Follow Apr. 29, 2021 Next week is the scheduled opening of the 2021 Jerusalem International Writers Festival, perhaps the most distinguished and important literary festival in Israel. On the festival website, the organizers promise “four days of ‘forbidden’ picnics, literature and music performances, literary tours, unique workshops, an original podcast project, unconventional exhibitions and encounters, and, of course, conversations with writers from Israel and around the world.” Which leads one to ask: Is this how such an important literary festival ought to be presented? Is this the type of content or the experience that an important writers’ festival should be offering? And the deeper one goes into the festival program, to the various events that are due to take place as a part of it, the more you see how, for the creators of the program, literature is a sterile, neutral thing devoid of any political or social or reality-shaping quality. Nothing more than a vessel for entertainment, for escape, for “inspiration.”