PEN Writers Group Rebuffs Calls To Drop Israel Sponsorship Amid Outcry
Image by PEN World Voices
The literary writers’ group PEN American Center is refusing to drop Israeli government sponsorship from its annual festival, despite calls by dozens of members to do so.
According to a news release issued Tuesday by Adalah-NY, a group that supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, more than 100 writers signed onto a letter demanding PEN “reject support from the Embassy of Israel” for its World Voices Festival to be held later this month in New York.
Among the signers, according to Adalah-NY, are Pulitzer Prize winners Junot Díaz, Richard Ford and Alice Walker, and award-winning author Louise Erdrich.
According to a PEN American Center spokesperson, the General Consulate of Israel provided a small contribution to underwrite the costs of airfare, hotel, per diem, interpreters and related expenses contribution for individual Israeli writers selected for participation by the festival.
In an email to members cited by Adalah-NY, PEN American Center said it was maintaining the Israeli funding because of a policy against “cultural boycotts of any kind” and the need to “promote dialogue.”
“It is deeply regrettable that the Festival has chosen to accept sponsorship from the Israeli government, even as it intensifies its decades-long denial of basic rights to the Palestinian people, including the frequent targeting of Palestinian writers and journalists,” the letter says.
Other well-known signatories to the letter include Angela Davis, Russell Banks and South African writer Breyten Breytenbach.
PEN American Center, the festival organizer, is a U.S. branch of the writers’ freedom of expression organization PEN International.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
