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Author Matthew Teller leaves SoA over union's response to Jerusalem bookshop raid
Author Matthew Teller said he cancelled his Society of Authors (SoA) membership on Tuesday, citing concerns over the SoA’s statement on the raids of Jerusalem’s Educational Bookshop last week.
The bookshop specialises in Arabic and English-language books on the history of Jerusalem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The owners, Mahmoud and Ahmad Muna, were arrested on 9th February 2025, when a range of books were also confiscated from their shop. They were released from detention two days later, and placed under house arrest, according to reports.
In a statement published on 13th February, the SoA board expressed its support for the freedom of bookshops and libraries, and its opposition to the "censorship of books or their authors".
The SoA’s statement read: "We are concerned by recent press reports on the police raid of an educational bookshop in a country which is governed by a parliamentary democracy. It is vital that free thought and free speech is respected and protected and to read about the removal of books from bookshops anywhere in the world is deeply troubling and must be resisted."
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The Nine Quarters of Jerusalem (Profile Books) author Teller explained that it was with "great regret" that he had resigned from the SoA.
In a statement on X, he said that the trade union’s statement on the Educational Bookshop did not mention the name of Mahmoud Muna, with whom Teller co-edited Daybreak in Gaza: Stories of Palestinian Lives and Culture (Saqi Books), along with Juliette Touma.
Teller also criticised the statement for omitting other details, such as the name of the bookshop and the identities of those who arrested the booksellers.
He added: "I would have hoped my trade union would have taken this opportunity to illuminate the evils of state censorship and defend those who seek to practise freedom."
A spokesperson from the SoA told the Guardian newspaper that the union "is saddened when any of our members decide to leave us".
However, they added that "on this occasion, the SoA did not have enough information to comment on the situation concerning the bookshop in Jerusalem […] Nevertheless, we considered that recent press reports provided an opportunity to the SoA to remind our members of its position on book bans."
