Erika Dreifus

Toward the end of each week, the My Machberet blog presents a collection of links, drawn primarily from the world of Jewish books and writing.

Last week, I told you that since I was still in catch-up mode, I was posting a set of links that was “a bit ‘meatier’ than usual.” Silly me, for not anticipating the absolute deluge of links that would follow once PEN America published a certain piece on its website. Because this week, I’m compelled to provide what’s essentially a double edition within a single post.

I’m going to start off with a nice, “ordinary” set of items for you to peruse. And then, I’ll add a second compilation of links relevant specifically to this latest chapter in a saga that I’ve been following for a while.

Ready?

“Ordinary” Fare

• “Jewish or not, there a ton of Jewish fiction you may have missed. It’s rich, profound, enjoyable, courageous, tragic, heart-pounding, hysterically funny, pull-no-punches, wholly original writing that can help explain you to yourself — how you became you — and reveal the secrets and possibilities in our shared existence as only great writing can — through the experiences of amazing characters in challenging settings and the profound and challenging questions only art can ask.” And in his new Salon Juif Substack, Michael Lavigne is going to help all of us readers discover and discuss it. (In some cases, there may be some re-discovery going on: the first title Lavigne has chosen happens to be one of my all-time favorites!)
• “Barbara Harshav, widely considered one of the most important translators of Jewish literature of our time, passed away June 24 at age 85. She translated from French, German, Hebrew, and Yiddish — and won acclaim from scholars and fellow translators for her range and high standards. Her curiosity and willingness to tackle difficult material were legendary.” Learn more in Aviya Kushner’s extensive appreciation for the Forward.
• From The Jewish Book Garden: “Inspired by Publishers Weekly seasonal previews, we are pleased to share with you our list of Jewish-content children’s books being published during the fall of 2026. If we’ve missed any titles that have major or casual Jewish representation, please leave a comment to let us know.
• Also from The Jewish Book Garden: a recap of a lively, well-attended Zoom session titled “Report from the Field: ALA and Jewish Kidlit Advocacy,” complete with a list of resources shared during the session. (Happily, there’s some crossover here with advocacy for Jewish lit for adults, too.)
• And in a piece titled “The Beauty of Louis Slobodkin,” Peter Himmelman examines “how one of America’s greatest children’s authors and illustrators quietly disappeared—and why remembering Louis Slobodkin still matters.”

---

PEN America: Links from the Past Week

• You could say that this latest episode began when PEN America, a major organization that describes itself as one that “stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide,” posted this piece last Thursday. As the graphic above demonstrates, they did not call this text a report (note that they do routinely publish full-length reports, complete with recommendations, which they designate as such on a section of their website that is dedicated to, yes, “Reports,” including one focused entirely on “the cultural destruction of Gaza” that was published last September. Instead, PEN itself referenced the new piece as a “blog”; I, like some writers whose work you’ll find below, have chosen to call it an “article.”
• The New York Times was among the first outlets to cover not the news of the piece’s publication—but rather the immediate backlash that it engendered, most visibly in the resignation of PEN’s president and board chair, Dinaw Mengestu. (The Times article was initially posted online on Friday, with multiple updates prior to its appearance in the Saturday print edition.)
• More comprehensive than the NYT’s piece was Gal Beckerman’s reporting and analysis for The Atlantic, which was published Saturday. (Mengestu was evidently so incensed by Beckerman’s work that he posted several slides on Instagram in response the next day.)

Are you keeping up? I sure tried to. I even spent several hours over the weekend trying to write something up about this myself. Since I had published two previous items about what had been going on at PEN America after October 7, 2023—one in March 2024 and the other in February 2026—I thought that perhaps I had some obligation to issue something again. Alas, I was not up to the task (as some of you aware, I’ve had a challenging time of things lately). But I do recommend those two earlier items of mine if you’re seeking further background and data/evidence.

• If Mengestu and his supporters found PEN America’s attention to the experiences of Israeli and Jewish writers intolerable, even many Israeli and Jewish writers—gratitude for PEN’s gesture notwithstanding—had some critiques of their own. Meg Keene’s commentary for The Wall Street Journal, published Tuesday, begins to elucidate them.
• Also published Tuesday: an essay by Neal Pollack for Book and Film Globe, in which Pollack neatly (and accurately) situates this latest episode within a longer history and broader environment.
• And if you’re tired of all the text (I can’t blame you): Yardenne Greenspan’s reel, which posted yesterday, offers a succinct, smart commentary as well.

I can’t begin to predict exactly where all of this will go.

Shabbat shalom.

---

Postscript: Chaverim, I kid you not. By 10pm last night I had finished drafting this post and scheduled it for morning publication. I was scrolling (as one does), when, lo and behold, I discovered a new “Statement to Our Community” from PEN America’s Co-CEOs. I will leave it for you to read, with no further comment, beyond a general endorsement of the sentiment another writer has shared in this tweet.

Postscript #2: No sooner had I hit “save” on the latest iteration of this post and re-scheduled it than I checked my email only to find still another item to add: Mark Oppenheimer’s Substack post, “Activism First, Truth Later.” (Subheading: “The PEN America debacle shows that, for some writers, accurate reporting is less important than the anti-Israel cause.”) I knew it would be something I’d likely want to add here (even before I found myself mentioned within).

Postscript #3: This one is coming to you AFTER this post was published. Also worth your reading time: Jonathan Alter’s essay “When Anti-Zionists Become Censors.” (Subheading: “The president of PEN quit for reasons that are morally confused, hypocritical and, yes, casually anti-Semitic.” Published over on Washington Monthly.