on her book and commented, “The Cossacks are coming. The Cossacks are always coming.”

Oh, I thought. That makes a lot of sense. Maybe these anti-Zionist Jews actually understand antisemitism.

Then she added, “They take many forms, but they’re always coming.”

Did I detect a slight eye roll? I believe I did. And, on cue, the audience responded with laughter. It was not the nervous laughter of agreement with the truth, but it was the kind that understood the subtext. And that, I thought, is a synopsis of the anti-Zionist Jewish author. I took the comment seriously. They took it as a joke. Later, at another anti-Zionist Jewish panel (called "Our Memory Will Not Be a Weapon: On Jewish Writing after October 7”) I sat in long enough to hear one writer decry the “weaponization of Jewish victimhood.”

These Jewish writers have internalized a new term that is a favorite of antisemites now. They say we are “weaponizing antisemitism” as a way to dismiss our accusations of anti-Jewish bigotry as just a political ploy. It’s a form of gaslighting and a way to force you to question your own lived experiences.

A common criticism I get as a Zionist Jewish writer is that I'm centering myself too much in the narrative. The broader struggle for freedom by oppressed people has very little to do with Jews, they argue. Jews who see Nazis (or Cossacks) in the woodwork and apply it to world events—even events that have to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—wrongly think it's all about them, so the argument goes.

Some anti-Zionist Jews grew up the same way I did—listening to stories about Cossacks, about Nazis, about antisemites of old—and rather than apply the lessons to modern day, they relegate it to outdated paranoia that has little to do with modern-day struggles against the marginalized and the colonized. They've taken to heart the notion that Zionism is colonialism and is the result of Jews centering themselves amid a larger struggle that has nothing to do with them.

So, when they say, "The Cossacks are always coming," there is an accompanying eye roll, as if they are talking directly to their grandparents or Hebrew School teachers, or whichever Jew in their lives they grew tired of listening to.

Yet, when I hear that phrase, everything I know about the Jewish past and present tells me that we should prepare for the arrival of the Cossacks.

Okay. Now, I’m ready to talk about the panel I participated in. I will not presume to speak for my colleagues, so I’ll let them speak for themselves in their own reports. All I’ll say is that I was honored to be among such accomplished and articulate Jewish authors and activists.

I’ll begin with the sole disruption from one anti-Israel protester. In the middle of a presentation, he approached us and scattered a bunch of stickers on the table. I was at the far end, so I didn’t see what exactly they said, but I was later told they mentioned Gaza. As the protester was escorted out by security, he turned around and said, “But genocide is cool.” I don’t recall what exactly he was responding to.

I highly commend moderator Sarah Einstein for keeping her cool while this was happening and for informing the group that the incident was over and everybody was safe. Throughout the event, I saw security people going in and out and felt well-protected. Whatever happened last year at AWP, the event organizers, with input from the Jewish Book Council, made sure that it would not happen again. Other than this one outburst, our panel was safe and secure, and we all had a chance to speak without fear.

Later, author Josh Rolnick, vice president of the Board of Directors at the Jewish Book Council, told me that this was the first pro-Zionist panel he had ever seen at a mainstream literary event.

At the panel, I opened with a personal story. On October 7, 2023—my fifty-eighth birthday—I was at a high point. I was in the best shape I’d been in for years, standing at the starting line of a half-marathon with my two teenage sons. My novel had just been accepted by a publisher. “Then everything changed.” I heard the first reports of the Hamas massacre in Israel just before the race. As I ran, I tried to process it. “Over 1,200 Israelis slaughtered. Massacred in their homes. Raped. Tortured. Kidnapped.” And even before Israel began its ground offensive weeks later, the literary world had already started using the word genocide—not to describe what Hamas did to Jews, but Israel’s response. I said, “That word—genocide—isn’t just wrong. It’s deliberate. It’s meant to troll Jews, to strip us of our own grief.” It’s Holocaust inversion, and it’s antisemitism.

