Condemnation of Harvard Educational Review’s Anti-Palestinian Censorship

5 August 2025

TO:
Harvard Educational Review (HER) Editorial Board
Jessica Fiorillo, Executive Director, Harvard Education Publishing Group Press
Lucinda Bowen, Harvard Press Community Advisory Board
HER Development and Vision Editors
Harvard Education Publishing Group

CC:
Dr. Thea Abu El Haj, Dr. Ahmed Abu Shaban, Dr. Maria Bashshur Abunnasr, Dr. Monisha Bjaj, Dr. Chandni Desai, Sundos Hammad, Dr. Maria Hantzopoulos, Dr. Brooke Harris Garad, Dr. Jo Kelcey, Dr. Abdel Razzaq Takriti, Dr. Roozbeh Shirazi, Dr. Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams, Dr. Zeena Zakharia

Dear Harvard Educational Review Board:

The Academic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) condemns the cancellation of the Harvard Educational Review’s (HER) special issue on Palestinian education.

We know that the cancellation occurred after (i) HER’s editorial board solicited the articles from scholars of unquestioned expertise, (ii) the HER editorial board accepted the completed manuscripts using its established and extensive internal review process, and (iii) contracts had, in most cases, been signed.  We also understand that this is the first time since 1945 that the decisions of the independent editorial board, comprised of graduate students, has been overruled by the publisher.

Given how much valuable scholarly and editorial labor was trashed by the cancellation, and given that the cancellation is flagrantly at odds with both HER’s longstanding editorial practices and all legitimate practices and expectations in academic publishing, all evidence and reason points to the conclusion that the cancellation is a baleful instance of the new McCarthyism gripping higher education—that is, the unhinged scare about any speech that tells the truth about the Israeli state’s denial of Palestinian freedom and equality, and at this moment, its genocide in Gaza.    

The publisher’s public rationalization for the cancellation invokes details of the editorial and copy-editing processes that are murky and defy independent verification. Moreover, even if every detail of the publisher’s story were true, the publisher’s decision to cancel the issue, rather than delay publication and use the time to remedy any problems, is reckless, given the publisher’s responsibility to (i) foster the public circulation of knowledge in the field of education and (ii) guard and strengthen academic freedom, especially in the current context of repression of honest speech about Palestine and the broader state-authoritarian attacks on higher education.   

It is inescapably true, moreover, that the cancellation is in line with, and seemingly follows Harvard University’s adoption of, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) so-called “working definition” of antisemitism. This mis-definition fosters the conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and thus smears as hate the struggle to end the Israeli state’s denial of Palestinian freedom and equality and, at this moment, its genocide in Gaza.  These harms of IHRA are a key reason over 1300 Concerned Jewish scholars have condemned the IHRA definition of antisemitism and over 30 scholars of Antisemitism, Holocaust Studies, and Jewish Studies have engaged in acts of civil disobedience intentionally violating IHRA, as you can witness for yourselves in this video.  We know also that IHRA’s purposeful confusion of antisemitism and anti-Zionism distracts from and undermines the struggle against actual antisemitism, as when MAGA leaders give Nazi salutes and support the neo-Nazi AfD party in Germany.    

In light of the publisher’s cancellation of this special issue about education in Palestine, the JVP Academic Council affirms that speech in support of Palestine—and speech recognizing the Israeli state’s oppression of Palestinians-–is neither antisemitic nor tainted by antisemitism.  JVP and its Academic Council are committed, proudly and without qualification, to both Palestinian liberation and a Judaism beyond Zionism.  The Academic Council affirms, moreover, that these twinned commitments are grounded in Jewish values of social justice and Jewish obligations to respond with support to those suffering from oppression.  

The JVP Academic Council thus urges you to rescind the cancellation of the HER issue on Palestine and make arrangements for publishing the issue that are fully satisfactory to HER’s editorial board and the authors. 

Sincerely,

Jonah Rubin, Senior Manager of Campus Organizing, on behalf of Jewish Voice for Peace Academic Council

JVP is a national, grassroots organization working towards Palestinian freedom and Judaism beyond Zionism. With roughly 750,000 members, supporters, and participants in the last year, JVP is the largest such organization in the world. The Academic Council is a network of scholars within JVP with a shared commitment to JVP’s core values.