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‘Maus,’ Nazi parallels and a Shylock reference make appearances at Senate hearing on book bans
(JTA) – Nazi book burnings, antisemitic attacks on high school students and Shylock were all invoked during a Senate hearing on school book bans Tuesday morning.
The hearing brought to Capitol Hill the debate over how much control parents should have over what kinds of books their children can access in their school and public libraries — and whether it constitutes a “ban” when a book is removed because of their activism.
The hearing comes as a national movement of “parents’ rights” groups, stoked in some cases by Republican lawmakers, have brought challenges against thousands of books in school libraries, saying that they are not appropriate for children. The vast majority of the challenged books deal with topics of race, gender and sexuality; Jewish books have also been ensnared, with the Holocaust-themed “Maus” and an illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary among the highest-profile book removals.
“Extremists continue to fight popular graphic novels like ‘Maus’ and other books,” Illinois Democratic Dick Durbin, the judiciary committee chair, said during his opening remarks. Art Spiegelman’s comic-book memoir about his parents’ survival of the Holocaust was the first book named at the hearing, closely followed by texts including Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” and Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”
“Limiting access to a book about antisemitism or racism does not protect students from the actual history or the reality that hate still exists,” Durbin said, before introducing Illinois’ Democratic secretary of state as a witness. Illinois recently passed a law aimed at curbing book bans. It would revoke state funding to libraries that remove books for partisan or ideological reasons.
An opening video at the hearing produced by Senate Democrats also emphasized the widely publicized case of a Tennessee district that removed “Maus” from its middle school curriculum, and featured a quote from Spiegelman. “Maus” has also been removed or nearly removed from additional districts in Missouri, Iowa and elsewhere.
One of the Democratic majority’s witnesses on the panel was a Jewish college student and book-access activist named Cameron Samuels. Samuels, who is nonbinary and uses they/their pronouns, described how a challenge to “Maus” at their Katy, Texas, high school felt like an attack on their Jewish identity.
“When Katy targeted Art Spiegelman’s ‘Maus,’ I could not fathom how cartoon mice walking shamefully naked towards the gas chambers were considered sexual by the book’s challengers,” Samuels, a Brandeis University undergraduate who has received a Teen Tikkun Olam award from the Helen Diller Family Foundation, told the panel.
“My ancestors fled religious persecution in Eurasia. I faced too many antisemitic remarks in school to remember,” Samuels continued. “Classmates told me the Holocaust did not exist. Many could not name a Jewish person so they learned about Judaism through media representation, often dominated by stereotypes. Books like ‘Maus’ teach accurate reflections of Jewish identity.
“If a friend knew the real extent of the Holocaust,” Samuels continued, “maybe they would have thought twice before spraying cologne in my face, saying he was ‘gassing the Jew.’”
Durbin and Samuels further invoked the book-burning activities of Nazi Germany in their objections to parental challenges. But conservatives at the hearing, in addition to disputing the definition of “book ban,” also fought the Nazi comparison.
“My public school did not carry ‘Mein Kampf.’ Was it banned? I don’t know,” Max Eden, a research fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who was a witness at the hearing, testified, referring to Hitler’s manifesto. “I’ve read a few books about this era since, and I’ve so far missed the part where the Nazi Party forced schools to relocate books to guidance counselors’ offices.”
Nicole Neily, president of the conservative parents’ rights activist group Parents Defending Education, also disputed the comparison, claiming, “Headlines and research papers by activist organizations have intentionally muddled the waters between World War II book burning and what is happening in America’s K-12 schools.”
Later, referencing Muslim parents in Maryland and Michigan who have organized to protest books about sexuality in their school districts, Neily added, “To conflate that issue, that I don’t want my child to be forced to read something with a book that is being burned in Nazi Germany, is disingenuous and false.”
During her testimony, Neily also claimed that librarians and freedom-to-read activists were on a mission to “extract a pound of flesh” from book-challenging parents by having them “pilloried in the public square.” The phrase “pound of flesh” comes from William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” which features Shylock, an antisemitic depiction of a Jewish money-lender who demands a pound of flesh from a client unable to pay his debts.
Present at the hearing were Republican Senators from Tennessee, Iowa, Missouri and South Carolina, all states where Jewish books including “Maus” and Bernard Malamud’s “The Fixer” have been challenged or removed from public schools. None addressed those books. Instead, many of them used their time to accuse publishers, tech companies and the Biden administration of silencing conservative voices, or pivoted the hearing to a debate over immigration reform. John Kennedy, a Republican senator from Louisiana, turned heads when he used his allotted time to read sexually explicit passages from frequently challenged LGBTQ-themed books “Gender Queer” and “Lawn Boy” into the Congressional Record.
The hearing wasn’t the first time “Maus” bans had been invoked on Capitol Hill. Earlier this year, Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries declared, “Extreme MAGA Republicans want to ban books on the Holocaust,” while holding up a copy of “Maus” during a press conference. Jeffries was opposing a House bill passed by Republicans that would grant parents greater influence over their children’s educational materials.
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
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