Dear Sally Rooney, Please Boycott My Work

Dear Ms. Rooney and every other writer boycotting other writers,

Firstly, let me say thank you.

When I first started writing, people thought I was crazy for naming my publication “The Zionist Voice.”

They thought I was committing literary suicide by so clearly putting my self and my work against the popular zeitgeist of publishing.

But that, I told them, was precisely my point.

You and I both know that the publishing industry has been wildly anti-Israel for decades, and much of that is due to you and people like you working so arduously to silence other writers, writers like myself.

Although I have published nearly 100 essays and poems since October 7th, I know that I won’t be able to publish any of them in mainstream publications because literary darlings like you have made such a fuss.

However, after rereading the boycott, I realized that my work might not technically qualify for a boycott.

So, secondly, I would like to respectfully request that you and all of the other signatories of the boycott add me and my work to the list of Jewish authors you will not read.

Although I am not Israeli, nor do I do any publishing in Israel, I absolutely support the Jewish nation’s right to try to rescue the men and women who were captured by the terrorist organization that is, apparently, more righteous than the people of Israel.

From what I read of the boycott, no Palestinian, even if they participated in 10/7, like so many Al-Jazeera and BBC correspondents, will be boycotted.

So, if I understand the boycott correctly, Israeli writers who were completely uninvolved in this war are more deserving of the ire of 1000 writers than Palestinian writers who may have literally kidnapped Jewish women and held them hostage for G-d knows how long.

If that is the case, and you and every single other signatory believe that, then please, dear G-d, boycott my writing.

You don’t deserve to read it.

My name is Theodore Goldstein.

I am a Zionist poet.

I follow in the literary tradition of King David and Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Chaim Bialik and Yehuda Amichai, Emma Lazarus and Philip Roth – do you really think I’m going to care what 1000 middling modern writers have to say?

You may be a great author, you may not be.

I have never read your work because I always had a sneaking suspicion you were just the latest literary darling from the British Isles to make rhetorical war on my people, so I never bothered.

Perhaps your writing is as good as T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, you certainly seem to feel similarly about Jewish art as they did.

So please, I am begging you, boycott my work.

Nothing would honor me more than to know that I am in the same company as the great Israeli poets and writers.

Although, while you are at it, if you are being intellectually honest, I believe you and your signatories need to also boycott the Dictionary and the Bible.

The dictionary is very clear about what words mean, especially words like “genocide,” and, based on the phrasing of this boycott, it seems like one of your greatest gripes is with the definition of the word “genocide.”

The dictionary, which was obviously composed as a piece of Zionist Propaganda by Samuel Johnson, is as complicit in denying that the “genocide” in Gaza as I am.

If you wish more people accepted your theory that this war is a genocide, you will have to change the definition of genocide.

Therefore, you should throw out the dictionary and make your own.

You also need to boycott the bible – and I don’t just mean reading it – I mean you must remove every reference from it from your work.

The bible is the epitome of Zionist propaganda.

From the very first page, it is a story that justifies the right of the Jewish people to live in the land of Israel.

It was either written by the G-d of Israel, as religious people believe, or by Moses, who was about as serious of a Zionist as they come.

Moreover, the bible is actually very clear that not only is what Israel is currently doing just, but what Hamas did was actually deserving of complete destruction.

The generation of Noah, the generation before the flood, is guilty of a crime, ironically, called “Hamas,” which is a type of left – specifically, it is the theft of people.

For the sin of stealing people, G-d floods the world.

Not only that, but the bible literally commands a person to kill someone who is attempting to kill them.

Hezbollah had been launching rockets at Israel for 11 months before Israel responded.

Ironically, Israel was actually in the wrong in that case as they should have attacked far sooner.

So, if you are intellectually honest, it is obvious that your writing needs to be purged of any biblical references because all biblical references point towards Zionism.

Now, the last question I have for you is, why?

Why boycott Israeli writers and publishers?

You cannot possibly think that such a boycott will do anything to move the dial on the war effort.

There is very little money in publishing – whatever financial damage you’re doing must be completely inconsequential.

I would assume, then, that the goal of this boycott is to scare writers like me into thinking that if I continue to speak my mind, my career will be ruined.

It is exactly how the BDS campaign has operated, and it is exactly how the “social media blackout for Palestine” have worked.

But I’m not scared of you.

In fact, you are the reason I started The Zionist Voice in the first place, to create a safe space for Jewish writers to express their ideas without fear of repercussion.

We may be very small now, but the cream always rises to the top.

I would never boycott another writer or tell others to do so; I would rather beat them, fair and square.

One day, I hope that your writing and my writing could be compared, side by side, based on the merit of the work and not on the politics of the author.

Hopefully soon, you will want that too.

But, until then, please boycott my work.

~

Spread Love, Spread Light,

Am Yisrael Chai