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92NY implodes over cancellation of Israel-critical author event
(JTA) — It took less than four days for 92NY to go from having a packed calendar of literary events and a full team to a depleted schedule and staff resignations.
The dramatic shakeup at the venerable New York Jewish cultural center came after the institution scrapped a planned talk Friday by Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen, after Nguyen signed an open letter in the London Review of Books that pushed for “an end to the violence and destruction in Palestine,” accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and condemned “the deliberate killing of civilians” — without denouncing Hamas specifically.
Staff at the 92NY told the press it had made the decision out of concern for its Jewish audience.
Following the decision, which 92NY’s leaders made only hours before Nguyen’s planned talk, a slew of other authors pulled out of its upcoming programming slate. On Tuesday, staff at the center began resigning over the controversy, including poetry center director Sarah Chihaya and senior program coordinator Sophie Herron.
The blowback led the organization to announce Monday it was pausing its current poetry reading series.
The fallout came amid a series of Israel-related clashes at cultural centers and within the arts and entertainment world at large since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks. Disputes over the attacks and Israel’s retaliation have also spilled into sports, academia, government, tech, business and law.
As Israelis and Palestinians bury their dead, both sides are demanding major institutions pick sides. And for some Jewish institutions, reeling from a Hamas attack that killed 1,400 Israelis and saw 200 others taken hostage, their usual rules of pluralism and commitment to fostering diverse opinions are harder to apply.
“It’s certainly challenging to navigate this moment as a cultural organization (much less a Jewish one) and ensure that we are remaining mission-aligned even in complicated situations,” said Naomi Firestone-Teeter of the Jewish Book Council, which books Jewish authors at JCCs and other venues around the country. “We are hearing from new authors every day who need an outlet to share their experience and ensure our global readership is aware of the pain and suffering in the Jewish community — in Israel and the Diaspora.”
Andrea Grossman, founder and director of the influential Los Angeles literary nonprofit Writers Bloc, recently canceled a planned book talk with the Jewish author Nathan Thrall because Thrall’s new nonfiction book, “A Day In The Life of Abed Salama,” deals critically with Israel’s military occupation.
Released days before Hamas’ attacks and dealing with the aftermath of a 2012 bus explosion in the West Bank, the book has become one of many Israel-related political footballs in the arts arena: American Public Media, a national content distributor for public radio and TV stations, recently told The New York Times it had pulled ads for Thrall’s book, saying they would be “insensitive in light of the human tragedies unfolding.” Thrall has undertaken his book tour alongside his subject, Abed Salama, a Palestinian father of a five-year-old boy who died on the bus in 2012.
“How does one promote a program on this subject to a largely Jewish audience when people on all sides are being bombed, killed and buried? The community is deeply polarized,” Grossman told the Guardian.
Thrall, who lives in Jerusalem, called the cancellations “outrageous.”
“There’s an atmosphere that is wholly intolerant of any expression of sympathy for Palestinians living under occupation, any discussion of the root causes of the conflict,” he told the Guardian. “My book is not a polemic. It’s been praised for showing characters, both Jewish and Palestinian, in an empathetic way.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen speaks at the PEN/Hemingway 2019 Award Ceremony at The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library And Museum on April 7, 2019 in Boston. (Paul Marotta/Getty Images)
Questions of “polarization” and “sensitivity” also seemed to be on the mind of the organizers of the Frankfurt Book Fair, a major global publishing gathering held last week in Germany. Hundreds of authors and literary professionals objected last week after organizers announced that, owing to “the war started by Hamas,” they would no longer host a prize ceremony for Palestinian author Adania Shibli.
In a statement last week, the fair’s prize affiliate, Litprom, said that it would not hold the ceremony at the Frankfurt fair as planned, “due to the war started by Hamas, under which millions of people in Israel and Palestine are suffering.” Organizers said they planned to hold the event in “a suitable format and setting” at “a later point,” and that they still intended to give it to Shibli, whose novel “Minor Detail,” released in English in 2020, recounts the 1949 gang-rape of a Bedouin Palestinian girl by Israeli soldiers.
Shibli’s English-language publisher called the decision “cowardly” and accused the fair of lying about the author’s willingness to agree to the plan.
The cancellation happened only days after the fair’s organizers had vowed on Instagram to “make Jewish and Israeli voices especially visible at the book fair.” Hundreds of authors and publishing industry professionals charged in a letter that organizers had made an inappropriate judgment in “closing out the space for a Palestinian voice.”
