JALSA Submits Testimony in Support of Legislation to Combat Banning Books
January 10, 2024
Dear Chairs Lewis and Garlick,
The Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (JALSA) is a membership-based non-profit organization based in Boston, with thousands of members and supporters statewide. Guided by Jewish teachings and values, we are devoted to the defense of civil rights, the preservation of constitutional liberties, and the passionate pursuit of social, economic, environmental, and racial justice for all people.
JALSA wishes to offer its testimony in strong support of S.2528 / H.4229, An act regarding free expression. Personally, I am horrified that, in 2024, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I have to testify in defense of the right of people to read books.
We at JALSA decry efforts to ban books because we have seen what happens throughout history when such anti-free-speech, anti-education, anti-democracy efforts are permitted to flourish. Such efforts evoke memories of the notorious Nazi book burning campaigns in May 1933 that included the destruction of works by everyone from Helen Keller to Albert Einstein. There is a direct through-line from that authoritarian regime to ongoing efforts today to, for example, ban literature pertaining to the Holocaust, warping our understanding of history, and even attempting to erase memory of the Shoah. Ultimately, book bans not only suppress information and art from public access. They also corrode our very humanity.
Additionally, efforts to challenge and ban books in recent years have overwhelmingly focused on works that center marginalized voices, especially Black and LGBTQ+ stories. This insidious scourge leads to two related outcomes: authors representing marginalized communities are more readily silenced; and all readers have fewer opportunities to hear about and learn from those with different life experiences. This diminishes a sense of representation among readers hungry to see themselves portrayed in the stories they read, and it reduces opportunities to develop empathy and understanding among readers whose minds can be broadened by such literature.
In aggregate, book bans are tactics designed to control what ideas people can be exposed to, warping our perception of the world around us. Further, book bans are attempts to control our understanding of history in order to whitewash it. Efforts to combat book banning, like this legislation, are how we stand up to authoritarians, white nationalists, and others who would use division as a political tactic to keep us from coming together in a thriving democracy rooted in equity, empathy, and opportunity for all.
This landmark legislation would require libraries to create clear guidelines for how to approach a book challenge, establishing guardrails against insidious efforts to unduly remove books from public access and silence marginalized voices. In doing so, free speech and free expression, the underpinnings of a thriving democracy, will be defended.
JALSA strongly urges the members of the Joint Committee on Education to report S.2528 / H.4229, An act regarding free expression, favorably out of committee.
Sincerely,
Cindy Rowe
President and CEO
Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action