A large group of left-wing protesters in a suburb of Tel Aviv, Israel, attempted to intimidate American Jewish author Abigail Shrier during a book event Sunday — and an Israeli media outlet claimed she got what she deserved.
Shrier is the author of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters (2020), which critiques the phenomenon of transgenderism among teen girls, and has recently been translated into Hebrew.
Shrier book
As Breitbart News reported earlier this month, major Israeli book chains refused to stock the book, and left-wing groups pressured the original Tel Aviv venue to back out. A secondary venue was also pressured to cancel.
BEVERLY HILLS, CA – JULY 16: Abigail Shrier (L) and Zack Shrier attend the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra’s Lifetime Achievement Award Honor Of Hans Zimmer at The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on July 16, 2014 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Joe Kohen/Getty Images)
Ultimately, Shrier’s event was moved to a small venue in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan — whereupon the Israeli media, such as journalist Linda Dayan of the left-wing Ha’aretz daily, claimed the event was a failure.
Dayan’s “news” article about the book event was an outright endorsement of the activists’ attempt to censor free speech — an extraordinary stance for Ha’aretz, which styles itself as a defender of liberal values, to adopt:
When Sella Meir first announced the event – a talk with Shrier about the book, moderated by the publishing house’s lead editor, Leora Levian – it was slated for Tel Aviv’s ZOA House, but was soon relocated to Tel Aviv’s Social Space for unspecified reasons. The latter venue, which generally holds apolitical artistic events and community-building workshops, seemed an odd choice. It was. The managers canceled the event moments after learning of its content.
Sella Meir Publishing owner Rotem Sella promised to “work to hold the event at an alternative location,” which was quickly revealed to be Tel Aviv’s Carlton Hotel. But while Sella Meir was location-hopping, a group of teenage activists launched an initiative of their own: A Twitter account called “The Official Page for LGBTQ Terrorism” – a tongue-in-cheek nod to the Israeli far-right’s description of such activists – alerted the Carlton to the event’s content, and it promptly backed out.
As she celebrated these cancelations, Dayan scorned Shrier for the supposedly small turnout at the event, noting that attendees — including the author — had to wade through the angry crowd that gathered outside.
During the discussion, a protester rushed the stage, disrupting the book event and threatening Shrier’s physical safety before being removed from the venue. (Shrier, at right, was unharmed in the attempted attack.)
נער טרנס הצליח להסתנן לתוך ההשקה והתפרץ לדברי הסופרת “אנחנו לא מחלה״ ומיד נגרר על הרצפה החוצה. אחד הנוכחים בהשקה השיב לו ״אתה כן מחלה״. הנער חזר ״אנחנו לא מחלה, אנחנו אנשים שראויים שתהיה להם הזכות על הגוף שלהם״ pic.twitter.com/j62btnG9Sv
— סיון חילאי (@HilaieSivan) May 28, 2023
This is the moment when a rioter tried to physically assault Abigail Shrier at her book launch in Tel Aviv last night.
Look at the terror in Shrier’s eyes.
Her event was initially scheduled for last week. It was cancelled and moved because multiple venues in Tel Aviv bowed to… pic.twitter.com/p7LdbfdgOZ— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) May 30, 2023
Dayan also claimed — falsely — that Shrier’s claims about transgenderism as a social phenomenon have been “refuted” by physicians, and gave credence to the argument by activists that her work is dangerous to them.
Shrier subsequently published a Twitter thread explaining what had happened — and criticizing journalists like Dayan, whom she said had behaved in “totalitarian” fashion to create the illusion that her ideas were rejected:
HOW LEFTIST MEDIA LIES:
My book was published this week in Israel, a country 1/50th the population of the US, where Amazon has little presence. Bowing to LGBTQ+ activist pressure, the two largest book chains refused to carry the book, which made it hard to buy in Israel.
— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) May 30, 2023
Nonetheless, hundreds immediately registered (and paid) to attend my talk in Tel Aviv.
/2
— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) May 30, 2023
Next, PRIDE bullied two large venues in Tel Aviv to cancel my talk, threatening to boycott those venues for all of PRIDE month if they allowed me to speak.
/3
— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) May 30, 2023
The event was moved to a suburb of Tel Aviv, to a smaller venue, which only had room for 100. Over a hundred ticket holders had to be turned away.
/4
— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) May 30, 2023
The event was moved to a suburb of Tel Aviv, to a smaller venue, which only had room for 100. Over a hundred ticket holders had to be turned away.
/4
— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) May 30, 2023
One protester rushed the stage and had to be wrestled to the ground by audience members – something anyone who bought a ticket knew might happen.
And *still* it was standing room only.
Leftist media declares: “only a few” attended.
/6
— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) May 30, 2023
It’s a technique totalitarians have always used to make their opponents appear small and marginal. It’s an optical illusion.
It’s shameless, it’s false, and a situation the Left worked to create – which they now report on as if it were an organic result.
Don’t fall for it. /e
— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) May 30, 2023
In addition to being an influential author, Shrier is also one of the most respected journalists in the U.S., having worked recently on the Twitter Files, exposing political bias and collaboration with the government at Twitter.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.