This article was co-published with LA Public Press, an independent, non-profit newsroom whose journalism interrogates systems of power, while supporting those trying to build more equitable and resilient communities.
Three weeks before the Los Angeles Public Library was scheduled to host a Palestine-focused author talk, a staff librarian wrote to administrators to say the two invited guest speakers had “strong terrorist ties” and “virulently antisemitic views.” She also accused the librarians hosting the event of having “deeply antisemitic views” and showing “racist behavior to me and others in our Heritage group.”
The event was canceled three days later.
In her email, a copy of which was included in a batch of internal library emails obtained by LA Public Press under a California Public Records Act request, the librarian included links about the guests, Palestinian writer Jenan Matari and Jewish American writer Nora Lester Murad, calling them evidence of their “anti-Jewish hate.”