New Yorker writer’s ‘political thought’ award suspended after German sponsors pull out over essay comparing Gaza to Nazi-era Jewish ghettos
NY Post
A New Yorker writer who was set to receive a “political thought” award had their ceremony suspended when its German sponsors withdrew following their essay comparing Gaza to Nazi-era Jewish ghettos.
Masha Gessen, who is Jewish, was due to receive the Hannah Arendt Prize Friday, but it was suspended until Saturday after the Heinrich Böll Foundation, criticized their latest New Yorker piece.
Gessen, who goes by they/them pronouns, published a piece titled “In the Shadow of the Holocaust” last Friday, which struck a chord with the foundation, particularly a passage where the writer compared the situation in Gaza to the “Jewish ghettos of Occupied Europe.”
The well-known magazine writer, 56, whose grandfather died in the Holocaust, wrote that the ghettos had “no prison guards” before saying that “Gaza is policed not by the occupiers, but by a local force.”
The Heinrich Böll Foundation highlighted that passage when it released a statement announcing that it would be withdrawing from the ceremony, and was “in agreement with the Bremen Senate,” where the ceremony was set to take place in Germany.
The organization accused the Russian-American writer of implying that “Israel aims to liquidate Gaza like a Nazi ghetto.”
