Meet the new UK publisher welcoming Jewish and Israeli writers

This “type” of book, of course, being written by an Israeli. By a Jew.

“This is a group that has contributed more to the literary canon than most others, so we should not be making things more difficult for Jews,” says Malcolm.“We certainly shouldn’t be cancelling a group which is so clearly talented.”

With Malcolm’s 20 years’ experience in senior roles across the industry, it is hardly surprising that Blair had approached him for advice before bringing him on board. For his part, Malcolm had simultaneously been looking to raise funds to create a new publisher as a “riposte” to what he was seeing as an “increasingly monocultural” industry.

“There have been a number of things in recent years that jar with me,” he says.

What Blair did not know when he initially approached him for advice was that Malcolm had read modern history, specialising in Nazism and antisemitism. Put another way, he had a rigorous understanding of the history of Jew-hate and after October 7 understood exactly what was afoot. 

During his HarperCollins stint, David Baddiel’s Jews Don’t Count was released. “I started to notice how all groups within publishing were being embraced with the exception of Jews and, over time, I became more and more sensitised to it.”

Working with Douglas Murray was also revealing. As the editor of his The War on the West, Malcolm “took some heat”, as he puts it, given that the author was the subject of attempted cancellations, and when Murray published On Democracies and Death Cults, in April 2025, the “heat” increased. Although he had by this point left HarperCollins, Malcolm’s email address was still online, and the “abusive” anonymous messages flooded in from “people obviously very against the war in Gaza”.

So far, so predicable. What Malcolm hadn’t quite anticipated was that people within the wider publishing industry would stop playing ball.

Lindsay Gordon, Adam Cannon, Neil Blair, Jacky Klein, Joel Simons and Oli Malcolm (Credit: courtesy)[Missing Credit]

“I saw how if you publish a book or an editor gets behind a book, it doesn’t mean that lots of individuals won’t try and thwart its progress.

“It might be that the jacket designer refuses to work on it, or the publicist doesn’t make the required phone calls. It might be that the marketer doesn’t conduct the digital campaign properly. It might be the case that the bookshop doesn’t put the book in the front of store.”

He adds: “And look, this has happened to Douglas, but it has also happened to hundreds of other writers who have expressed views which dissent with the prevailing narrative of what is essentially a publishing ideology, an ideology which is perhaps not as open-minded as it should be in embracing creative expression.”

And for the son of a pianist and piano teacher father, and a mother who immersed in arts and crafts, creative expression is paramount.

“If you create this premeditative mindset around everything you buy, the trade-off is creativity. I’m anti-monoculture, I’m anti-premeditative curation. I love the openness of contrasting ideas, the debate, an atmosphere in which one can create one’s own argument.”

And he has, he says, seen quite the very opposite of openness and debate in the publishing offices in which he’s worked –  Penguin Random House, HarperCollins and Hachette.

“It’s The​ Guardian, Guardian, Guardian, and The​ Guardian,” he sighs. “That’s the whole basis of those organisations. Everything leans the same way, and so the enemy here is not the individuals because publishing is oozing talent. The enemy is sameness.

“What’s scary is they all think the same, act the same, and they all talk about diversity but of course, it’s tick-box diversity, not the diversity of ideologies. I mean, do we have broader demographic in publishing today than in earlier times? I think not. We need to create something more muscular, we need to balance things.”

Bossing it: Oli Malcolm (Credit: courtesy)[Missing Credit]

The result of this mindset can be seen on the shelves of book shops, in the number of “pro-Palestine” texts. While he is not “the man” to talk about that conflict, he says, “I don’t like bookshop space being used almost for propaganda purposes. Because the reality is that if you look at how many of these books have sold, we’re talking very small numbers, numbers that are totally misrepresentative of their visibility. Whereas you get a book like On Democracies which is obviously pro-Israel, and there are shops that won’t even stock it or which, if they do have it, won’t put it on the shelves.”

And cancel culture works in other insidious ways, he says, citing a young Jewish female editor he met in New York whose case continues to “motivate” him. Since girlhood she had been determined to work in publishing and to this end excelled at school, university and the publishing house where she landed a job and progressed from editorial assistant to commissioner. And then October 7 happened. “She starts to notice she’s excluded from the lunches she used to attend and the books she brings to acquisitions suddenly stop receiving the support they once did…”

He continues: “Antisemitism doesn’t have to be overt. It can be a slow cultural permeation, and that’s obviously what’s happened in publishing where ideas are not being contested. And if these [antisemitic] ideas don’t get contested, if they are circulating in an environment where contest is not celebrated, they become routine.

“Is it good for a brilliant Jewish writer to operate within the mainstream publishing right now? I just can’t hand on heart say it is, because someone somewhere could be thwarting things for their book, even if the editor acquired it in good faith.”

But let’s return to the positive, he says, for there is much to be excited about with High Line. At the official launch in London, Blair said he “wanted to do something rather than just complain”.

And aside from Malcolm’s mission to replace the sameness and homogeneity with broader voices and ideas, High Line is also a great commercial opportunity. “Jewish publishing could be executed better globally. The readership needs a catalyst. Why would I turn down this opportunity at the exact moment publishing is flailing? Why not try and publish for a motivated community of hungry readers, and focus upon quality?”

High Line has two imprints: Odessa Editions, providing a global home for Jewish and Israeli fiction and non-fiction, and Antidote Books, publishing bold non-fiction on, among other topics, ethics, identity, democracy and power.

Malcolm is excited to have attracted “mega talents” including bestselling author Lee Child, the writer Julie Bindel, executive publishers Jackie Klein and Joel Simons, the JC’s publisher and media lawyer Adam Cannon, and Rob Rinder to his advisory board.

“It’s a group who are now creating the foundations for voices that currently don’t get heard. Those voices can now truly excel because every single person in that food chain cares.”

JC columnist Nicole Lampert is chairing a panel discussion with the High Line Publishing Studio team on November 25. Click here for tickets.