JTA — Jewish author Peter Beinart, a leading American progressive critic of Israel, has won the 2026 PEN America Literary Award for nonfiction for his latest book, “Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning.”
Beinart, who opposes Jewish statehood and supports the replacement of Israel with a single Israeli-Palestinian state, is the editor-at-large of the leftist Jewish Currents magazine and a professor at CUNY’s Newmark School of Journalism. His book offers a harsh critique of the American Jewish community’s relationship with Israel and response to the war in Gaza, which he has called a genocide.
“This book is about the stories Jews tell ourselves that blind us to Palestinian suffering,” Beinart wrote in a Substack post announcing the book’s release in September 2024. “It’s about how we came to value a state, Israel, above the lives of all the people who live under its control. And it’s about why I believe that Palestinian liberation means Jewish liberation as well.”
In a statement, the judges of the PEN America award said the book “offers a model for writing a new story when inherited narratives no longer hold.”
The award offered the latest evidence of a shift for PEN America when it comes to Israel, which has polarized the literary and cultural world in recent years.
Founded in 1922, PEN America is a writers’ and free-expression advocacy group that defends the rights of authors and opposes censorship. The group has long opposed cultural boycotts of Israel, including in a December 2023 letter calling on art institutions “not to police speech nor deprive audiences of artists’ work,” earning it increasing ire from progressives. The group’s CEO left amid tensions in 2024, and last year it published a report accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.
Two new leaders were named in February, and they almost immediately ran into challenges, coming under fire for defending an Israeli comedian, Guy Hochman, who had performances canceled in Canada. The group took the unusual step of rescinding its defense of Hochman.
The award to Beinart offers a signal that the group is supportive of his brand of Israel criticism. Beinart, once the editor of the center-left New Republic magazine, was a longtime outspoken advocate for the two-state solution before ending his support for Jewish statehood in 2020.
Beinart has also faced some of the free-speech challenges that are PEN America’s raison d’etre. Last year, appearances to promote his book in Israel drew calls for cancellation from both voices on the right, who believe his positions cross at times into antisemitism, and from left-wing allies who said he should commit to boycotting Israel.
Beinart apologized to his left-wing critics for speaking in Tel Aviv. He has said he is a supporter of “many forms” of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against the country, known as BDS.
Recipients of the PEN/Galbraith Award for Nonfiction, which includes a $10,000 prize, must have published a book in the last calendar year that possesses “notable literary merit and critical perspective that illuminates important contemporary issues,” according to the PEN America website.
Beinart’s award is the latest example of a book sharply critical of the West’s response to the war in Gaza gaining major literary recognition, following a similar nonfiction winner at the National Book Awards in November.
The announcement of Beinart’s selection for the prestigious award comes as the war in Gaza has reverberated across the literary world, sparking protests against some pro-Israel writers and debate among Jewish writers and institutions over the best way to respond.
Earlier this month, dozens of anti-Zionist and non-Zionist Jewish authors lit into the Jewish Book Council for having a “bias toward centering Israeli and Zionist voices.”
In recent years, the PEN America award has been given to “In The Shadow of Liberty” by Ana Raquel Minian, which documents the history of immigrant detention in the United States, and “The Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa’s Racial Reckoning,” by Eve Fairbanks.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Source:
www.timesofisrael.com
