Genocide Bad

Notes on Palestine, Jewish History, and Collective Liberation

By: Sim Kern

Narrated by: Sim Kern

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Part activist memoir, part crash course in Jewish and Palestinian history, Genocide Bad dismantles Zionist propaganda and maps a course towards collective liberation in ten unapologetic essays.

Drawing connections between Biblical promises and exploding pagers, medieval dress codes and modern-day apartheid, Kern sketches a sweeping history of imperialism with their characteristic blend of far-ranging research, pop-culture insights, and scathing humor.

Kern, a former teacher, journalist, novelist, and book influencer, gained international recognition as an anti-Zionist Jewish activist in the days after October 7th, 2023. At a time when social media was flooded with “I Stand with Israel” posts, Kern started sharing content encouraging their followers to read Palestinian books, learn Palestinian history, and question Western reporting on Palestine—videos which went viral into tens of millions of views.

Despite facing hate messages, death threats, and exile from the Zionist Jewish community, Kern has remained steadfast in their advocacy over the past year. They’ve posted daily videos on Palestinian, Jewish, and colonial history, and they’ve raised over $500,000 in direct aid for families in Gaza—all while navigating the challenges of pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting a newborn. In Genocide Bad, Kern reflects on the life experiences that led them to anti-Zionist activism, while capturing and expanding upon their online educational content.

Kern doesn’t flinch when confronting the horrors of genocides past and present, but there is also tremendous hope contained in this audiobook—hope that springs from examples of courage and resilience in the face of extreme violence, and from the kinds of resistance that might just lead to our collective liberation.

This audiobook is expressively read by the author, with audio engineering by Transient Audio. It was produced and published by Echo Point Books & Media, an independent bookseller in Brattleboro, Vermont.

©2025 Sim Kern (P)2025 Echo Point Books and Media, LLC

Passionate and fierce

I liked how informative this book is is and how honest the author is about their biases, but why they have them and how we all can overcome it own biases. It was Passionate and fierce on this subject while being clear & focused, telling their story along with the Palestine and Jewish history - enlightening.

The most important book I'll read in my lifetime.

Sim has blown open my mind to what the world can/will/has to be. Free Palestine! Free the world!

Basically the most important book I’ve read this year

The only reason this book didn’t radicalise me is because I’m a damn coward. But, in all seriousness, it’s the most comprehensive, heartbreaking and weirdly optimistic work about hate (including but not limited to anti-Jewish one), ways people justify that hate and reasons to still feel hope in this hopeless world.

The most liberating book I’ve ever read

One of the best books on Palestine one could read. Sim goes into just the right weeds and takes the listener on a journey thru history rarely told in such a nuanced and clear way. Sim’s reading doesn’t hold back from honesty, vulnerability, and raw emotion. They allow the listener to sojourn with them, unpacking collective baggage and arrive at a destination one likely didn’t know even existed.

Great book

An eye opening book with many good arguments that made it clear that genocide is bad and need no brain