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A Missouri school district could ban ‘Maus,’ citing concerns about whether it is ‘explicit sexual material’
(JTA) – A Missouri school board is preparing to vote next week on whether to ban Art Spiegelman’s Holocaust graphic memoir “Maus” — even though no parent in the district has challenged it.
Spiegelman himself is among those exhorting the board of Nixa Public Schools, a district of about 6,000 students in Christian County just south of the state capital of Springfield, not to remove his book and several others.
“We haven’t learned much from the past, but there’s some things you should be able to figure out,” Spiegelman said in an interview with the literary free-speech advocacy group PEN America published as part of a campaign directed at the Nixa school board. “Book burning leads to people burning. So it’s something that needs to be fought against.”
Nixa is at least the third district in Missouri to seriously question whether current state laws allow it to stock “Maus” in schools. Its board will meet Tuesday to determine the fate of “Maus,” along with six other books including an illustrated adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which portrays a dystopian society in which the United States has been placed under a fundamentalist theocratic rule.
Spiegelman’s book was an early, visible casualty of the nationwide conservative-led movement to remove or restrict books from school libraries for perceived inappropriate content when a Tennessee district voted to remove “Maus” from its middle school curriculum last year. There, school board members cited profanity in the book and a drawing of a naked mouse, which represented the author’s mother after she died by suicide.
Books with LGBTQ content and books about race have been the primary targets of the movement, with graphic novels in particular facing frequent challenges. Over the past year, several other Jewish books have been caught up in purges across multiple states, including an illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary, a novel about the Holocaust by Jodi Picoult, and a children’s picture book about a Jewish family with two dads.
Unlike in many of these cases, no parent in Nixa challenged the appropriateness of “Maus” or several of the other books facing removal. Instead, the district is concerned that the book could risk violating a state law that establishes a criminal penalty and possible jail time for educators found to have provided children with access to “explicit sexual material.”
“Maus is pending review by the school district due to a recently passed Missouri state law making it a crime to provide materials of visual depiction of sexual act or genitalia to students. Any material that could potentially violate the law are being presented to the board,” Zac Rantz, a district spokesperson, said in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Rantz emphasized that “Maus” was not being targeted because of its subject matter.
“These actions should not be viewed as an attempt to limit students’ access to information about the Holocaust or be viewed as antisemitic,” he said in the statement. “The district does not tolerate hate speech of any kind and has the teaching of the Holocaust as a part of various classes. The material is being reviewed solely on the basis of the new state law in order to help protect the staff from legal action and place the decision on the board of education.”
Nixa school board president Josh Roberts told the Washington Post the book was “potentially violative” of laws and policies but did not provide further detail. Roberts did not return a JTA request for comment.
Some other Missouri school districts have interpreted the law broadly to mean that comic books and graphic novels, in particular, could expose staff to legal liability. One district near St. Louis ordered staff to temporarily pull not only “Maus,” but also hundreds of other illustrated books, including several Holocaust history books for young readers and art history books featuring Jewish artists.
An email the Nixa school district sent to staff after the law passed instructs its staff to have all materials in their classrooms approved by the district.
“The law defines sexual material as a visual depiction of a sexual act or genitalia,” the email said in part. “There are exceptions for works of art that have serious artistic significance, or works of anthropological significance, or materials used in science courses like biology or anatomy.”
At the time of the Tennessee district’s initial removal of “Maus,” Spiegelman spoke to a local Jewish federation about the controversy, saying it was “about controlling.” He has since appeared on CBS and in other media outlets as a leading voice for authors opposing restrictions on their books in schools.
Now the Pulitzer Prize-winning comics artist is partnering with PEN America to decry attempts to remove the book. PEN has also launched a petition in an effort to convince the Nixa board not to remove the book.
Attacks on “Maus” and other books are “a real warning sign of a country that’s yearning for a return of authoritarianism,” Spiegelman told the Washington Post. Reflecting on the wide array of books that have faced bans, he said, channeling the view of the bans’ proponents, “It’s one more book — just throw it on the bonfire.”
At the Nixa board meeting, the seven-member board will vote individually on each book brought before them. Its vote for “Maus” will not consider questions of appropriateness, only whether the book could conceivably be found in violation of state law.
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TikTok Removes Videos by Antisemitic Polish Lawmaker After Hate Speech Complaint
Grzegorz Braun, member of far-right political alliance Confederation, speaks during a session at the Parliament in Warsaw, Poland, Dec. 12, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Aleksandra Szmigiel
TikTok has removed six videos posted by a Polish far–right politician best known for provoking international outrage by using a fire extinguisher on Hanukkah candles in the country’s parliament, an anti-racism organization said on Wednesday.
Once viewed by many Poles as a fringe extremist, Grzegorz Braun has become an increasingly important figure in right-wing politics, with his Confederation of the Polish Crown party regularly polling in double digits.
Those numbers could give it a say in the formation of a future coalition, but Braun’s antisemitism and aggressive social media stunts have led the government to say his party may be banned, while the leader of opposition nationalists Law and Justice (PiS) has ruled out working with him.
Rafal Pankowski, from the “Never Again” Association, which advises social media companies on eliminating hate speech and flagged the videos to TikTok, said the films, including one about the Hanukkah candles, were just the “tip of the iceberg.”
“There is simply a whole lot of such material, such content, which is evidently saturated with hostility, primarily towards Jews and often also towards various other minorities … I think that the worst thing in all this is that there is this element of glorification, incitement to violence,” he said.
TikTok confirmed that it had removed certain videos for violating its rules on hate speech.
