An Israeli professor lost a prestigious US job offer after speaking out on Gaza. Now the university is paying him $250,000... The University of Minnesota withdrew an offer for Raz Segal to lead its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies after an organized campaign against his hiring

A few hundred people gather to call for a ceasefire in Gaza before setting up an encampment on the lawn of the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis on 29 April 2024. Photograph: Star Tribune/Getty Images

 Alice Speri

Thu 6 Aug 2026 08.00 EDT

When the University of Minnesota (UMN) extended an offer to historian Raz Segal to lead its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in June 2024, it did so upon the near-unanimous recommendation of a committee of academics after a rigorous search process. The scholars had enthusiastically praised Segal, with one committee member describing a presentation he gave as “breathtaking”.

But five days after making the offer, the university abruptly withdrew it, citing “perspective” it had received from members of the community. The reversal followed backlash over Segal’s criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, which he called “a textbook case of genocide” in an October 2023 op-ed published in Jewish Currents. Segal’s critics condemned the piece, published just days after the 7 October attacks in Israel, accusing him of justifying Hamas crimes – an assertion that Segal rejected and the article does not sustain.

Last week, more than two years since the offer was rescinded, Segal reached a $250,000 settlement with the university. As is standard with such settlements, the terms of the deal stipulate the payout is not an admission of wrongdoing on UMN’s part. The university did not respond to a request for comment.

Segal said the significant sum should encourage the dozens of scholars who have been punished for criticizing Israel with firings, suspensions and investigations to “fight back”.

The settlement came after Segal obtained dozens of emails through a public records request, revealing a pressure campaign on university officials by donors, legislators and pro-Israel activists. The documents shared exclusively with the Guardian, reveal how the university shifted from defending Segal to eventually walking back their decision to hire him... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/aug/06/professor-israel-gaza-university-of-minnesota

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This cartoon is 16 years old. And it remains relevant today, unfortunately

Holocaust Remembrance Day 2026 "The genocide did not begin with concentration camps and gas chambers; it started with apathy and silence in the face of injustice, and with the corrosive dehumanization of the other. Today, and always, we need to remember this." Volker Turk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

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https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2026/01/high-commissioner-turk-international-holocaust-remembrance-day-we 

International Holocaust Remembrance Day invites us not only to look at our past, but to reflect on our present, and to safeguard our future.

To some, 1945 may seem like distant history. It is difficult to fathom that within living memory, a group of deluded killers inflicted unspeakable atrocities on millions of Jews and members of other minorities. The Nazi regime persecuted them, stripped them of dignity, and ultimately murdered them with the horrific efficiency of an assembly line. Systematically, openly, and without consequences.

The history of the Holocaust offers striking lessons.

This appalling cruelty was not born in medieval darkness, but in the broad daylight of a supposedly modern society. The genocide did not begin with concentration camps and gas chambers; it started with apathy and silence in the face of injustice, and with the corrosive dehumanization of the other.

Today, and always, we need to remember this.

In a disturbing trend, threats and assaults against Jews have risen sharply in recent years. The heinous attacks in Sydney and Manchester made headlines around the world. But countless daily abuses that don’t make the news leave lasting scars on people and communities.

Hatred and dehumanization are creeping into our daily lives, including through our social media feeds.

But here is reason for hope: Today, we are far better equipped to resist these patterns.

We are equipped with the memory of how exclusion can turn into annihilation, if we look away.

We are equipped with education and unprecedented access to information to seek truth and to understand our differences.

And we are equipped with human rights, backed by international law – forged from the ashes of war to protect humanity from repeating its darkest chapters.

We need to use these tools at all times against the plague of racism, antisemitism, and dehumanization.

We need laws that prohibit discrimination in all its forms. We need politicians who do not polarize by calling out difference, but unite by calling out injustice.

We need education about the Holocaust and human rights for all ages. And we need robust, inclusive systems to moderate digital content, so that people can express their concerns without fear.

Above all, we must stand up for our shared humanity – each and every day.

The history of the Holocaust abounds with stories of rescue and selflessness that illuminate the immense power of reason and compassion.

Year after year, the last survivors are leaving us – most recently Eva Schloss, a tireless advocate of tolerance and Holocaust education. But their stories live on. They guide and inspire us.

Together, we must challenge exceptionalism, supremacy, and bigotry wherever we encounter them: at the dinner table; at our workplaces; on social media. Each of us can be an architect of a world free from discrimination and intolerance.

As Eva’s stepsister Anne Frank taught us, nobody needs to wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. 

Promoting and protecting human rights for all 

On Tuesday's #HolocaustRemembrance Day, we honour the memory of all those who perished in the Holocaust & the enduring legacy of those who survived. Today & every day, we must counter antisemitism, Holocaust denial & distortion and all forms of hatred.

