Albany Book Festival cancels panel with Jewish moderator, citing ‘impasse’ over her Zionism

An authors’ panel at an Albany book festival Saturday has been canceled after organizers said two panelists refused to share a stage with the “Zionist” moderator.

Elisa Albert, who is Jewish, was set to moderate a panel at the Albany Book Festival on Saturday called “Girls, Coming of Age.” But on Thursday, she received an email from a festival organizer informing her that the event had been canceled: Two of the three panelists — authors Lisa Ko and Aisha Abdel Gawad — objected to sitting on the panel with Albert because they did not want to appear with a “Zionist.” The third panelist was to be Emily Layden.

Albert said the cancellation is of a piece with her experiences since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

“Unfortunately, I’m not surprised,” Albert told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday. “I’ve been really vocal from the get-go, and I’ve lost many friends. I’ve seen my whole professional life wildly altered. I’m not surprised at all. I’ve seen all kinds of people behaving in all kinds of ways that are on the spectrum of this exact same kind of bigotry, complicity, fear — all of it.”

Albert, who lives in Albany, first learned about the panelists’ objections on Thursday afternoon when she got an email from Mark Koplik, the assistant director of the New York State Writers Institute, which is organizing the festival.

“We have a crazy situation developing and we’d love to talk on the phone,” Koplik wrote in a message that JTA obtained.

“Basically, not to sugar coat this, Aisha Gawad and Lisa Ko don’t want to be on a panel with a ‘Zionist,’” he added. “We’re taken by surprise, and somewhat nonplussed, and want to talk this out.”

By Thursday evening, Albert had been notified by Paul Grondahl, director of the Writers Institute, that the event had been canceled.

“We regret this situation, which was out of our control,” Grondahl wrote in an email obtained by JTA. “It is unfortunate for everyone involved.”

Grondahl added, “I wish this were otherwise. We will find a way to air these issues we have discussed in a deeper, more considered, more carefully planned event with intentionality and context.”

The latest in a long series of events

The cancellation of the panel is the latest in a long series of literary events to be upended or nixed because of disputes over the Israel-Hamas war and Zionism. Activists have sought to hinder the careers of authors they deem “Zionist,” many of whom have Jewish heritage.

In one notable recent instance, a launch event for Jewish journalist Joshua Leifer’s new book, “Tablets Shattered,” at a Brooklyn bookstore in August was canceled because one of its employees objected to the event’s “Zionist” rabbi moderator.

Some of those facing the criticism have not expressed public support for Israel. Gabrielle Zevin, who wrote the bestseller “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,” for example, has faced calls for cancellation despite saying nothing publicly about Israel or the war.

Albert, on the other hand, has been an outspoken advocate for Israel since the outbreak of the war nearly a year ago. On Instagram, she has posted aggressively and frequently in support of Israel and against Hamas and those she perceives as supporting it, including pro-Palestinian protesters in the United States, whom she has called “terror apologists.”

On Friday afternoon, following the cancelation, she appeared to embrace the cancellation, posting an image of her latest book — “The Snarling Girl,” a collection of personal essays published last month — with the text, “Now’s as good a time as ever to promote Zio lit!” She later added a selfie with the text “Friendly local Zio bitch” over it.

Ko, Abdel Gawad and Layden did not respond to requests for comment, and as of Friday afternoon, their social media profiles do not mention the cancellation. But Ko has been involved in multiple pro-Palestinian activist efforts since the start of the war on Oct. 7, 2023. On Nov. 6, she posted that she would be hosting a panel called “Unlocking Our Voices: Writing against genocide” later that month.

She described the event as “a space to clear our throats + direct reflections into action + solidarity.” She added, “Free Palestine.”

On Friday, Ko’s online schedule of events still included a listing of the panel. The festival also did not put out a public statement about the panel’s cancellation, though news of it has spread on social media. The festival’s most recent post on the social platform X, which does not address the dispute, has drawn more than a dozen replies condemning the decision.

In a statement to JTA, Koplik criticized the panelists who objected to Albert and expressed dismay over the cancellation.

“We unequivocally condemn antisemitism,” he said. “We never would consider removing Elisa, and we stood up to those who wanted to remove her. We no longer had a panel to be moderated. We fully support Elisa’s expression of outrage and disappointment. We believe in civil dialogue, and we condemn intolerance of any kind. I can’t tell you how sad and upsetting this is for me personally.”

In his statement, Koplik also wrote that “one participant refused to participate, and another decided not to do so in support.”

Albert told JTA she hoped that the festival organizers would put out a statement about the incident and was frustrated that they had not. She said she had proposed an alternative to the scheduled panel in which she would appear alone, without her co-panelists, to discuss their objections to her with whoever was in the audience. But the festival declined.

“They said, ‘No, that’s not fair. People will be affronted. It’s a panel about girls coming of age. Nobody came to talk about antisemitism or the conflict in the Middle East,’” Albert recounted. “And I was like, ‘Well, s–t, but this got hijacked by some bigoted people.”