If you come across anyone who starts off with "Scientists don't want you to know..." you need to understand that they're lying. They're completely full of shit and working a grift.
Because they've never met or spoke with a scientist.
Scientists WANT YOU TO KNOW. Scientists want you to know SO MUCH. Scientists would be THRILLED to teach you EVERYTHING they know in EXPLICIT DETAIL. Scientists LOVE to share information and their findings and their theories. They don't want to hide anything, ever. They are SO HAPPY to share.
i think one of the worst things the left wing internet ever did was push the idea that oppression is basically a virtue, and being oppressed is a sign of your morality. it has made it like…impossible for some of you to hold the idea that most people are privileged in some ways and oppressed in others. AND a lot of you seem to have it in your mind that terrible people cannot be oppressed, and that oppressed people cannot do terrible things, which is a dangerous rhetoric to hold imo.
When best-selling author Meg Keene tried to pitch her latest novel, she was told—outright, by multiple people in the industry—that her book
When best-selling author Meg Keene tried to pitch her latest novel, she was told—outright, by multiple people in the industry—that her book wouldn’t sell. Not because it was too controversial, or violent, or suggestive, but because Keene herself is openly Zionist, and her book included authentic, lived-in Jewish and Israeli references and personalities.
Keene isn’t the only one facing this. In the last two years, mainstream book publishers have barely released any Jewish fiction—and the only Jewish fiction that does make it through tends to be anti-Zionist or hyper-progressive. It’s left Jewish authors in a difficult spot, having to choose sides or be ostricized from their audiences and peers.
On this week’s episode of The Jewish Angle, host Phoebe Maltz Bovy speaks with Keene about the pressures facing Jewish authors today, from editorial demands to erase cultural specificity to an industry climate shaped by fear of backlash and organized boycotts. Keene worries about the future of Jewish literature and doesn’t see the trends reversing any time soon, which would result in a literary ecosystem where Jewish stories are not just harder to tell, but in many cases, disappearing altogether.
[…] Phoebe Maltz Bovy: So there’s a post you wrote recently on your Substack called “Away Everything But Truth,” which I thought was great and also just a good kind of basis for our conversation today. And in it, you describe the Tree of Life massacre as having been a big turning point for you. So several years before October 7th, what did you experience? So you had been—what had been your sort of role in the world, and how did it change at that time for you?
Meg Keene: Yeah, so in the 2010s, I was a really major blogger. My niche was weddings and marriages. But lest we forget what that era was like, I mean, I was regularly recognized on the street. My husband was recognized on the street, that level of well-known. And I had two books, the second edition of my first book. And I had always been very public about being Jewish. So I started that blog in 2008. So Tree of Life was 2018, so it was 10 years later. And I had always, you know, talked about my Jewish wedding, right? So I’d always been public about it, but I’d never been particularly political about it. Not because I wasn’t political about other things, I was, but it just, you know, in that era, if we can remember, because it feels like a different universe, being Jewish wasn’t a particularly political identity.
Phoebe Maltz Bovy: If I could just jump in—when you say you were political on other issues, were you sort of like left, right, centre?
Meg Keene: I was left. I have always been left. Now I think, like many Jews, I don’t feel like I can strongly say exactly where I stand. I mean, I know where I stand. I just don’t know if it lines up with any group that isn’t Jews. But I was very active as a weddings and marriage blogger in sort of the gay rights wedding movement. I took the idea of winning hearts and minds very, very seriously. And so I did a lot of work around not just pushing the issue through, but really engaging with people, even one-on-one in the comments. And I was a feminist blogger before it became huge, sort of before the Lindy West moment. I remember talking to my staff about suddenly feminism being this buzzword instead of being this gross, disgusting thing. So I’d been really forward with my politics and had, I think what’s critical to this, sort of cut my teeth on this idea of winning hearts and minds. And online, I was often more graceful than in person. I embraced choice feminism in a way that maybe, behind the scenes, I was like, actually, maybe don’t change your name just because your husband wants to.
Phoebe Maltz Bovy: Mm-hmm. So then what ended up shifting?
Meg Keene: So then what happened is the Tree of Life massacre happened. We remember Charlottesville had been the summer before, right? And Charlottesville, the progressive world had really reacted completely excluding Jews from the conversation, even though they were chanting Nazi slogans and “Jews will not replace us.” And I had felt stifled, like I couldn’t say anything. And then when the Tree of Life massacre happened, people were like, well, as the left, as progressives, Jews know that they’re loved and valued members of this community. And that’s when I started speaking out, I think the Monday after, and saying actually we don’t feel like that, and actually the progressive world has a lot of work to do. And a lot of Jews weren’t speaking out. A lot of Jews who had built their career in part on the backs of their Jewish identity were not even talking about being Jewish that day. And literally that day, everything changed. Some of now my very best friends in the world are people that I met in that moment. I think that’s really when Jewish Instagram was born. I don’t know about other parts of the Jewish internet, but a lot of the big names now, many of whom are friends of mine, were suddenly speaking out on Jewish issues. And so that was a pivot point for me.
Phoebe Maltz Bovy: It’s interesting because I think there was this kind of—what I sort of saw, although I guess I would have thought of this as more October 7th being—I mean, I guess it was a bigger rupture where you could be Jewish and, for lack of a better term, woke until—without there being any kind of tension there, to a point. I mean, I think there was—and this is what I want to, this is actually what my next question is going to be about—these kinds of underlying tensions all along, where a lot of that which was condemned as problematic sort of lined up with Jews even before Israel or Zionism entered into it. And I’m thinking specifically of what you wrote about the girlboss downfalls and how you described sort of avoiding having one yourself by stepping away.
