Genocide Bad

Genocide Bad is a book of ten essays that mixes activist memoir with a primer on Jewish and Palestinian history. Sim Kern sets out to take apart Zionist propaganda and to sketch a route toward collective liberation. The essays draw unexpected lines between Biblical promises and exploding pagers, and between medieval dress codes and present-day apartheid, building a broad history of imperialism. Kern combines wide-ranging research, pop-culture observations and sharp humor.

Kern is a former teacher, journalist and novelist who also worked as a book influencer. They became internationally known as an anti-Zionist Jewish activist in the days after October 7th, 2023. While social media filled with "I Stand with Israel" posts, Kern began urging followers to read Palestinian books, learn Palestinian history and question Western reporting on Palestine. Those videos went viral, reaching tens of millions of views.

The response included hate messages, death threats and exile from the Zionist Jewish community, but Kern kept going. They have posted daily videos on Palestinian, Jewish and colonial history, and have raised more than $500,000 in direct aid for families in Gaza. All of this happened while they were pregnant, giving birth and caring for a newborn.

In this book Kern looks back on the life experiences that led them to anti-Zionist activism and expands on the educational material from their online videos. They face the horrors of genocides past and present directly. They also find hope in examples of courage and resilience under extreme violence, and in the forms of resistance that might lead to collective liberation.