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........

© The Times of Israel