[…] Meg Keene: I’m no longer the boss of anyone. I’m happily no longer the boss of anyone. But yeah, it’s funny when you said that, I was like, can I even say that I’m a fiction writer? Because I do not have a book deal. I wrote a very Jewish romance in 2024. After October 7th, like all of us, I was catatonic emotionally. I was trying to get through the day. I think the outside world sometimes forgets how bad it was, the details of the atrocities. I was trying to feed my kids, and then I would lock myself in the bathroom. And once I got out of being catatonic, I sat down and wrote this book. I wrote it in seven days. I had it edited within six weeks and sent it out to agents. I had multiple offering agents. It was a wild ride. And then when the book went out on submission, it died.
Phoebe Maltz Bovy: Did you learn at all why?
Meg Keene: Well, you see the notes. And none of us can say too much, or we’re going to light our careers on fire. But one agent I talked to, who I really respect, told me, I love this book, I don’t know if it can sell in this environment. She said to have a chance, we would need to strip everything Jewish out of it. All of it. Hebrew slang, Israeli references. The best friend character was named Yael, and she said we cannot sell a book with a character named Yael, we need to rename her, like Sue. And I didn’t do those things, and the book didn’t sell.
Phoebe Maltz Bovy: From my perspective reviewing books, there just aren’t many new Jewish books. There are some anti-Zionist ones, and many about Palestine, but very few Jewish books overall.
Meg Keene: In the U.S., it’s even more stark. I was in a bookstore with my husband, and there was a full wall about why Israel is the worst country in the world. And in May, Jewish American Heritage Month, there’s nothing. No displays.
Phoebe Maltz Bovy: There was also an open letter about the Jewish Book Council.
Meg Keene: Yes, it was from anti-Zionist or non-Zionist Jews saying the council was biased toward Zionist authors. But most Jews are Zionists in some sense. And some of those authors have been recognized by the council. Meanwhile, Israeli authors can’t even get agents. Any book set in Israel is basically an automatic no.
Phoebe Maltz Bovy: Do you think it’s going to get better?
Meg Keene: I think we’re looking at a longer-term problem. There are agents who openly say they don’t work with Zionists. There was also a blacklist circulating. The bigger issue is coordinated boycotts. For publishers, it’s not just whether a book will sell—it’s whether taking it on creates problems for the whole company. Established authors will be fine, but newer ones face a much harder path. I think nonfiction may still be more viable, but fiction—especially anything explicitly Jewish—is a tougher sell right now.
i have a completely normal coworker who does music and stuff and its good music and i want to send my army of followers to his video on yt and just +like it or something. something to boost him in the algorithm
the issue is no one can let him know this second life i live on the internet because if he finds out i have 25k followers on tumblr or 10k on twitter etc then the questions will flow and i will not be prepared for the conversation about werewolves that follows
Just enjoy the music yall. Its honestly really good if you like some classic sounding R&B. The man's voice reminds me of usher to some extent with a little more gravel. Its honestly just sex. Its really really good and he only have 114 subs and the video only has like 90ish likes or something. Honestly its sad. He sounds amazing.
I really wish goyim would stop gaslighting us about our own history. "Jewish people have never had a specific homeland" is unequivocally false, and yet I have seen someone making this claim today. Judaism is a land-based tradition, and, this is very important, Jews are not, and have never been, nomads.
reading about jewish history is depressing bc it’s like this endless cycle of, “we were doing okay for a bit and even managed to partially integrate, but the political climate changed and we’re once again heavily persecuted if not outright murdered. ce la vie!”
i want gentiles to understand that Diaspora jews are getting squirrely rn bc we’ve been through this before and we can Tell the current period of relative acceptance is ending and we’re in for some shit.
What is bioessentialism: all women are maternal, submissive, feminine, friendly, innocent, naive, weak, timid, like pink, have long hair, wear heels, enjoy chick flick movies, like sanrio, identify with female characters in media, are straight, short, curvy, etc
What is NOT: women are biologically female. Woman means adult human female and that includes but is not limited to the range of female conditions that might impact reproductive function.
Women with conditions that make them infertile are not less female or more masculine because of it. Their condition is part of the female experience.
"vast harm to diaspora jews is being caused by israel" no actually its being caused by antisemites. its caused by the regular ordinary people who decide to stab and shoot and beat and injure jews. its caused by regular people who decide to ram their cars into synagogues and set fire to jewish preschools. israel isnt boycotting jewish businesses and vandalizing them. israel isnt firebombing synagogues and throwing elderly jewish women off balconies. fuck you.
He was the most progressive and legislatively successful president since LBJ and the only reasons his reforms did not last were because 1) SCOTUS is 6-3 conservative because Hillary lost in 2016 and 2) Harris lost in 2024 and Trump immediately dismantled them
it really just comes down to the fact that these people do not see jewish identity as legitimate and they are committed to continuing to not see jewish identity as legitimate
If we're not willing to be Jesus and sacrifice ourselves for their good/edification/salvation/enlightenment/betterment, then the only other place they have for us in their belief system is as Judas--the betrayer, the thief, the the corrupter.
I never want to hear the horseshoe screaming that concern over antisemitism is Islamophobic when imams themselves dispute that and support our communities