 On Tuesday's #HolocaustRemembrance Day, we honour the memory of all those who perished in the Holocaust & the enduring legacy of those who survived.

Today & every day, we must counter antisemitism, Holocaust denial & distortion and all forms of hatred. https://un.org/en/observances 

https://x.com/UN/status/2016013548137181231  

 

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https://www.un.org/en/observances/commemoration-holocaust-victims-day

A warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice."

  - United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/76/250 on Holocaust Denial

Holocaust Remembrance for Dignity and Human Rights

The United Nations was established in response to the horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust. The Holocaust has had a profound impact on International Human Rights Law, resulting in the United Nations’ adoption of foundational documents in 1948: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

United Nations General Assembly Resolution 60/7 in 2005 designated 27 January as the annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust and established the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme. This date was chosen as it marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Death Camp on 27 January 1945.

The International Day is a global reminder of the dangers of hatred, bigotry and antisemitism. The Day is a call to remember, reflect and take action to ensure such atrocities never happen again. The International Day is observed with commemorative events and activities at United Nations Headquarters in New York and the United Nations offices around the world.

Gaza City, Gaza: A displaced Palestinian girl looks out from her tent in Gaza City- Photograph: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters- Holocaust remembrance and a tsunami museum: photos of the day –The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world Tuesday 27 January 2026 ... & "“I represent one and a half million children who were murdered and who are not here to speak for themselves,” Friedman told German media. “My story is representative of all their stories because we all had similar experiences. I was simply luckier than them, because I survived.”"

Gaza City, Gaza

A displaced Palestinian girl looks out from her tent in Gaza CityPhotograph: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters

 

Holocaust remembrance and a tsunami museum: photos of the day – Tuesday

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

https://www.theguardian.com/news/gallery/2026/jan/27/holocaust-remembrance-and-a-tsunami-museum-photos-of-the-day-tuesday?CMP=share_btn_url#img-7

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& 

‘I was simply luckier’: Holocaust survivors warn against forgetting Nazi atrocities

People urged to stand up against populism and antisemitism as the world marks International Holocaust Memorial Day

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/27/i-was-simply-luckier-holocaust-survivors-warn-against-forgetting-nazi-atrocities 

"... Friedman, who emigrated to the US where she became a successful therapist, warned against the rise of the populist far-right in Europe. She said she would directly address the AfD, which is up for election in five states this year and is predicted to do well in at least three of them.

The anti-immigrant party, which backs policies such as the mass deportation of non-naturalised citizens, has repeatedly called for an end to what it calls “Schuldkult” or a “culture of guilt”, to describe the perpetuation of the memory of Nazi crimes.

“I want very much to face up to them, not to hide away from them,” said Friedman.

Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat warned that antisemitism was more rampant than at any time since the Holocaust, and was “taking on new and disturbing forms”. She also warned of AI-generated content which was being deliberately created “to blur the line between fact and fiction, distort historical truth and undermine our collective memory”. 

The Frankfurt-based Anne Frank Educational Centre drew attention to a “flood” of AI-generated content being used like propaganda, in which the victims were ridiculed, with the aim of denying or trivialising them.

Representatives of the Jewish community across the world, including Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, urged people to show “civil courage” and stand up for democracy at a time when ...."  READ MORE   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/27/i-was-simply-luckier-holocaust-survivors-warn-against-forgetting-nazi-atrocities

Candles were placed at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. Photograph: Liesa Johannssen/Reuters

 

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"The Holocaust, like all genocides, was not inevitable. Warning signs abounded long before the mass killing, and began with the process of “othering”. The Holocaust cautions us to heed these warning signs and to challenge hatred, bigotry, racism, and prejudice. We can draw on our knowledge of the past to counter the fear and suspicion spread today through the manipulation of information, hate speech and the distortion of history."

From 1933 to 1945, the Nazi regime and its allies created approximately 44,000 sites to confine Jews, political prisoners, POWs, Roma and Sinti, and many others. 

Over 1,100 ghettos existed across Europe, with the largest in Poland. Most ghettos were situated on rail lines that facilitated later mass deportations to killing centers...

A reminder of our common humanity

To remember the victims of the Holocaust is to remember their humanity, and to defend the rights of all to live in peace and with dignity.

To remember is everyone’s responsibility.

Rounding up the children from the Lodz ghetto, Poland, for deportation to the Chelmno death camp, Poland, September 1942. None of the children survived.

Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #50328. Courtesy of Instytut Pamieci Narodowej. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

https://www.un.org/en/exhibits/exhibit/holocaust-remembrance 

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The Global Impact of the Holocaust

A warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism, and prejudice."

