I normally steer clear of politics on this site as far as I can. That is not, after all, what this site is concerned with in the ordinary course of events. However, when an artist - in this case, an author - whose work has been reviewed on this site, and that author and his work become the subject of sustained smear campaigns and worse, then it is clearly every freedom-loving decent human being's duty to speak out. While we still have that precious freedom, that the very people who conduct these kinds of campaigns would so clearly and dearly like to take away from us.

The author and work we are concerned with here is that unique seeker of truth, freedom and beauty, and jazz phenomenon, Gilad Atzmon, and his latest book, The Wandering Who? - A Study of Jewish Identity Politics. (Reviewed on this site last month.) The sustained campaigns of puerile smears, distortions and outright lies by the would-be neo-book burners started weeks ago and show no signs of abating.

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