“The Fixer,” Bernard Malamud’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel of Jewish life in Czarist Russia, was among the nine books the Long Island school board has ordered removed from the district’s libraries and classrooms as objectionable. The ban was imposed despite recommendations against it by the school board’s own advisory panel.
Board President Richard Ahrens issued a statement claiming that the books were considered “lacking in educational value and not to be used as curriculum material.” When the board first ordered the books removed four months ago it described them as “objectionable vulgar, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and degrading to women.”
In addition to “The Fixer,” the books removed include Desmond Morris’ zoological study, “The Naked Ape” and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five.” Richard Wright’s “Black Boy,” a post World War II novel dealing with racism, was ordered restored but placed on a restricted shelf to be borrowed by students only with parental consent.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