- United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/76/250

The United Nations was established in response to the horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust. The Holocaust has had a profound impact on International Human Rights Law, resulting in the United Nations’ adoption of foundational documents in 1948: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights represents the universal recognition that basic rights and fundamental freedoms are inherent to all human beings, inalienable and equally applicable to everyone, and that every one of us is born free and equal in dignity and rights. Whatever our nationality, place of residence, gender, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status, the international community on 10 December 1948 made a commitment to upholding dignity and justice for all of us. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, or Genocide Convention, is an international treaty that criminalizes genocide and obligates state parties to enforce its prohibition. It was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December 1948.

"Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world..."   https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

"It was not Hitler or Himmler who abducted me, beat me, and shot my family... It was the shoemaker, the milkman, the neighbor- who recieved uniform and then believed they were the master race." Karl Stojka, Auschwitz survivor

Painting by Karl Stojka's sister Ceija Stojka Arrest and Deportation,​ 1995. Courtesy of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid.  https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-rm-g-dragon-8-k-pop-boy-band-idols-collect-art

Art as Memory – the Documentary Canvases of Karl Stojka, a Roma in Auschwitz-Birkenau

https://www.sarahmatthias.co.uk/articles/art-as-memory-the-documentary-canvases-of-karl-stojka-a-roma-in-auschwitz-birkenau/ 

 

Fear at Auschwitz-Birkenau, June-July 1943

 

Buchenwald: ‘Half people, half faces.’

"Birkenau", oil on canvas, approx. 60 x 70 cm, signed, dated 1990

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/id-card/karl-stojka

#ProtectTheFacts

 

Karl Stojka was 12 when the Nazis initiated mass deportations of thousands of Austrian Sinti and Roma to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943. He was arrested at his school right in the middle of a lesson and sent to the concentration camp with his family. There, he was known as “Z-5742”, a serial number tattooed on his left forearm. Z stood for “Zigeuner”, or “Gypsy” in German. Karl was assigned to work in the canteen, which allowed him to occasionally sneak some leftovers off the table to his family – a huge relief amidst starvation. When the news about the Soviet army approaching started to spread in the summer of 1944, Karl, his mother, brother and sisters – those deemed fit for continuous labour to exhaustion – were deported to other camps.

We know the story of Karl and his family because, on 2 August 1944, they were fortunate to escape death. That was the day the so-called “Gypsy family camp” in Auschwitz-Birkenau ceased to exist – and not because it had been liberated. That night, thousands of its Roma and Sinti prisoners never were able to experience freedom again because they were killed in the camp’s gas chambers. Karl’s uncle Lulo, his wife, and three children were among these victims.

Some 500,000 Roma people were systematically persecuted and murdered by the Nazi regime, its allies and collaborators during the Second World War. Many more were subjected to criminal medical experiments, forced labour and torture. The Roma genocide is still under-researched and widely unknown by the general public, often leading to denial and distortion of facts about this dark chapter of history.  For decades following the war, the Roma were not recognized as victims of Nazi persecution and the crimes committed against them remained unacknowledged.

After the liberation, Karl Stojka and his sister Ceija both became famous artists. They used their visibility to actively campaign for the importance of learning and acknowledging the facts about the crimes perpetrated against Roma and Sinti communities during World War II. Along with other activists, they also reminded that the Roma genocide didn’t spring out of nowhere: a centuries-long history of anti-Roma racism and discrimination could have laid the grounds for these atrocities... READ MORE  https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/shedding-light-roma-genocide-take-part-protectthefacts-campaign

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"The genocide in Gaza is far from over- We live not in a post-Holocaust world of ‘Never Again’ but in the same world that led to the Holocaust, a world of ‘Again and Again’" Raz Segal in The Guardian

"The Gaza Nakba has not ended, because it did not begin in October 2023, but in the 1948 Nakba, when Israel emerged on the ruins of Palestine and Palestinians. This reality immediately clashed with the idea of Israel as a unique state, the state of survivors of the unique evil of the Nazis, which made it seem unimaginable that Israel could perpetrate any crime in international law, let alone genocide, the new crime that was formulated also in 1948."  Raz Segal is an associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University and the endowed professor in the study of modern genocide
 

‘Most people know that day is not night, and they refuse to say otherwise.’ Photograph: APAImages/Shutterstock

Fri 28 Nov 2025 06.00 EST

On 10 October, following two years of Israeli genocide that have turned Gaza into the new benchmark of total destruction, after Israel has killed and injured hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and inflicted on all the people in Gaza “severe bodily or mental harm,” to quote from the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Trump administration imposed a ceasefire, giving rise to the idea that the Gaza war has ended.

The ceasefire, however, seems to be designed mostly to move forward with the business deals of the mega rich in the Middle East, and the fire has never ceased: the Israeli government has continued its assault, killing and injuring hundreds of Palestinians since 10 October, destroying thousands of homes and buildings, and blocking the entry of sufficient aid.

The genocidal rhetoric, furthermore, has not ended. Take, for instance... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/28/the-genocide-in-gaza-is-far-from-over

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