Taking action outside of our own small sphere of influence may be new for the AJL, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
I strongly believe that simply reviewing books (and pointing out bias) in Jewish publications is inadequate. Most librarians who purchase the book will not be Jewish and will not be reading the AJL bulletin's reviews. One reason that Jewish children's publishing in America is in such dire straits is that we Jews have sat back and done nothing as a community to educate non-Jewish librarians about the importance of including Jewish children in every-day situations in books, the way Blacks, Latinos and Asians are included. If the book will be available in the USA, I recommend that those of you with strong credentials in Jewish librarianship send for review copies and write reviews, for the major review sources, on this book if it will be sold here. English and Canadian librarians need to do this if the book will not be sold in the USA. Once the info Phyllis Simon wrote is corroborated (not that I doubt her, but as a writer I believe strongly in checking all sources) we need to inundate the editors at Macmillan/UK with letters explaining why the book is propaganda and not literature and how it goes against the letter and spirit of Tony Blair's Road Map, which says incitement and propaganda are forbidden. It is exactly because the AJL and other Jewish organizations have been reluctant to take an unpopular public stand that I and Graham Ginsberg have founded the Movement for Positive Jewish Media in America. See our website at www.geocities.com/tmpjma for information. Hanna Geshelin P.O. Box 20363 Worcester, MA 01602-0363 Tel: 508-791-3982 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ========================================================================== HaSafran - The Electronic Forum of the Association of Jewish Libraries Submissions for HaSafran, send to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org/
