Dark Horse had previously published two of Medoff's books – Whistleblowers and Cartoonists Against Racism – without controversy. As well as his work as a cartoonist, he is the founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies in Washington DC.
Medoff and the Jewish civil rights organisation StandWithUs contend that it was only after Israel responded to the October 7 attacks by launching the Gaza War that Yoe began insisting Medoff denounce Israel as a condition of publishing Cartoonists Against the Holocaust.
According to Medoff, Yoe emailed him on September 1, 2025, saying he had “thought long and hard” about adding a separate note to the book addressing Israel and the US.
In the proposed text, Yoe criticised President Trump, writing that he was “attempting to create concentration camp-style prisons” and sending American residents to “gulag-type prisons” abroad without constitutionally guaranteed trials.
Yoe allegedly said of Israel that it is “a country populated by an ethnic religious group who were immorally and horrifically tortured and killed in the Holocaust for their ethnicity, led by a prime minister that the world’s top war crimes court has issued warrants for his alleged acts of war crimes and crimes against humanity”.
In his response to Yoe, Medoff objected to the proposed language, arguing that it politicised a book about the Holocaust and relied on historically inaccurate comparisons.
“Accusing Israel of genocide is a lie, and requiring a Holocaust scholar to denounce Israel in order to publish his book is antisemitic bullying,” he wrote.
He also objected to references to “concentration camps” in the United States, writing: “There are no concentration camps in America, and it’s not a Nazi country… Misusing the terms ‘concentration camps’ diminishes the suffering that was experienced by the Jewish victims of the real concentration camps in the 1930-1940s.”
Victims of the Buchenwald concentration camp in barrack 56 in the ‘Little Camp’, liberated by the American troops of the 80th Division, April 16, 1945 (Credit: Harry Miller/U.S. Signal Corps/Getty Images)Getty Images
Yoe is a former creative director for The Muppets and a longtime cartoonist. He was an editor with Dark Horse as he worked on Medoff’s book, but has apparently since severed ties with the publishing house.
Philip Simon, legal counsel for Dark Horse, confirmed they cancelled the book but did not mention the apparent political controversy, according to the New York Post.
He told Carly Gammill, legal director of StandWithUs: “Craig Yoe, of Yoe Books, failed to make our planned schedule for this book as the project’s packager, so Dark Horse stepped away from it and decided not to publish it last year.
“Dark Horse does not plan to publish Cartoonists Against the Holocaust... it was a decision based on our company’s financial needs and some scheduling issues that had delayed the project too much already.”
Carly Gammill of StandWithUs said, “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.”
Craig Yoe has been approached for comment.
Dr Rafael Medoff gives a talk on antisemitism (Credit: YouTube/ISGAP International)[Missing Credit]