Among the signatories were the Man Booker Prize finalist Sarah Bernstein, who is Jewish, and the Polish Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk, whose most recent novel “The Books Of Jacob” is a deep dive into Jewish history.
PEN America, the literary and free speech nonprofit, weighed in on the Nguyen and Thrall controversies in a statement also noting “events canceled or postponed due to security concerns, including Jewish cultural events in Sweden; an exhibition of Hebrew manuscripts in Australia; and The Witness Palestine 2023 Festival in Rochester, New York.”
PEN was founded, its statement said, “on the idea that writers could play a role in preventing future wars; that when governments are locked in conflict, writers and literature can provide comfort, a bridge to empathy across divides, even a roadmap toward the faraway horizon of understanding. At a moment of great anguish, we urge the literary community to double down on that essential potential.”
The 92NY in particular has sought to operate as both a major nonsectarian cultural institution and an organization proud of its roots in the Jewish community. Formerly known as the 92nd Street Y, the institution recently rebranded itself to emphasize its outsized role in the general New York City cultural community, while also making some hires and programming moves to make its Jewish connections more explicit.
“92NY is a Jewish institution that has always welcomed people with diverse viewpoints to our stage,” 92NY said in a statement. “The brutal October 7th attack by Hamas on Israel and the continued holding of hostages, including senior citizens and young children, has absolutely devastated the community. As a Jewish organization we believe the responsible course of action right now is to take some time to determine how best to use our platform and support the entire 92NY community, so we made the difficult decision to postpone the October 20th event.”
But while its leadership seemed to want to put the Nyugen’s event on hold until it could figure out how to orient itself in the wake of Hamas’ attacks, some writers who pulled out of events there saw darker motives. The critic Andrea Long Chu called the group a “pro-war nonprofit.”
“I have no regrets about anything I have said or done in regards to Palestine, Israel, or the occupation and war,” he wrote on Instagram.
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The post 92NY implodes over cancellation of Israel-critical author event appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Antisemitic Incidents at Argentina Local Soccer Match Spark Official Investigations, Condemnations
Fans of Argentinian soccer club All Boys marched through the streets before their match against Atlanta soccer club, carrying a coffin draped with an Israeli flag alongside Iranian and Palestinian flags. Photo: Screenshot
Argentinian authorities and soccer officials have launched investigations following antisemitic incidents by Club Atlético All Boys fans during Sunday’s local match against Atlanta.
Atlanta, a soccer team based in the Villa Crespo neighborhood of Buenos Aires, has deep historical ties to Argentina’s Jewish community, which has long been a significant presence in the area.
This latest antisemitic incident took place outside the stadium before the game had even started.
All Boys fans were seen waving Palestinian and Iranian flags, carrying a coffin draped with an Israeli flag, and handing out flyers bearing messages like “Free Palestine” and “Israel and Atlanta are the same crap.”
Before a football match today against the Argentine sports club Atlanta, which is closely associated with the Jewish community, fans of the opposing team, All Boys, waved Islamic Republic and Palestinian flags while parading a coffin draped in an Israeli flag through the streets.… pic.twitter.com/IQs4v6eoFz
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) June 29, 2025
Then, during the match — which ended in a 0-0 draw — a drone carrying a Palestinian flag flew over the stadium, while some fans reportedly chanted anti-Israel slogans.
Local police confirmed they have issued citations to individuals accused of inciting public disorder and related offenses.
On Monday, the Argentine Football Association (AFA) condemned the incidents as “abhorrent” and confirmed the organization has opened a formal inquiry into the events.
“This is not folklore. This is discrimination,” the statement reads.
Argentina’s Security Minister Patricia Bullrich also announced that a criminal complaint has been filed, citing “acts of violence, expressions of racial and religious hatred, and public intimidation.”
In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, condemned the incidents and called on both local authorities and the soccer officials to “take firm action against these acts of hatred.”
“We urge the authorities to take all necessary actions and apply the full force of the law,” the statement reads. “Violence and discrimination must have no place in our society.”
Repudiamos enérgicamente las expresiones antisemitas ocurridas hoy en las inmediaciones del estadio Malvinas Argentinas.
Exigimos a las autoridades correspondientes, a la AFA y al Club All Boys que actúen con firmeza ante estos hechos de odio.
La violencia y la discriminación no… pic.twitter.com/3AmY7IQscY— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) June 29, 2025
Since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Argentina has experienced a surge in antisemitic incidents and anti-Jewish hate crimes.
According to a recent report by DAIA, Argentina experienced a 15 percent increase in antisemitic activity last year, with 687 anti-Jewish hate crimes recorded — up from 598 incidents in 2023 — marking a significant rise nationwide.
