You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
The University of Minnesota announced Monday that it would pause the search for a new director of its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (CHGS), The Star Tribune reported. The move comes days after the university offered the job to Raz Segal, an Israeli historian who has accused Israel of genocide, which prompted two longtime advisory board members to resign.
Segal currently serves as an endowed professor in the study of modern genocide at Stockton University in New Jersey. The board members who resigned, Bruno Chaouat and Karen Painter, took issue with an article Segal published in a Jewish magazine after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which argues that the country’s campaign to displace Gazans can be understood as an “explicit” case of genocide “unfolding in front of our eyes.”
“In its murderous attack on Gaza, Israel has loudly proclaimed this intent,” he wrote. “[Their] dehumanizing language is clearly calculated to justify the wide scale destruction of Palestinian lives.”
In a letter to university leaders, Chaouat wrote that he fears that by “justifying Hamas’s atrocities,” Segal cannot fulfill the mission of the center. “He does not understand that a movement like Hamas is inherently fascist and represents precisely what CHGS stands against.”
Interim university president Jeff Ettinger said in a public statement that he hopes the pause in selection will allow the center “an opportunity to determine next steps."
“In the past several days, additional members of the University community have come forward to express their interest in providing perspective on the hiring,” he said. “Because of the community-facing and leadership role the director holds, it is important that these voices are heard.”
