Corie Adjmi: What It Feels Like to Be a Jewish Reader and Writer Now

Adjmi is one of 75 contributors to the new essay collection On Being Jewish Now.

Last week, I walked into a bookstore in my neighborhood on the Upper East Side of New York City and asked the woman behind the counter if they carried the new anthology, On Being Jewish Now. It was the first time in my life I felt fear in a bookstore. Maybe it wasn’t exactly fear I was feeling, but it was an unfamiliar and uncomfortable emotion. Was the woman behind the desk biased, would she judge me, sneer, get violent? As all of these scenarios ran through my mind, I looked down, checking to see if my Chai (“life” in Hebrew) necklace was visible.

For the last 25 years, bookstores have been my classroom. I learned from the best. Jennifer Egan gave me the idea to link my short stories. Nathan Englander taught me how to write about Jewish themes using humor. Tom Perrotta instructed me on characterization and tone. Elizabeth Strout modeled beautiful prose. And Lorrie Moore demonstrated how to plot, build tension, and keep readers turning pages.

Bookstores were my teacher, my go-to spot when I wanted to better understand the Black Lives Matter movement. I read Roxane Gay, Ernest J. Gaines, and Brittney Cooper. I bought and devoured Americanah, The Vanishing Half, Luster, Accountable, The Hate You Give, An American Marriage, and more. Support and empathy felt vital.

Forever bookstores have been my safe space, and—without meaning to sound overdramatic— heavenly. I felt like I was a part of something, a world of enlightenment, words and ideas, and that I belonged. Just walking into a bookstore made me happy, my senses roused. The sight of magnificent book cover art, the feel of flipping pages, the smell of knowledge, and the sounding promise of adventure, awe, and curiosity. Bookstores were all light.

But so much has changed since October 7, 2023. People and places I felt kinship with feel foreign and adversarial. Looking around most bookstores these days, I see books by blatant antisemites. Sally Rooney comes to mind. Her books are prominently displayed in bookstore windows, stacked on tables, and face out on shelves. Years ago, Sally decided to boycott Israel and not allow her books to be published there. And recently, she gathered 1,000 authors and writing professionals to sign a letter shunning Israeli cultural institutions. Her discriminatory actions feel excluding and aggressive.

Over the last few weeks, The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates has also been prominently displayed in bookstores throughout the city. Coates spent a mere 10 days in Israel before writing this book, so I’m not sure what makes him think he’s qualified to report on the subject of Jews, Jewish history, or the land of Israel. His book presents a one-sided, agenda-driven point of view, and Coates lies by omission. Over these last few weeks, dejected and irritated, I’ve left more than one bookstore without purchasing anything.

For months, antisemitism in the literary world has been mounting. At an upcoming book festival in Albany, two authors (Lisa Ko and Aisha Abdel Gawad) refused to sit on a “Coming of Age” panel with a moderator who was a “Zionist.” The panel was canceled.

An audiobook narrator, Zachary Webber, went off on Instagram, wildly stating that Zionists “should kill themselves.” I’ve seen no backlash.

People on Goodreads have book-bombed Jewish authors, giving them one-star reviews, and someone circulated a post, listing names, entitled Is Your Fav Author a Zionist?

At a library, there was a table of books by Palestinian authors, their stories there for the taking. Where were the curated and displayed Jewish books and voices? There were none.

In the dedication of my novel, The Marriage Box, I write that stories enlighten. They inform and cultivate empathy. But what I never realized, or paid much attention to, was that they could do the opposite. If weaponized, stories could spread lies and propagate misinformation. They could divide. I’ve become aware of the power of words in a way I never was before. What if Jewish voices got boxed out altogether? What if our stories didn’t get told? If Sally Rooney got her way, pro-Israel authors, artists, literary agents, and publishers, and those who support them, would be off-limits. Everything feels hostile.

The songs of my childhood were focused on love: “Love Will Keep Us Together,” “All You Need is Love,” “Love is in the Air.” Today hate is the new “it” word. This is not to say everything was perfect when I was young. But shooting high, aiming for love, as opposed to embracing hate, was a sensible, cultural goal. We need that back again.

On Being Jewish Now is an anthology of 75 essays by Jewish writers edited by Zibby Owens, and the proceeds go to Artists Against Antisemitism. I’m proud to be a contributor to this USA Today bestseller as this book is a heartfelt, poignant, and powerful collection. It’s a profound and loving way for Jewish authors and artists to be seen and heard, a wish for understanding and empathy. Inside you’ll find stories of love, tradition, hardship, perseverance, strength, and unity. Jewish stories matter. And regardless of what goes down in the literary world, Jewish writers and artists will find a way. We will not be silenced.

There is no room for fear in a bookstore, so on that day last week, I took a deep breath and reminded myself to stand tall and not worry about whether this bookseller was biased or not, and I followed her to the shelf where On Being Jewish Now rested. It was in the back, not prominently displayed. But it was there. I bought the book and visited two other bookstores that day, purchasing copies from those bookshops too. I plan to give them as gifts—hoping for transformation and praying for love.

This is what it feels like to be Jewish now.

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Corie Adjmi grew up with an “all-American lifestyle” in New Orleans before her family moved to an orthodox Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn when she was 16. The culture shock she experienced was the basis for her novel The Marriage Box (2022). She is also the author of the short story collection Life and Other Shortcomings. Her books have won a number of awards, and The Jewish Chronicle included The Marriage Box on a list of Best Jewish Books. Corie’s essays and short stories have appeared in dozens of journals and magazines, including HuffPost, Newsweek, North American Review, Indiana Review, Medium, Motherwell and Kveller. Corie is also the executive producer of the films A Photographic Memory (2024) and Horsegirls (2025). She and her husband have five children and a number of grandchildren. She lives and works in New York City.