Irish author Sally Rooney refuses to allow her most recent novel to be published in Hebrew. She recently clarified that her refusal was not based on antipathy to the Hebrew language, but rather on her antipathy to the Jewish people who speak it in the world’s only Jewish state. Not surprising, as Ms. Rooney is a devoted follower of BDS, a neo-Nazi cult described as such by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron. She’s also a self-described “Marxist.”

 The controversy was the subject of a recent article in The forward, America’s leading Jewish newspaper.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE FROM FORWARD

Sally Rooney is not a particularly good writer. She’s been dubbed “the first millennial writer,” a way of messaging that her work is not universal. Her ratings on Goodreads, the “gold standard” for reader reviews,  are well below 4 stars. (Both of my novels did far better than not, and I’ll happily agree to have them translated into Hebrew or any other language.) She is however, a fairly transparent racist, who singles out Israel for discrimination, but happily allows her work to be translated into Chinese, Russian and Arabic.

As a writer, perpetually seeking new readers, I find it odd and disturbing that a fellow author excludes readers on the basis of religion or nationality. It shows how hatred, racism  and antisemitism can twist all minds, including those of artists. Racist writers are nothing new: Pound, Celine and Eliot were known antisemites, Rudyard Kipling was a colonialist racist, and American literature is filled with racist portrayals of minorities. I hoped we were past that point, but people like Ms. Rooney remind me that’s not the case. 

I am against all cultural boycotts, even from countries whose governments I despise. So long as the art is not racist or promoting values all decent people ought to reject, I say bring it on, let the people be the judges. I certainly don’t want anyone boycotting Rooney or anyone else on purely political grounds. A personal example: I loathe Roger Waters, see him as an unreconstructed neo-Nazi antisemite, but I still listen to Pink Floyd music. I can’t hold his bigotry against the rest of the band or the music itself, which was free from Waters’ hatred.

Sally Rooney is by no means a “bad” writer. Some critics have protested  she is overly romantic and drifts into erotica instead of creativity. I tried getting through one of her books, and that’s how I felt, but that’s a question of taste, not talent. These criticisms must rankle Ms. Rooney. I say this because the  September 21, 2021issue of The Atlantic contained an article arguing that not only was her work overly romantic, but even more offensive, it was not political, a horrific insult to a “Marxist.” Days afterward, Ms. Rooney unleashed her antisemitic tirades against Israel, believing we were all idiots and her use of  “Hebrew” fooled us. 

We may never know precisely what  motivates Ms. Rooney to single out Jews and urge the world to shun us. Whatever the reason, it’s racist, stupid, and counterproductive for artists to withhold their work because they don’t like someone’s religion or ethnicity.  In Rooney’s case, it was  a cheap publicity stunt from an author who really isn’t living up to her hype and is looking for another avenue for fame and fortune.