The New York Public Library hosted an event last week for an author who compared Israel to a “dog shelter” and faced no meaningful challenge to his views, according to a recording of the program.
Benjamin Moser appeared at the library’s main branch on 42nd Street on Sept. 22 to promote his book, “Anti-Zionism, a Jewish History.” During the event, held in the NYPL’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Moser claimed American Jews with no deep ties to Israel treat the country like an animal shelter that needs propping up.
“Israel was like a dog shelter … Isn’t it nice there’s a dog shelter?” Moser said.
Moser did not face a critical interviewer. The person he chose to question him was retired Columbia University history professor Rashid Khalidi, himself an anti-Zionist, who asked friendly questions and voiced agreement with much of what Moser said.
Moser, a Pulitzer Prize winner for his biography of Susan Sontag, accused Israel supporters of stoking hysteria with claims that America is unsafe for Jews, dismissing it as a “‘poor me’ thing” in which Jews complain about minor inconveniences “down Madison Avenue” while invoking the Nazi camp Treblinka.
“This is really stuff you see on social media every day,” Moser said.
Both Moser and Khalidi called Zionists “intellectual thugs” who try to silence criticism of the Israeli government and what they termed a “genocide” in Gaza. Moser said “the leadership of almost all of the main Jewish institutions” in America “have supported this genocide,” and argued that “nothing has made Jews look worse in history … than Zionism.” He said Israel was founded when Zionists ethnically cleansed native Palestinians and then instituted apartheid, and he called Theodor Herzl, the spiritual founder of Zionism, “weird.” The pair spent little time on Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack against Israel, focusing instead on Israel’s military response in Gaza.
Backlash Over Public Funding
Former Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind, founder of Americans Against Antisemitism, criticized the library for giving Moser a forum given its reliance on public subsidies.
“You have a right to free speech. But don’t use our taxpayer dollars to give this Jew hater a platform,” Hikind said.
City Council Speaker Julie Menin’s office said it has received complaints and is in contact with the library to learn more about the event.
The Library’s Response
NYPL spokesperson Melissa Grace defended the programming, saying the institution hosts speakers representing a range of viewpoints.
“The Library abides by an overarching principle to host speakers, programs, and public discussions that offer a diversity of viewpoints and cultural perspectives,” Grace said. “We host over 100,000 events a year. Programming is never an institutional endorsement, but rather an opportunity to let people come to their own conclusions, debate, or even change their minds. We do not police speech, which is consistent with our commitment to intellectual freedom and the protections of the First Amendment.”
Brent Reidy, director of research libraries at NYPL, opened the event by acknowledging that many people, at the library and beyond, hold “strong and differing feelings on Zionism, anti-Zionism and rising antisemitism and Islamophobia.”
“We hold complex and often difficult conversations,” Reidy said.
Moser was a fellow at the NYPL’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers last year.
The library has hosted a range of speakers on the topic in the past, including an event earlier this year on the life of Holocaust survivor Gary “Pips” Phillips, and a May event featuring two peace activists who each lost family members in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Last year the library hosted Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer to discuss his book “Antisemitism in America: A Warning,” and in 2020 it hosted David Remnick in conversation with former political prisoner and Israeli politician Natan Sharansky. The library also marks Jewish American Heritage Month annually with curated book lists.
