J.K. Rowling, the author of the "Harry Potter" series and an enthusiastic Twitter user who has developed a reputation for not pulling punches, is confronting the growing problem of anti-Semitism in the British Labour Party, which has been on the rise since Jeremy Corbyn was elected party head in 2015.
This week she took on author Simon Maginn, a strong Labour supporter, who had responded to a tweet from attorney Simon Myerson calling anti-Semites "curiously entitled" and saying, "It never strikes them [anti-Semites] that their behavior toward Jews is unpleasant."
Myerson's tweet came after a string of reports detailing anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist comments from Corbyn, which range from digs about "Zionists" not being able to comprehend English irony to his support for 9/11 conspiracy theorists who blame the Twin Towers attacks on Jews and terrorist groups such as Black September, which murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Maginn wrote in response to Myerson, "Explain it to me, then. Explain your deep and wounding sense of injury … explain your patently synthetic outrage."
Rowling, who is not Jewish, tweeted at Maginn, "How dare you tell a Jew that their outrage is 'patently synthetic?'
"How dare you demand that they lay bare their pain and fear on demand, for your personal evaluation? What other minority would you speak to in this way?" she wrote.
Rowling pointed out that any internet user can find "hundreds of accounts currently online" expressing the apprehension many British Jews feel in light of the recent surge in anti-Semitism.
"You don't want to understand … because if you did, you'd be reading those accounts right now. What you want is to accuse a Jew of lying," Rowling told Maginn.
Maginn responded by calling Rowling a "vicious little bully" who was libeling him by labeling him an anti-Semite, although he said he would not pursue legal action but would block her on social media.
"And thus did the anti-Semite loftily indicate that he was no longer interested in debate," Rowling ended the exchange.
Maginn may have blocked Rowling, but he has tweeted at news outlets reporting the exchange, asking that they "amend" their coverage calling him an anti-Semite.
