Israeli author Tamar Raphael received rape and murder threats after saying Israel committed genocide in Gaza at the Frankfurt Book Fair and wore a Palestinian flag pin, where she was part of a Culture Ministry-funded delegation.

Tamar Raphael (Photo: Zo Haderekh)

In a Facebook post, she explained that she joined the Israeli delegation to the fair to discuss her work, emphasizing that her criticism of Israeli policy and support for Palestinian statehood alongside Israel is consistent with her moral and political beliefs. Her comments drew both threats and support, including from Hadash MK Knesset Ayman Odeh, several authors and intellectuals and the literary magazine she contributes to.

Born in 1989 in Petach Tikvah, Raphael lived in Tel Aviv and currently resides in Berlin. Her first book, a poetry collection titled Receding Songs, published in 2021, won her the Ministry of Culture Prize for Young Poets. Her debut novel, There Were Two with Nothing to Do, published in 2024, was received with rave reviews and won the Brener Prize’s honorable mention for a debut novel.

She currently teaches Hebrew as a second language while working on her next novel, which will revolve around contemporaneous issues of immigration and memory. In August 2025 she was a resident at the prestigious MacDowell artist residency program located in Peterborough, New Hampshire in the United States,

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