A writer says he has been prevented from taking his place on a panel at a Limmud session.

Tuvia Tenenbom was due to appear with other speakers at a discussion on "Jewish nightmares, exasperations and broiguses" on Wednesday afternoon.

But he was told the day before by fellow panel member Keith Kahn-Harris that he would not be required.

Mr Tenenbom, who is based in New York and whose book Catch a Jew has topped bestseller lists in Germany and Israel, said: "Keith Kahn-Harris came up to me and said: 'I am sorry, but I have to disinvite you from tomorrow's session.

"'It's not because I don't want to hear what you have to say, but we are going to talk about personal things and you aren't'.

"But I never told him what I was going to talk about."

Mr Tenenbom, who appeared at several other sessions at this year’s conference, said he now doubted that he would return next year.

"People have tried to stop me talking - so what's the point in coming?"

He believed that some Limmud participants “lacked a culture of debate”.

“The problem is the ones that call themselves liberals are pseudo-liberals.

"If you are really a liberal, you have to listen to everybody. That's what I think anyway.”

He added that he had faced hostility at other sessions. At one he said he had been accused of being a xenophobe.
"In another session, people were unbelievably hostile. They were very upset and called me all sorts of names."

Mr Kahn-Harris, a member of the Limmud programming committee, said he had been forced to drop Mr Tenenbom for logistical reasons.

He said: "We had a perfectly amiable conversation - I wouldn't call it 'disinvited'.

"I booked four people on the panel rather than three. So I had to bump someone. As it happened, the other people on the panel had told me earlier about the sort of thing they were doing - and they all are talking about personal things.

"I had not got a sense of what Tuvia was doing, so I actually thought he was the one to bump.

"It's certainly not because of his views - it's not because he was too controversial. I understand he has had a lot of criticism in sessions.

"I just had to make a decision. It was a logistical thing due to the mechanics of running a session.

Jonathan Neumann, who also is a member of the programming committee, had invited Mr Tenenbom to the conference.

He said: "Tuvia has an important insight to share."