Cartoons inked with ‘blood libel’ at Penn
The University of Pennsylvania is embroiled in yet another scandal in the wake of Oct. 7 — as communications school lecturer Dwayne Booth is under fire for political cartoons that critics say are antisemitic.
One of Booth’s illustrations appears to depict Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu incinerating Palestinian skulls, while another, titled “Slaughterhouse,” shows Netanyahu with red glowing eyes, covered in blood and holding a knife.
The images were published on Booth’s personal website, Clowncrack.com, where he uses the pseudonym Mr. Fish.
In another cartoon, Israeli and American men can be seen drinking blood from wine glasses that say “Gaza.” The imagery has been criticized as a reference to the blood libel — the fraudulent claim appearing throughout European history that Jews used the blood of Christian children in religious rituals.
One especially distressing image titled “The Executioner’s Song” shows a baby with a gun — stamped with the flag of Israel — held to its head.
There is also an illustration,
“Never Again and Again and Again,” that shows emaciated Jews during the Holocaust holding up posters protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza.
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Outrage over Booth’s cartoons inspired interim Penn president J. Larry Jameson to issue a statement calling the cartoons “reprehensible,” while reaffirming the educator’s academic freedom.
Booth is a lecturer at Penn’s Annenberg School for Communication, where he teaches political cartooning. According to Annenberg’s website, he currently teaches two courses: “Warning! Graphic Content: Political Cartoons, Comix, and the Uncensored Artist,” and “Sick and Satired: The Insanity of Humor and How it Keeps Us Sane.”
Raphael Englander, an 18year-old Penn freshman from Philadelphia, submitted an op-ed to the student newspaper about the controversy, writing that, even though “the content of Booth’s classes are genuinely interesting,” he could never take the class after seeing Booth’s cartoons.
“As the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, I could never fathom taking these courses now,” he wrote. “How could I? His work simultaneously spreads the conspiracies that killed my own family members and scoffs at their memory by equivocating the Jewish state to their murders.”
The editorial team of the Daily Pennsylvanian declined Englander’s submission, citing a word limit and plans to publish a similar opinion piece about the topic, in emails reviewed by The Post.
The Post was unable to locate the referenced piece. The Daily Pennsylvanian did not respond to a request for comment.
Englander says that although he was “reluctant to address the antisemitism on our campus in a public way,” that Booth’s cartoons made him feel “a switch flip.”
“I feel both angry and sad that a lecturer at my university creates and shares antisemitic cartoons,” Englander, a Jewish studies major, told The Post. “While I feel safe on campus, I have many friends and acquaintances who do not feel safe, and there have been many, concrete examples of antisemitism — including these cartoons, most recently.”
Since Oct. 7, the University of Pennsylvania has been dragged for an inadequate response to campus antisemitism, leading to the resignation of former president Liz Magill.