Jewish Books and Zionism: A Conversation With Jewish Authors

On April 9, a group of Jewish writers published an open letter to the Jewish Book Council, asking it to stop centering Zionist and Israeli voices as the default of Jewish literature and to make space for the wide range of Jewish writers who do not share that framework. Four of the signatories are joining us to talk about it.

We'll discuss how the letter came together, what they're hoping the JBC will do, and what it looks like to build new Jewish literary institutions while pushing existing ones to grow. We'll talk about anti-Zionist Jewish literary ancestors, how diasporic Jewish storytelling can humanize Palestinians and counter erasure, and the long history of Jewish dissent this current moment is part of. There will be time for audience questions and a closing call to action.

Meet the panel

Temim Fruchter is a queer nonbinary anti-Zionist Jewish writer based in Brooklyn. She's the author of the debut novel City of Laughter (Grove Atlantic), a multi-generational story of queer Jewish femmes drawing on Yiddish folklore. She's a 2020 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award winner and holds an MFA from the University of Maryland.

Rachel Edelman is a Jewish poet raised in Memphis, Tennessee whose writing moves through diasporic living, memory, race, and the American South. Her debut collection Dear Memphis (River River Books) is out now. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Washington and teaches high school English in Seattle.

Sarah Yahm is the author of Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation (Dzanc Books), a National Jewish Book Award finalist and winner of the 2024 Dzanc Prize for Fiction. An educator, oral historian, and writer whose work centers the lived experience of illness and disability, her writing has appeared in Slate, Bellevue Literary Review, and on NPR. She lives in Central Vermont.

Qian Julie Wang is the author of Beautiful Country, a New York Times bestselling memoir of her undocumented childhood in New York City, named a Read with Jenna pick and one of President Obama's favorite books of the year. A graduate of Yale Law School and Swarthmore College, she is managing partner of Gottlieb & Wang LLP, a civil rights and education law firm. Her writing appears in the New York Times, Washington Post, Elle, and elsewhere. She lives in Brooklyn.

Moderated by Rabbi Andy Kahn, Executive Director of the American Council for Judaism.