Since Oct. 7, it hasn’t been easy to be an author with ties to Israel. In March, the prestigious literary magazine Guernica published an essay by an Israeli author discussing the current war with nuance. Ten staff quit in protest. “Guernica regrets having published this piece, and has retracted it,” the publisher wrote.

Book awards ceremonies turned into platforms for anti-Israel activists. Protests raged through conferences. Jewish authors had appearances canceled. Prominent literary social media accounts used their platforms to call out writers they deemed “Zionist,” and there was a blacklist making the rounds titled, “Is Your Fav Author a Zionist?”

“What we’re seeing is a general culture of fear that’s now being created across the entire field,” Naomi Firestone-Teeter, CEO of the Jewish Book Council, told eJewishPhilanthropy — but it’s not new. “The quiet part is now being said out loud.”

In February, the Jewish Book Council (JBC) began collecting reports of antisemitism in the literary world, leading to immediate pushback in the literary sphere. Since then, several hundred incidents have been reported.

Based on what’s come in, this month, JBC is launching numerous initiatives to support and uplift Jewish authors and books, including marketing grants, support groups, book clubs and a legal rights workshop for writers along with UJA-Federation of New York and the Brandeis Center. The council also will continue publishing its Wit­ness­ing series, which features works by Jewish authors grappling with a post-Oct. 7 world.

JBC is teaming with Maimonides Fund to offer marketing grants of $18,000 to $36,000 for nonfiction, fiction and children’s books that are “Jewish books in general,” not specifically based around Israel or Zionism, Firestone-Teeter said.

Grants are provided before books go under contract to be published, to “send an important signal to both the publishing community that we’re going to have [authors’] backs, and we’re gonna put our money behind supporting Jewish books,” she said.

New writers are the ones hardest hit under the current environment, James Kirchick, author of Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington, who wrote about literary censorship for The New York Times, told eJP, adding that many are not political writers, yet the current climate targets anyone with a positive view or connection to Israel. Those with established careers can speak without fear of being hit as hard.

This past year, JBC has been holding support groups for MFA students who feel isolated from peers. The council has also featured frequent pop-in visits by seasoned authors and agents. This month, JBC is launching free weekly support groups for anyone in the literary field, led by Wendy Grolnick and Marian Getzler-Kramer, two licensed psychologists.

JBC is also offering scholarships and micro grants for Jewish communal organizations to bring in Jewish books and authors. “As doors are closing, we want to make sure we’re opening more doors for our authors and our communal partners,” Firestone-Teeter said. They are also starting book clubs for college alumni and their families, with the first launching at Duke University this month.

To celebrate the 99th anniversary of Jewish Book Month, JBC is running a “Celebrate Jewish Books. Support Jewish Authors” campaign, partnering with organizations committed to uplifting Jewish books and authors.

Working with Artists Against Antisemitism, JBC created a guide to help bookstores better understand antisemitism and support Jewish books and authors. The organization is trying to reach out before an incident occurs, not only after.

“The role of the writer in a society is to be brave enough to be able and willing to step up to consider and confront and be curious about the most difficult, thorny, complicated matters that we live with,” Elisa Albert, whose most recent book is The Snarling Girl and Other Essays, told eJP. “You’re only silenced if you are scared. And I can’t begrudge anyone’s fear. It’s perfectly understandable to be afraid in this kind of climate. But you have to find a way to transcend that.”

Albert found herself at the center of controversy last weekend after a panel she was moderating, titled “Girls, Coming of Age,” was canceled two days before it was set to occur at the Albany Book Festival. “Basically, not to sugar coat this, [panelists] Aisha Gawad and Lisa Ko don’t want to be on a panel with a ‘Zionist,’” a festival organizer wrote her in the email informing her of the cancellation.

Albert is an established author who has published five books. She openly grapples with politics, outwardly proclaims herself a Zionist, and has posted and written things many people — including fellow Jews and Zionists — consider inflammatory.

After the panelists canceled at the last minute and the panel was canceled, the details of what occurred grew murky. Gawad says she withdrew because of Albert’s “public rhetoric, which I felt mocked anyone who expressed grief over loss of Palestinian life.” Ko says she didn’t withdraw, but contacted the festival organizers with concerns about Albert moderating the panel due to comments she made in a Tablet piece published in early November that began “Hi, Terror Apologist!” Albert maintains that the other authors insisted that they wanted the moderator changed because she is a “Zionist.” The festival organizers have admitted to causing “a great deal of hurt,” saying that “we should have been more thoughtful in how we approached this panel and the concerns that were raised by all the authors.”

JBC will continue to try and help organizations better handle situations like this, Firestone-Teeter said. “This is a particularly sensitive moment with lots of nuances, and the first step should be to reach out to organizations that can help one educate themselves and handle the situation with care, as opposed to being reactive… Everyone’s response to these issues makes them far more complicated and worse than they need to be, and it’s just adding to the polarization and the complication and flattening.”

Soon after the incident, JBC reached out to Albert to figure out how it could help.

“We can’t force individuals to do or think or say or be anything, but an institution certainly can and should be held to account,” Albert said, adding that JBC is in a position to be able to do so.

Continuing to support authors is important as the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7 nears and the holiday season approaches, Firestone-Teeter said, adding that she wants to “make sure everyone in our community knows that we’re going to have their back.”

Fostering change in such a dangerous moment takes “concerted effort among not just Jews, but among all writers who are concerned about intellectual freedom and free discourse and the open debate of ideas,” Kirchick said. “Ideally, writers are supposed to be independent and they’re supposed to express opinions that are not influenced by political parties or political movements or moneyed interests or any sort of external interests… Imposing these sorts of ideological litmus tests on political issues is just so offensive to the world of literature.”

To meet everyone’s needs, the JBC has to continue to adapt, Firestone-Teeter said. The organization grew out of the first Jewish Book Week, held in 1925. After book bans and burnings surged throughout Europe, the Nation­al Com­mit­tee for Jew­ish Book Week became the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil. “There’s just a fascinating kind of parallel,” Firestone-Teeter said. “An unfortunate parallel.”