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<\/a>President of Free Speech Advocacy Group Resigns After Article About Israeli, Jewish Writers Facing \u2018Isolation and Exclusion\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\nShiryn Ghermezian<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The president of an organization dedicated to protecting free speech announced his resignation after the nonprofit group published an article about Jewish and Israeli writers being blacklisted and facing isolation due to cultural boycotts around the world.<\/span><\/p>\n On July 9, PEN America published an\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0on its website that described how Israeli and Jewish writers are experiencing \u201crising isolation and exclusion\u201d in the aftermath of the Hamas-led terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. More than 30 Israeli and Jewish writers and literary professionals spoke to PEN America about being rejected by the literary world, \u201ca widening cultural isolation\u201d as well as \u201crising hostility and exclusion\u201d both domestically and internationally, according to the authors of the PEN America piece.<\/span><\/p>\n The article, titled \u201cA Silent Moratorium,<\/a>\u201d was written by PEN America\u2019s Editorial Director Lisa Tolin, who formerly worked for NBC News and the Associated Press; PEN America\u2019s Chief Communications Officer Geraldine Baum, a Pulitzer Prize winner and veteran of\u00a0The<\/em>\u00a0Los Angeles Times\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Newsday;\u00a0<\/em>and PEN America consultant Malka Margolies.<\/span><\/p>\n Within hours after the article was published, Ethiopian-American novelist Dinaw Mengestu resigned as president of PEN America, a position he has held since December 2025. Explaining his decision to\u00a0The Atlantic,<\/em>\u00a0he slammed PEN America criticizing boycott efforts against Israeli and Jewish figures and\u00a0not defending its supporters. \u201cIt\u2019s the first amendment that allows all of us to engage in boycotts, not PEN America,\u201d Mengestu told\u00a0The Atlantic<\/em>. \u201cPEN America as a free expression organization is supposed to defend that right.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In a lengthy Instagram\u00a0post<\/a>\u00a0on Monday, Mengestu claimed the PEN America article is \u201cabout trying to suppress constitutionally protected speech\u201d and future defended boycott efforts. He concluded by saying, \u201cI will do everything I can now to help make something better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Writers Against the War on Gaza\u00a0applauded<\/a>\u00a0Mengestu\u2019s \u201cprincipled decision\u201d to resign while others criticized his move this week.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cImagine running a free expression org and resigning because it refuses to blacklist authors based on their nationality,\u201d wrote Jewish author David Zweig in a\u00a0post<\/a>\u00a0on X. \u201cWhy not blacklist authors from his birthplace, Ethiopia? Ethiopia doesn\u2019t exactly have a good human rights record. What about Russian, Chinese, or Syrian writers? Nope. According to Dinaw Mengestu everyone is fine unless they happen to be from Israel.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFreedom of expression means opposing efforts to boycott, silence, or exclude writers because of their identity or nationality,\u201d\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0The Anti-Defamation League. \u201cThat principle must apply consistently to everyone, especially at a moment when Jewish and Israeli voices are facing escalating efforts to boycott, isolate, and silence them \u2013 a trend ADL is tracking across cultural, academic and civic spaces. Walking away over research documenting that reality sends a chilling message.\u201c<\/span><\/p>\n The authors of the July 9 article by PEN America said the piece shares the stories of Jewish and Israeli writers \u201cwho feel that the mainstream literary world is increasingly shutting them out because of their identity, nationality, or views.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey describe an environment that has impacted their reputations and livelihoods, led people to self-censor, and created an overall chilling of their ability to write and create freely,\u201d the authors wrote. \u201cThis silencing and exclusion of writers is a threat to what PEN America is fundamentally committed to defending: a culture of free expression for all.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The article also noted the \u201cdire consequences\u201d that Palestinian and pro-Palestinian writers and artists have experienced since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, including \u201carrests, harassment and threats, deportation attempts, and detention.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Jewish author Sarah Schulman, who is a supporter for the Boycott, Divestment and Sactions (BDS) movement defended Mengestu in a Facebook post.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDinaw is one hundred percent correct that this kind of fake victim propaganda can be used to support anti-Boycott legislation which violates the First Amendment and is everywhere as popular support for Palestinians grows,\u201d she\u00a0wrote<\/a>. She described the PEN America article as \u201cone of those fake anti-semitism pieces about how \u2018Jewish and Israeli\u2019 writers are being discriminated against,\u201d and said if the organization \u201cwants to survive, they have to get out of the Israel\/Zionism business.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Mengestu noted that the same day PEN America published the July 9 article, it also amended a statement on its website about boycotts. The organization now clarified that it does defend the rights of people who want to engage in boycotts.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPEN America also recognizes that participating in or advocating for boycotts is an exercise of free expression and protected political speech,\u201d the new statement\u00a0reads.<\/a>\u00a0\u201dWe defend the rights of writers and academics who engage in or advocate for or against cultural and academic boycotts to be protected from retaliatory efforts to silence their voices or otherwise punish them. We see no contradiction between opposing boycotts ourselves, and defending the right of others to engage in them.<\/span><\/p>\n PEN America\u2019s former Jewish president Suzanne Nossel resigned in October 2024 following criticism over the organization\u2019s alleged failure to speak out against threats targeting Palestinian writers during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.<\/span><\/p>\n Zawarto\u015b\u0107 publikowanych artyku\u0142\u00f3w i materia\u0142\u00f3w nie reprezentuje pogl\u0105d\u00f3w ani opinii Reunion’68,<\/em> President of Free Speech Advocacy Group Resigns After Article About Israeli, Jewish Writers Facing \u2018Isolation and Exclusion\u2019 Shiryn Ghermezian Dinaw Mengestu in his office at Bard College on January 8, 2026. Mengestu, a creative writing professor and novelist was named president of PEN America in December 2025. Photo: USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[33,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=132200"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132224,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132200\/revisions\/132224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=132200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=132200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=132200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![](\"https:\/\/www.algemeiner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2026-01-10T014842Z_1463465339_MT1USATODAY27970230_RTRMADP_3_DINAW-MENGESTU-IN-HIS-OFFICE-AT-BARD-COLLEGE-ON-JANUARY-8-2.jpg\")
Dinaw Mengestu in his office at Bard College on January 8, 2026. Mengestu, a creative writing professor and novelist was named president of PEN America in December 2025. Photo: USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
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