J Street, your spanking new Pro-Israel political action committee, asked poets Josh Healey and Kevin Coval to perform at its first national conference. But when a few right-wingers scanned Healey’s work and found some lines sympathetic to Palestinians, the jig was up. They’re now about as welcome as evolutionists in a small Texan town. And according to Healy and Coval, J Street fully admits caving to reactionary pressure. “The executive director called us to say ‘I know what I’m doing is wrong . . . but there are some battles we choose not to fight,’ before cancelling our program, and disinviting us,” Coval writes.
Aren’t we, like, supposed to argue, discuss and have conflicting ideas? And isn’t that the whole point of a conference? Of Jews in general? And for God’s sake, look at that dirty hippie! Didn’t they think he might be just a tad left-wing? You really expect a conservative, non-challenging point of view from the author of “Queer Intifada“?
I think comparing Auschwitz to Guantanamo is neither ‘thoughtful’ not clever…such a line, apart from being laughably inaccurate, was hardly likely to win him any fans on either side of the debate regarding Israel/Palestine within the Jewish community.
this is nice article. i like it,after read people must be try think about this,thanks for this article.
I agree with you Puck. It’s not at all thoughtful, but it was the same “not at all thoughtful” before the controversy blew up that it was after the controversy blew up. The question isn’t whether this poetry is interesting or salacious or counter-produc
True, but I think this is more than a ‘left/right’ issue…let’s be honest, if you’re a poet and you’re not Maya Angelou…you essentially toil in obscurity. It’s entirely likely at the time of booking the majority of sponsors or attendees or whoever wer
I’m no expert on poetry so I’ll leave the lit crit to you guys, but I will say without hesitation that J-Street are a bunch of pussies for yanking them at the last minute.
I think it’s both reasonable and appropriate for a Jewish/Israeli lobby group to ditch someone who has publicly minimized the Holocaust…their only faux pas was ever putting him on the schedule in the first place (though having since read his poetry, I c
*sigh*
We just don’t have the raging debates that we used to on here…I’m considering developing an alternate personality to argue with.
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