Peter Beinart’s ‘Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza’ wins PEN America award
The judges of the award said Beinart’s book “offers a model for writing a new story when inherited narratives no longer hold.”
Peter Beinart attends the PEN America 62nd Annual Literary Awards at Town Hall on March 31, 2026 in New York City. Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images
(JTA) — Progressive Jewish author Peter Beinart has won the 2026 PEN America Literary Award for nonfiction for his latest book, “Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning.”
Beinart, who has long been an outspoken critic of Israel, is the editor-at-large of the leftist Jewish Currents magazine and a professor at CUNY’s Newmark School of Journalism. His book offers a harsh critique of the American Jewish community’s relationship with Israel and response to the war in Gaza.
“This book is about the stories Jews tell ourselves that blind us to Palestinian suffering,” Beinart wrote in a Substack post announcing the book’s release in September 2024. “It’s about how we came to value a state, Israel, above the lives of all the people who live under its control. And it’s about why I believe that Palestinian liberation means Jewish liberation as well.”
In a statement, the judges of the PEN America award said the book “offers a model for writing a new story when inherited narratives no longer hold.”
The award comes as PEN America has faced turmoil over Israel and the war in Gaza, which have polarized the literary and cultural world in recent years.
Founded in 1922, PEN America is a writers’ and free-expression advocacy group that defends the rights of authors and opposes censorship. The group has long opposed cultural boycotts of Israel, including in a December 2023 letter calling on art institutions “not to police speech nor deprive audiences of artists’ work,” earning it increasing ire from progressives. The group’s CEO left amid tensions in 2024, and last year it published a report accusing Israel of committing a genocide in Gaza.
The group named two new leaders in February, who ran into nearly immediate challenges when the group took fire for defending an Israeli comedian, Guy Hochman, who had performances canceled in Canada. The group took the unusual step of rescinding its defense of Hochman.
The award to Beinart was determined by a panel of five judges, not members of PEN America’s staff; the judges considered a pool of books submitted by their publishers. Recipients of the PEN/Galbraith Award for Nonfiction, which includes a $10,000 prize, must have published a book in the last calendar year that possesses “notable literary merit and critical perspective that illuminates important contemporary issues,” according to the PEN America website.
Beinart has himself faced some of the free-speech challenges that are PEN America’s raison d’etre. Last year, appearances to promote his book in Israel drew calls for cancellation from both voices on the right, who believe his positions cross at times into antisemitism, and from left-wing allies who said he should commit to boycotting Israel. Beinart apologized to his left-wing critics for speaking in Tel Aviv.
Beinart’s award is the latest example of a book sharply critical of the West’s response to the war in Gaza gaining major literary recognition, following a similar nonfiction winner at the National Book Awards in November.
The announcement of Beinart’s selection for the prestigious award comes as the war in Gaza has reverberated across the literary world, sparking protests against some pro-Israel writers and debate among Jewish writers and institutions over the best way to respond.
Earlier this month, dozens of anti-Zionist and non-Zionist Jewish authors lit into the Jewish Book Council for having a “bias toward centering Israeli and Zionist voices.”
In recent years, the PEN America Literary Award award has been given to “In The Shadow of Liberty” by Ana Raquel Minian, which documents the history of immigrant detention in the United States, and “The Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa’s Racial Reckoning,” by Eve Fairbanks.
This story has been updated with additional information about how the winner of the PEN America Literary Award was selected to show that an independent panel of judges, not PEN America as an organization, chose the recipient.
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