Staffer tells Jewish author that rabbi not allowed to speak at event, because the bookstore “does not want a Zionist on stage.”
By World Israel News Staff
An independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York, abruptly cancelled the launch party for a book focused on American Jewry after a staff member learned that a rabbi speaking at the event had pro-Israel, Zionist views.
Journalist Joshua Leifer was set to debut his new book Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life last Wednesday evening at PowerHouse Books. That event also included a discussion with Rabbi Andy Bachman, a local Jewish community leader.
But, Leifer wrote on social media platform X, the bookstore informed him less than an hour before the event was slated to begin that Bachman was banned from participating in the event due to his stance on Israel.
In a discussion with a staffer recorded by Leifer, the bookstore employee is heard saying that Bachman “is a Zionist, and we don’t want a Zionist onstage.”
“There’s a certain irony to this, because Andy is one of the most progressive rabbis in the United States,” Leifer told the New York Times.
Bachman told the Times that he was surprised by the bookstore’s aggressive stance towards him, as he is in favor of a two-state solution and identifies as being left-wing.
“My Zionism demands that we also recognize Palestinian claims on a national homeland. I believe in sharing the land. Full stop. Period. But the only acceptable Jew in this movement is the Jew who does not believe that Israel should exist.”
In a conversation with the Jewish Chronicle, the proprietor of the store, Daniel Power, claimed that a “sub-staffer” was at fault for the incident.
Power claimed that an unnamed female employee, who was filling in for the regular event coordinator, had “expressed reservations of some sort” regarding “Zionists” speaking at the event.
But, Powers claimed, the decision to cancel the event came from the publicist in charge of the event.
The employee’s “assertion is that the questioning of choice of moderator caused the publicist, not us, to cancel the event on very short notice,” Power told the JC.
“I am independently trying to ascertain this from the Penguin Random House publicist.”
Powers did not acknowledge the video recording in which the staffer is heard explicitly telling Leifer that the cancellation is because the store did not want to platform a “Zionist.”