I spoke about how my own career hasn’t changed—I’m nearly sixty, and “it’s too late for me.” But I worry about younger Jewish writers who are “being quietly blacklisted simply because they’re Jewish, or because they won’t publicly disavow Israel.” I said, “My life would be a lot easier if I just declared that #AsAJew, I denounce Zionism… If I said that, phone calls would be returned. Emails would be read. Doors would open.” But I don’t believe those things. When we let anti-Zionist voices speak for all Jews, “we surrender the conversation. We erase ourselves.”

Finally, I talked about where I find strength. From the people I’ve interviewed for my book, including a survivor of the Nova festival. From fellow writers who keep telling the truth, even when the literary world wants to shut them out. And especially from Jewish college students who are “facing open hostility—just for being Jewish or Zionist—and yet they refuse to back down or hide who they are.” I told the room, “We don’t always have to feel brave—we just have to keep showing up.”

I did fumble the ball when I tried to answer a question about what individuals can do to fight. I don’t think I articulated my point very well. I said that because we represent such a tiny proportion of the population, we need allies. I was scolded when I said that every conspiracy theory about Jews is actually true about conservative Christians. Maybe that was going too far, but they do hold a great deal of power now. Our interests align on a narrow set of issues. I've written extensively about this before, so I won’t rehash it here. I thought it was very much on-topic because our need for allies is crucial—even if we cannot sign on to the Christian Nationalist agenda.

Many, many people sought me out afterward and told me that I put into words exactly what they were thinking.

The next day, I participated in the Jewish Writers Caucus, created specifically to address Jewish alienation from the rest of the literary community after last year’s disastrous reception. I can’t say enough nice things about the Jewish Book Council and Yetzirah (“a hearth for Jewish poetry”) for setting this up. Again, security was heavy, for which I was thankful, but which, I was told, intimidated others. Jessica Jacobs, founder of Yetzirah, eloquently said that “this is a lonely, isolated time, a time of grief and anxiety” and that this group was an attempt to “find a way to be together in community.”

We broke off into subgroups, so others will have come away from the caucus with a different experience. My subgroup was on publishing, led by the Jewish Book Council’s Miri Pomer­antz Dauber. She told us what I had previously heard from JBC CEO Nao­mi Firestone-Teeter, that while we have a lot of anecdotal evidence of blatant antisemitic discrimination in the literary world, the needle has not moved on the number of Jewish books being published. I asked whether their Jewish category was too broad and that maybe they needed to get more granular. What about books about Israel? Are pro-Zionist voices not being accepted?

Dauber outlined the key difference between being a writer and being an author. A writer focuses on the work itself—the craft. An author, though, is also a businessperson. And business decisions get made based on what’s seen as marketable.

That’s where the Jewish Book Council comes in. They’re not trying to fight antisemitism in publishing directly—they’re working around it. What they’re doing is demonstrating that platforming Jewish authors is a good business decision. If your book event gets canceled, they help you find another venue that will welcome it. They’re creating alternatives instead of waiting for existing institutions to do the right thing.

Despite efforts like their hotline, though, it still seems hard to quantify the impact on Jewish authors. The problem is real, but there’s no clear way to measure it. In many ways, this is the market being the market. Jews are just simply not popular now, and anti-Israel narratives are. But, as Dauber reminded us, “We do have a market share.” Elissa Wald’s Never Alone Book Club was mentioned as an example of how Jewish literary spaces are growing and responding with strength and creativity.

The problem of “review bombing” was also addressed, but with no clear way to combat it. I’m afraid I might become a victim of that with my own book. The only one-star review I have on Goodreads for my soon-to-be-released book comes from an anonymous person to whom I never sent an Advance Reader Copy. Review-bombing is apparently the punishment for the crime of Writing While Jewish.

There’s more, but those were the highlights of my AWP experience when it comes to the Jewish literary world. I also had a very successful conference in my “other” life as an author of fiction. And, as my co-panelist Jennifer Friedman Lang put it, the company that published our books, Vine Leaves Press, is very much an exception. To their great credit, they help amplify Jewish and Israeli voices.