More censorship in Chicago. This time of an exhibit at a Jewish museum that pictured many different maps of Israel/Palestine. The Tribune story bravely speaks of the money issue. No, we won't get anywhere till we talk about this issue.
it is unfortunate that Chicago's Spertus Museum recently closed its "Imaginary Coordinates" exhibit, apparently in response to pressure from the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago and individual donors. The exhibit featured various views of the struggles in the Middle East and maps from different perspectives.
Couple comments. 1.This article mentions the Jewish Revisionist group "Betar," whose maps showed Israel extending into Jordan, the biblical lands of Dan, I believe, from which Jordan gets its name. Well Doug Feith's father is said to have been a member of Betar. Is this where Doug Feith got his extremist views? Feith mentions this not in his new book. (Stephen J. Sniegoski does). 2. Says Spertus: "Our logo is a flame accompanied by the biblical phrase, yehi or, let there be light." What has happened to my people's tradition of cultural leadership? Apartheid-like policies in Israel are vitiating same. Come young progressives and redeem your traditions! 3. Here is JTA's coverage, by Ami Eden, a very nice piece of journalism. Eden quotes the museum's director saying she wanted to move the museum "from the parochial to the civic." But the exhibit was too critical of Israel for the big money.
Sadly it appears that Jewish donors to the museum will not tolerate any expression of criticism of Israel..
What a blatant example of how the Lobby operates to force their zionist views on the people of America.
This outrageous action taken together with the attempt at silencing the Palestinian author at Politics and Prose in DC,The lobbying to prevent Walt and Mearschimer from speaking anywhere, The attacks on free speech at Harvard, the denial of Finkelsteins
tenure at DePaul; all point to the fact that there is a real and very dangerous attack by Zionists ,using their positions of power in the media and academia, to deny Americans the right to free speech. …
This struggle is for control of the society's discourse, and the outcome will be significant for years to come…
One positive aspect is the article cited above by Phil from the New Yorker Mag..
Last I heard, "yehi" just meant "let there be"; the complete phrase is "yehi aur", "let there be light". Unless the omission of "aur" was just a typo, I find it kind of amusing that Gentile, non-Christian me seems to know more about Hebrew (enough not to make such a silly mistake, at least) than a group of Zionist Jews.
Ah Craig.If you were really opposed to zionism wouldn't you first talk about the issures of censorship and then in a non-hostile manner,suggest the correction in the Hebrew? So, Mr "Craig", tell us what you think of the issues raised by the actions of the Chicago Museum reported on above.
You aren't going to let the zionists get away with it are you?
Or maybe we have met the enemy and it is you??
Actually, Ami Eden's report wasn't very in depth & didn't provide much analysis of the implications of the exhibition closing. But at least he didn't get things deeply wrong as JTA's Israel coverage often does.
BTW, I covered the Spertus closing in my blog (along w. some serious thinking about what was wrong w. the museum's decision) days before JTA got to the story.