A planned book on American editorial cartoons from the Holocaust era was canceled after its author refused demands to include criticism of Israel and the United States in the introduction.
Dr. Rafael Medoff, author of "Cartoonists Against the Holocaust," said that a Dark Horse imprint editor sought to add language accusing Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity and comparing prisons in the US to concentration camps.
Medoff rejected the proposed language, arguing that the claims were inaccurate and would inject contemporary political issues into a historical work.
“Accusing Israel of genocide is a lie, and requiring a Holocaust scholar to denounce Israel to see his book published is antisemitic bullying," Medoff said.
"Cartoonists Against the Holocaust" presents 150 editorial cartoons published in American newspapers during the 1930s and 1940s, accompanied by Medoff's commentary. The book is intended to illustrate what information was available to Americans about the Holocaust while it was taking place.
Dark Horse previously published two books by Medoff, "Whistleblowers" and "Cartoonists Against Racism."
In a September 202, the imprint editor proposed adding a separate note addressing Israel and the US. Medoff responded that references to “concentration camps" in the United States diminished the suffering of Jewish victims of Nazi concentration camps.
“There are no concentration camps in America, and it’s not a Nazi country," Medoff wrote. “Misusing the term ‘concentration camps’ diminishes the suffering that was experienced by the Jewish victims of the real concentration camps in the 1930s-1940s."
Medoff also accused the imprint editor of imposing a political test on the publication of his work.
“It’s troubling to see McCarthyism rearing its ugly head in 21st-century America. Historians should be free to write about history, without being subjected to political litmus tests," he said.
Dark Horse's legal counsel, Philip Simon, offered a different explanation for the decision not to publish the book. In a June 2026 email to StandWithUs legal director Carly Gammill, Simon said Yoe Books had failed to meet the planned production schedule and that Dark Horse withdrew from the project because of financial and scheduling considerations.
“Dark Horse does not plan to publish 'Cartoonists Against the Holocaust,'" Simon wrote, adding that the decision was based on the company's “financial needs and some scheduling issues that had delayed the project too much already."
Yoe, who has since ended his relationship with Dark Horse, said there were “a number of errors" in Medoff's account but did not specify them.
Gammill, Director of Legal Policy and Litigation at StandWithUs Saidoff Law, criticized the circumstances described by Medoff.
“When a comic book publisher pressures a Holocaust scholar to denounce the Jewish state before his own book on the Holocaust can see print, the irony is hard to miss," she said.
Medoff is the founding director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies in Washington, DC.