A spokesperson for the Confederation of the Polish Crown did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. Braun has said he is trying to protect predominantly Catholic Poland from the influence of Jews and Ukrainians.
Pankowski said the “Never Again” Association had reported more of Braun’s films to TikTok.
From launching into an antisemitic tirade outside the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, where Nazi Germany killed more than 1.1 million Jews, to tearing down Ukrainian flags or demolishing exhibitions about LGBT rights, Braun’s actions have outraged many Poles but have also generated significant publicity.
Braun, a Member of the European Parliament, has had his immunity from prosecution lifted by the legislature. Polish prosecutors have charged him with seven offences including public disorder and offending religious sentiments.
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Clashes in Syria’s Aleppo Deepen Rift Between Government, Kurdish Forces
A woman carries her child as she flees, following renewed clashes between the Syrian army and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in Aleppo, Syria, Jan. 7, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Karam al-Masri
Fierce fighting in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo between government forces and Kurdish fighters drove thousands of civilians from their homes on Wednesday, with Washington reported to be mediating a de-escalation.
The violence, and statements trading blame over who started it, signaled that a stalemate between Damascus and Kurdish authorities that have resisted integrating into the central government was deepening and growing deadlier.
Deadly clashes broke out on Tuesday between Syrian government troops and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
After relative calm overnight, shelling resumed on Wednesday and intensified in the afternoon, Reuters reporters in the city said.
A spokesperson for Aleppo‘s health directorate told Reuters that four civilians had been killed on Tuesday and more than two dozen wounded on Tuesday and Wednesday. Security sources separately told Reuters that two fighters had also been killed.
The health directorate said there were no civilian fatalities on Wednesday, and that it was not authorized to comment on deaths among fighters.
By Wednesday evening, fighting had subsided, the Reuters reporters said. Ilham Ahmed, who heads the foreign affairs department of the Kurdish administration, told Reuters that international mediation efforts were underway to de-escalate. A source familiar with the matter told Reuters the US was mediating.
THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS FLEE
The directorate for social affairs said on Wednesday night that more than 45,000 people had been displaced from Aleppo city, most of them heading northwest towards the enclave of Afrin.
The Syrian army announced that military positions in the Kurdish-held neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah were “legitimate military targets.” Two Syrian security officials told Reuters that they expected a significant military operation in the city.
The government opened humanitarian corridors for civilians to flee flashpoint neighborhoods, ferrying them out on city buses.
“We move them safely to the places they want to go to according to their desire or to displaced shelters,” said Faisal Mohammad Ali, operations chief of the civil defense force in Aleppo.
The latest fighting has disrupted civilian life in what is a leading Syrian city, closing the airport and a highway to Turkey, halting operations at factories in an industrial zone and paralyzing major roads into the city center.
The Damascus government said its forces were responding to rocket fire, drone attacks, and shelling from Kurdish-held neighborhoods. Kurdish forces said they held Damascus “fully and directly responsible for … the dangerous escalation that threatens the lives of thousands of civilians and undermines stability in the city.”
During Syria’s 14-year civil war, Kurdish authorities began running a semi-autonomous zone in northeast Syria, as well as in parts of Aleppo city.
They have been reluctant to give up those zones and integrate fully into the Islamist-led government that took over after ex-President Bashar al-Assad’s ousting in late 2024.
Last year, the Damascus government reached a deal with the SDF that envisaged a full integration by the end of 2025, but the two sides have made little progress, each accusing the other of stalling or acting in bad faith.
The US has stepped in as a mediator, holding meetings as recently as Sunday to try to nudge the process forward. Sunday’s meetings ended with no tangible progress.
Failure to integrate the SDF into Syria’s army risks further violence and could potentially draw in Turkey, which has threatened an incursion against Kurdish fighters it views as terrorists.
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Israel-Backed Militia Says It Killed Two Hamas Operatives in Gaza
Palestinian Hamas terrorists stand guard at a site as Hamas says it continues to search for the bodies of deceased hostages, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, Dec. 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
An Israeli-backed Palestinian militia said on Wednesday it had killed two Hamas operatives in southern Gaza, marking a renewed challenge to Hamas after Israel empowered its rivals in areas under Israeli military control.
The armed group, known as the Popular Forces, said in a statement it had carried out a raid in Rafah, killing two Hamas members who refused to surrender and detaining a third. It shared a photo that it said depicted one of the slain men.
Hamas, which brands such groups as “collaborators,” declined to comment on the claim, which Reuters couldn’t independently authenticate. Rafah sits in territory under Israeli control under the terms of an October Israel–Hamas deal.
The Popular Forces, founded by an anti-Hamas armed Bedouin leader, Yasser Abu Shabab, is believed to be the largest group operating in Israel-controlled areas.
Abu Shabab was killed in December in what the group described as a family feud. He was replaced by his deputy Ghassan Duhine, who vowed not to let up in the fight against Hamas, the terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades. The Popular Forces and others have reported more recruits since the October deal took effect.
The emergence of the groups, though they remain small and localized, has added to pressures on Islamist Hamas and could complicate efforts to stabilize and unify a divided Gaza, shattered by two years of war.
Nearly all of Gaza‘s two million people live in Hamas-held areas, where the group has been reestablishing its grip and where four Hamas sources said it continues to command thousands of men despite suffering heavy blows during the war.
But Israel still holds well over half of Gaza – areas where Hamas‘s foes operate beyond its reach. With US President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza moving slowly, there is no immediate prospect of further Israeli withdrawals.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged Israeli backing for anti-Hamas groups in June, saying Israel had “activated” clans. Israel has given little detail since then.
The Popular Forces deny receiving support from Israel.