Segal, an associate professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Endowed Professor in the Study of Modern Genocide at Stockton University in New Jersey, was offered the directorship in June 2024 following a rigorous faculty-led search process. The search committee had unanimously deemed him the most qualified candidate for the position.
However, just two days after the offer was extended, two members of the center's advisory board resigned in protest, citing an October 2023 op-ed Segal published in Jewish Currents titled "A Textbook Case of Genocide," in which he argued that Israel's assault on Gaza constituted a clear violation of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.
The resignation triggered an organized campaign against Segal's hiring. Internal emails obtained through public records requests revealed a coordinated pressure campaign by donors, legislators, and pro-Israel activists targeting university officials. One donor wrote to the chair of the university's board: "We cannot allow someone like Raz Segal a blatant anti Zionist to head the department of Holocaust studies. There are many who will pull their pledges to the university if this isn't addressed." According to Segal, hundreds of emails following the same template were sent to the university, indicating a coordinated effort.
The university's then-interim president, Jeff Ettinger, rescinded the offer five days after it was made. Internal communications revealed how the administration shifted from initially defending Segal to eventually walking back their decision. A senior communications team member warned colleagues that "defending the candidate too much at the moment can be risky," and the team scrapped a sentence from a draft response stating that the university did not apply "political litmus tests in hiring". The university also asked Segal to confirm whether he was "an Israeli native" to address allegations that he was "anti-Israeli".
The decision drew widespread condemnation from academic organizations. The American Association of University Professors called the action an "outrageous violation of both academic freedom and the integrity of the faculty hiring process." The Middle East Studies Association of North America wrote a letter to university leadership expressing "grave concern" over the decision, noting it "starkly contravenes your administration's avowed commitment to academic freedom." Nearly a thousand faculty members from universities across the United States and beyond signed a letter stating that the administration had "effectively issued a vote of no confidence in its own faculty". The University of Minnesota faculty also passed a non-confidence motion against Ettinger and the provost.
In a statement following the settlement, Segal said: "The attack against me by these donors presented a world turned upside down: my commitment, as a Jewish scholar of the Holocaust and the grandchild of four Holocaust survivors, to stopping a livestreamed genocide in front of our eyes posed, in their minds, a threat to Jews." He added: "This settlement represents a successful refusal to accept the world of lies that blur an ongoing genocide, and a commitment to continue the intertwined struggles for truth, justice, and accountability—in Palestine and on our campuses."
Segal, who is a grandchild of four Holocaust survivors and holds dual Israeli-US citizenship, earned his BA in economics from Bar-Ilan University, an MA from Tel Aviv University, and a PhD from Clark University. His first book, Genocide in the Carpathians: War, Social Breakdown, and Mass Violence, 1914–1945, published by Stanford University Press in 2016, established him as a leading scholar in the field. He has also authored Days of Ruin: The Jews of Munkács During the Holocaust, published by Yad Vashem.
The settlement, which the university noted is not an admission of wrongdoing, came after Segal said he had hoped the university would restore the original job offer rather than pay compensation, but was told that was "off the table." Segal expressed concern that the "stigma" surrounding his withdrawn offer had damaged his chances of pursuing similar academic roles in the United States. He has continued to write about Israel's war on Gaza from a scholarly perspective, arguing that the genocide is "far from over."
Maria LaHood, deputy legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented Segal, told The Guardian: "Dr Segal had the courage to sound the alarm to try to prevent Israel's genocide of Palestinians. And for this, the University of Minnesota administration overruled the will of its faculty and revoked his job offer."
Raz Segal is one of many!
Professor Raz Segal was among the first scholars in his field to raise the alarm about Israel's actions in Gaza, publishing his landmark op-ed just days after the start of the Israeli carpet-bombing of the strip on 7 October 2023. His position has since been endorsed by scores of scholars, human rights groups, governments, and United Nations officials. In January 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled that it was "plausible" that Israel's actions in Gaza amounted to genocide, ordering Israel to take measures to prevent acts of genocide and enable humanitarian aid.
Many other distinguished scholars of Holocaust and genocide studies have publicly characterized Israel's military campaign in Gaza as genocide.
Omer Bartov, a leading Holocaust historian and professor at Brown University, is one.
Bartov is one of the most respected scholars of the Holocaust and Nazi Germany. Initially hesitant to use the term "genocide" for Gaza, Bartov reversed his position in late 2023 in a widely circulated essay in The Guardian. He wrote that the scale of destruction—the flattening of entire neighborhoods, the targeting of hospitals and universities, and the forced displacement of nearly the entire population—left him with no other conclusion. Bartov, who spent decades studying the Wehrmacht and Nazi atrocities, stated: "I have studied genocide for over 40 years. I never thought I would see the day when my own people, the Jewish people, would be accused of committing it. But the evidence is overwhelming."
He stood by his conclusions against genocide-deniers in an Op-Ed piece titled 'I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It' for the New York Times in July 2025. "Discrediting genocide scholars who call out Israel’s genocide in Gaza as antisemitic threatens to erode the foundation of genocide studies: the ongoing need to define, prevent, punish and reconstruct the history of genocide. Suggesting that this endeavor is motivated instead by malign interests and sentiments — that it is driven by the very hatred and prejudice that was at the root of the Holocaust — is not only morally scandalous, it provides an opening for a politics of denialism and impunity as well," he wrote.
Daniel Blatman, a prominent Israeli Holocaust and genocide scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is another.
Blatman has also declared that Israel's actions in Gaza constitute genocide. He stated that "Israel is committing in Gaza a terrible war crime, ranging between murderous ethnic cleansing and genocide". Blatman, who has written extensively on the Holocaust and the Warsaw Ghetto, has been outspoken in drawing connections between the historical crimes he studies and the Israeli crimes in Gaza.
In an Opinion titled 'Invoking Never Again in Israel, as More Children Die' in Haaretz in April 2025, Blatman wrote: "I have been engaged in researching the Holocaust for about 40 years. I never imagined in my worst nightmares that the Jewish state would bomb starving children to death."
In January 2025, in an article titled 'There's No Auschwitz in Gaza. But It's Still Genocide', co-written with Historian Amos Goldberg in Haaretz, the authors concluded: "What is happening in Gaza is not the Holocaust. There is no Auschwitz and no Treblinka there. However, it is a crime from the same family – a crime of genocide."
These scholars are part of a broader consensus within the field. In September 2025, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS)—the world's largest academic body devoted to genocide studies, with approximately 500 members including numerous Holocaust experts—passed a resolution declaring that Israel's "policies and actions in Gaza" meet the legal definition of genocide under the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. The resolution was supported by 86 percent of participating members. IAGS President Melanie O'Brien called it "a definitive statement from experts in the field of genocide studies that what is going on on the ground in Gaza is genocide".
Additionally, a May 2025 investigation by the Dutch newspaper NRC interviewed seven renowned genocide researchers from six countries, all of whom described Israel's campaign in Gaza as genocide. Among them was Professor Ugur Umit Ungor, a genocide scholar at University College Dublin, who told NRC: "No, there is no counterargument that takes into account all the evidence".
Short link: