To the Editor:
Let me get this straight. Alan Dershowitz thinks Ebba Hierta, director of the Chilmark Library, should resign herself to threats of violence, or leave her job. Mr. Dershowitz put it this way to George Brennan of the Times: “She should get a different job if she can’t take the heat.”
The “heat” in this case was a menacing email from a stranger who claimed to be a member of the Proud Boys. Mr. Dershowitz, who is threatening to sue the library over Ebba’s refusal to allow him to give a book talk there, had mentioned her name to Steve Bannon in an interview on Bannon’s podcast. Here was the result.
I think it’s safe to say that the ability to take “heat” in the form of physical threats isn’t part of the job description of head librarian at Chilmark, or any other Vineyard library. Mr. Dershowitz has been summering here for years, and ought to know this.
I’m surprised, too, at his incredulity at being, as he puts it, “shunned” on the Island for his association with Bannon, Donald Trump, and others like them.
What does he expect? It is as though William Lloyd Garrison, on vacation in South Carolina in 1855, wondered why no one invited him to dinner.
John Hough, Jr.
West Tisbury
