British novelist Howard Jacobson says he felt compelled to write his new novel Howl in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel, not only because of the killings themselves but because of what he describes as a surge of public hostility toward Jews in Britain and beyond. He recalls being struck by what he saw as open celebration of the violence, the spread of falsehoods about Zionism and Israel, and the revival of ancient antisemitic libels. Channeling his anger into fiction rather than polemic, Jacobson created Ferdinand Draxler, a Jewish headteacher in London who appears to unravel as he watches the moral climate around him shift.

Through dark, often biting humor, Howl portrays a man struggling with a world in which, he feels, compassion for Jews and Israelis has evaporated. Ferdinand, whose mother survived Bergen-Belsen, is tormented not only by street protests and hostile rhetoric but by the manipulation of language that, in his view, disguises hatred as moral virtue. His distress deepens when his own daughter joins anti-Israel marches, embodying what Jacobson sees as a broader failure of universities to foster independent thought.

Jacobson uses the novel to defend Zionism as a historic movement of Jewish self-liberation, arguing that denying Jews the right to a homeland amounts to antisemitism. While acknowledging that political realities have hardened attitudes on all sides, he maintains that the founding vision of Zionism was rooted in dignity and survival. He warns that the moral safeguards erected after the Holocaust are eroding, though he also recounts moments of quiet solidarity from ordinary Britons that suggest public opinion may be more divided than the loudest voices imply.