The Cartoons That Shook the World may be about cartoon depictions of Muhammad and the firestorm of protests they had set off across the Muslim world, but good luck finding any pictures in the Yale University Press book. Yale cut the 12 caricatures from the book citing fears of violence. Yes, you read that correctly. Yale is worried about violence. And here we thought all they cared about was sweater vests and loafers without socks.

Of course, Yale insists that censorship is not an issue here. They argue they’re not suppressing original content, since it’s readily available elsewhere. And they’re right–the cartoons are all over the Internet. However, doing your own Internet research sort of negates the purpose of reading the book. Somehow or another, the Muslim world has been able to tolerate the presence of these cartoons on Wikipedia, and, with all due respect to the book’s author, Brandeis prof Jytte Klausen, we’re betting that Wikipedia has a lot more readers than a university press publication.

Most of these images are not offensive or disrespectful in and of themselves–this isn’t "Piss Muhammad." No, what offends some Muslims is not the content of the cartoons, but the very notion that a depiction of Muhammad would be made at all. Moreover, enlightened cultural observer that Jewdar is, while we would definitely be opposed to Yale University desecrating the Torah, we certainly wouldn’t think it inappropriate if, in a book about the subject, they showed some photos of desecrated Torahs. Indeed, if they were to come out with a book entitled Torah Desecration in the Modern Period and didn’t have such pictures, we’d wonder what the heck was going on.

So what gives? Or perhaps, "who gives?" Is Yale afraid of losing donations from Muslim fatcats? Is it afraid that Muslim students will call them Orientalists and other hurtful things? Do they fear that Zombie Edward Said will rise from the grave and eat their brains? Who knows. We have no idea, but one thing is for sure–we know who we’re rooting for in this year’s Harvard-Yale game.

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