Modern Book Bans Echo Past Atrocities and Further Silence Marginalized Voices

Never did we think that in the year 2024, we would have to write an op-ed defending the right of people to read. Yet, here we are.

At the Academy Awards last month, one of the five productions nominated for an Oscar in the Documentary Short Film category was “The ABCs of Book Banning,” which featured school-aged children discussing books that have been challenged, restricted or banned in their schools. Two of the books were “Maus,” a graphic novel featuring cartoon mice reflecting on the Holocaust, and “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation.”

Indeed, many targeted books center the stories of individuals representing already-marginalized communities, like LGBTQ+, Black and Jewish characters. As The Forward reported last September, “Three Jewish writers of young-adult fiction are among the 10 most-banned authors … in the U.S.” Stories like “Purim Superhero,” about a Jewish child with two fathers, and “Chik Chak Shabbat,” about a diverse group of neighbors who help a Jewish woman prepare food when she is feeling ill, have been attacked.

While much of the national attention on book ban efforts have focused on more politically conservative states like Florida and Texas, such efforts have been occurring even in states with more liberal reputations, like our own Massachusetts, with greater frequency (perhaps shockingly, Massachusetts had the 4th highest number of attempts to remove books from shelves in the entire country in 2022). The plague of book bans can happen anywhere in the United States—and is happening.

We have seen what happens throughout history when such anti-free-speech, anti-education efforts are permitted to flourish. From the beginning, book bans have been used as a tool to control public beliefs and perceptions, as well as extinguish critical ideas and diversity of thought. The very first book ban in early colonial America occurred in 1637 in what is now Quincy, Massachusetts. Author Thomas Morton’s work, “New English Canaan,” was critical of Puritan customs. Because he dared to challenge existing power structures, Morton was labeled “Lord of Misrule” by Plymouth colony Governor William Bradford, and “New English Canaan” was banned by the Puritan government.

In the Jewish community, many of us have a visceral reaction when we hear about book bans.

As a 2022 column in Publishers Weekly boldly declared: “Book Bans and Antisemitism Go Hand in Hand.” Such efforts evoke in many of us recollections of the notorious Nazi book burning campaigns in May 1933 that included the destruction of works by everyone from Helen Keller to Albert Einstein. There is a direct through-line from that authoritarian regime to ongoing efforts today. Ultimately, book bans not only suppress information and art from public access. They undermine democracy and corrode our very humanity.

Particularly as challenges overwhelmingly focus on works that center marginalized voices, we see two related outcomes: authors representing marginalized communities are more readily silenced; and readers have fewer opportunities to hear about and learn from those with different life experiences, reducing the opportunity for understanding and empathy. In aggregate, book bans are tactics designed to control what ideas people can be exposed to, and to manipulate our understanding of history in order to whitewash it. Topics like slavery and the Holocaust become subject to interpretation at the whim of current political agendas.

Combatting book banning is how we stand up to authoritarians, antisemites, white nationalists and others who would use division as a political tactic to keep us from coming together in a thriving democracy rooted in equity, empathy, and opportunity for all. Last year, Illinois enacted a new law, to become the first state to effectively outlaw book bans. New legislation to combat book banning here in Massachusetts would require libraries to create clear guidelines for how to approach a book challenge, establishing guardrails against insidious efforts to unduly remove books from public access and silence marginalized voices.

In addition to legislation, we can demonstrate support for literary works that have faced challenges, restrictions and bans.

In addition to legislation, we can demonstrate support for literary works that have faced challenges, restrictions and bans. Buy these books from your local bookstore or borrow them from your local library. If they aren’t available, urge your local institutions to carry them as a demonstration of opposition to book bans.

The Jewish community nationally needs to join with our allies and have a much louder voice in the efforts to combat book bans. The Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (JALSA) started a Book Ban Action Team last year to monitor book challenges. This year, we started a virtual Banned Book Club over Zoom, where we select, read and discuss banned books and relate the selected book’s themes to issues on our public policy agenda. Further, JALSA is working with a community organization in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to provide them with copies of banned books that they can use to develop their own collection and share them with students who can no longer access these books in their school libraries. If you would like to join in any of these efforts, just contact us!

In 2022, requests to ban books in American schools and libraries “surged” to a 21-year high. Those who employ the authoritarian tactics of book challenges and bans are relentless and vocal, making it appear that they are much more than their actual numbers. We must be just as tenacious in combating this scourge. We cannot take free speech and free expression for granted. Our multicultural, pluralistic democracy depends on it.

Larry Bailis is the Chair and Cindy Rowe is the President and CEO of the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (JALSA), which puts our Jewish values into action by engaging the community in promoting civil rights, protecting civil liberties, and passionately pursuing social, economic, environmental, and racial justice.