One of Israel’s most prominent writers, Ari Shavit, has apologised after being accused of sexually harassing a woman journalist during a book tour of the United States.

Shavit, the author of the New York Times bestseller My Promised Land, issued a statement after becoming the subject of intense speculation that he was the unnamed writer referred to in a column by Danielle Berrin. In the column she complained of aggressive and unwanted sexual advances by an interview subject during a professional encounter in Los Angeles.

In an article for the US Jewish Journal, Berrin credited the outcry over Donald Trump’s remarks about women with inspiring her and others to tell their stories – in her case an encounter with Shavit.

According to Berrin – who did not name Shavit in her article – the writer had told her he was only available to meet her at 10pm at his hotel. That meeting, she said, began with him asking about her “relationship status” and other personal questions “before he lurched at me like a barnyard animal, grabbing the back of my head, pulling me toward him”.

In her article Berrin continues: “‘I don’t understand,’ I told him. ‘Last night, in front of everybody, you spoke so lovingly about your wife.’ ‘We have an arrangement,” he responded. ‘Don’t you have children?’ I asked, trying to wedge conversation in front of contact. He looked at me with a sly smile. “Yes,” he said, “and I’m not done yet.”’

According to Berrin, her interview subject then invited her to his bedroom adding: “‘We don’t have to have sex,’ he countered. ‘I just want to give you a hug.’”

Berrin added that after she decided to leave, the writer insisted on walking her to her car, asking for a parting hug. “I’ll spare you the details of that hug, but suffice it to say, he was undeterred,” she wrote.

Despite not being named by Berrin, speculation in Israel quickly settled on Shavit, as commentators on social media pointed out that her physical description of the writer and his family circumstances also coincided with a visit he had made to the US and Los Angeles to promote his book.

The Israeli daily Haaretz, in which Shavit has a column, also published an article on the story – again without his name – before the writer issued an apology identifying himself as the writer Berrin had described.

“More than two-and-a-half years ago, in February 2014, I met with Danielle Berrin in Los Angeles for a conversation,” Shavit said in a statement. “Today, I sadly understand that I misconstrued the interaction between us during that meeting.

“Prior to reading Berrin’s article, I thought that we had had a friendly conversation that included some flirtation. I did not for a moment think it involved any sexual harassment. But what I saw as flirtation, Berrin saw as inappropriate, even harassing behaviour on my part.

“As a person who deeply respects every woman and every human being, and as a person who abhors any form of sexual harassment, I apologise from the bottom of my heart for this misunderstanding. I did not mean to say anything unwelcome to Berrin, and I certainly never meant to cause her distress or hurt her feelings,” Shavit said.

In her column, Berrin said she had waited until now to describe the incident because she had “deeply respected” the writer and had felt professionally tied to the interview.

“Today, it would be an easy choice. But at the time, several years ago, I felt beholden to the man in power … Earlier that day, this man had been someone I deeply respected. I’d read his book voraciously and underlined passages; I’d even read every review, and recommended the book to friends. And this was supposed to have been a really important interview — one I was lucky to get. My editors were expecting something good. Could I just walk away? From someone so prominent?”

In an interview with the Jerusalem Post after Shavit had identified himself, Berrin said she had been disappointed with the Israeli media’s focus on working out who she was talking about rather than the issue of women talking about their experiences of sexual assault.



“I think the obsessive focus on the identity of the person is an utter distraction from the conversation we need to be having about sexual assault and violence in our communities and the world, what that looks like, and how we create awareness,” she told the paper.

“It’s not about [my assailant], it’s not about Trump or any one person. It happens every day to women around the world, and we need to be talking about that, not about this one person in Israel.”

Shavit was catapulted to international prominence after the publication of his book, regarded as an impassioned reassessment of the history of Israel and the role of Zionism as a political movement in the story of its nation building.

Garnering enthusiastic reviews in the US from figures like Thomas Friedman and Leon Wieseltier, among others, the book became a coup d’estime but was less well regarded by the Israeli left. Noam Sheizaf’s review in +972 described it as “a conservative manifest [sic] that fits well into the current wave of Zionist romanticism”.