The study indicates that 66 percent of the antisemitic incidents originated in the digital realm, with a significant rise in Nazi symbols and conspiracy theories, but there was also a 34 percent increase in reported physical assaults, with such hate crimes rising in schools and neighborhoods.
The post Antisemitic Incidents at Argentina Local Soccer Match Spark Official Investigations, Condemnations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iranian nuclear program degraded by up to two years, Pentagon says
A satellite image of Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility. Photo: File.
The Pentagon said on Wednesday that US strikes 10 days ago had degraded Iran’s nuclear program by up to two years, suggesting the U.S. military operation likely achieved its goals despite a far more cautious initial assessment that leaked to the public.
Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, offered the figure at a briefing to reporters, adding that the official estimate was “probably closer to two years.” Parnell did not provide evidence to back up his assessment.
“We have degraded their program by one to two years, at least intel assessments inside the Department [of Defense] assess that,” Parnell told a news briefing.
U.S. military bombers carried out strikes against three Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22 using more than a dozen 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs and more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles.
The evolving U.S. intelligence about the impact of the strikes is being closely watched, after President Donald Trump said almost immediately after they took place that Iran’s program had been obliterated, language echoed by Parnell at Wednesday’s briefing.
Such conclusions often take the U.S. intelligence community weeks or more to determine.
“All of the intelligence that we’ve seen [has] led us to believe that Iran’s — those facilities especially, have been completely obliterated,” Parnell said.
Over the weekend, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, said that Iran could be producing enriched uranium in a few months, raising doubts about how effective US strikes to destroy Tehran’s nuclear program have been.
Several experts have also cautioned that Iran likely moved a stockpile of near weapons-grade highly enriched uranium out of the deeply buried Fordow site before the strikes and could be hiding it.
But US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last week he was unaware of intelligence suggesting Iran had moved its highly enriched uranium to shield it from US strikes.
A preliminary assessment last week from the Defense Intelligence Agency suggested that the strikes may have only set back Iran’s nuclear program by months. But Trump administration officials said that assessment was low confidence and had been overtaken by intelligence showing Iran’s nuclear program was severely damaged.
According to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, the strikes on the Fordow nuclear site caused severe damage.
“No one exactly knows what has transpired in Fordow. That being said, what we know so far is that the facilities have been seriously and heavily damaged,” Araqchi said in the interview broadcast by CBS News on Tuesday.
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Switzerland Moves to Close Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s Geneva Office Over Legal Irregularities
Palestinians carry aid supplies received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
Switzerland has moved to shut down the Geneva office of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US- and Israeli-backed aid group, citing legal irregularities in its establishment.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza in late May, implementing a new aid delivery model aimed at preventing the diversion of supplies by Hamas, as Israel continues its defensive military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group.
The initiative has drawn criticism from the UN and international organizations, some of which have claimed that Jerusalem is causing starvation in the war-torn enclave.
Israel has vehemently denied such accusations, noting that, until its recently imposed blockade, it had provided significant humanitarian aid in the enclave throughout the war.
Israeli officials have also said much of the aid that flows into Gaza is stolen by Hamas, which uses it for terrorist operations and sells the rest at high prices to Gazan civilians.
With a subsidiary registered in Geneva, the GHF — headquartered in Delaware — reports having delivered over 56 million meals to Palestinians in just one month.
According to a regulatory announcement published Wednesday in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce, the Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations (ESA) may order the dissolution of the GHF if no creditors come forward within the legal 30-day period.
The Trump administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Swiss decision to shut down its Geneva office.
“The GHF confirmed to the ESA that it had never carried out activities in Switzerland … and that it intends to dissolve the Geneva-registered branch,” the ESA said in a statement.
Last week, Geneva authorities gave the GHF a 30-day deadline to address legal shortcomings or risk facing enforcement measures.
Under local laws and regulations, the foundation failed to meet several requirements: it did not appoint a board member authorized to sign documents domiciled in Switzerland, did not have the minimum three board members, lacked a Swiss bank account and valid address, and operated without an auditing body.
The GHF operates independently from UN-backed mechanisms, which Hamas has sought to reinstate, arguing that these vehicles are more neutral.
Israeli and American officials have rejected those calls, saying Hamas previously exploited UN-run systems to siphon aid for its war effort.
The UN has denied those allegations while expressing concerns that the GHF’s approach forces civilians to risk their safety by traveling long distances across active conflict zones to reach food distribution points.
The post Switzerland Moves to Close Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s Geneva Office Over Legal Irregularities first appeared on Algemeiner.com.