Last week I picked up reports of censorship by Spertus, a Jewish museum in Chicago, of a show called “Imaginary Coordinates” that gave a lot of airtime to Palestinian views of the conflict in Israel/Palestine. I’m returning to the subject because today I got a mocking email from a Jewish literary friend about the censorship, in turn quoting a contemptuous Jewish friend of his–and it struck me that younger Jews find the episode ridiculous and embarrassing. Consider: Jewschool and JTA both were angered by the censorship. And here is Time Out’s coverage by Lauren Weinberg (who I’m guessing is Jewish and younger), appropriately titled “Let’s All Go to the Spertus Museum of Censorship.”
Curator Rhoda Rosen gave me a tour of the (excellent) exhibition last month, so I can confirm that it proposed such radical notions as 1) Palestinians exist and 2) They feel strongly about their claim to the Holy Land.
Also here is Time Out’s favorable review of the show, by Philip Berger, who I’m guessing is probably Jewish, and younger, inasmuch as he works for Time Out.
The Chicago Tribune’s report on the censorship made the show out to be with-it, provocative (check out “Barbed Hula” by Israeli artist Sigalit Landau); but not in the eyes of Jewish leadership/the Spertus board. Any time you say Palestinians are human beings you have to have “context”:
[A] video showed a woman driving around Jerusalem asking for directions to Ramallah, a Palestinian town in the West Bank. Everyone gives her different directions and describes Ramallah as far away, when it really is quite close by, illustrating how mental distance can affect the maps in our mind.
Michael Kotzin, executive vice president of Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, said pieces like those videos lacked context. While many pieces highlighted Palestinian humanity, he said others portrayed Israelis as unfeeling and guarded, without noting the dangers Israelis have faced for decades.
I see this episode as evidence of the generational split I often talk about here. “Exodus”-generation Jews are clearly threatened by this type of speech. They are actually afraid. “This exhibition caused pain for members of our key audience who felt it presented anti-Israel points of view,” the museum’s president solemnly told Weinberg. Older Jews expect us to respect their sensitivities, by trashing the spirit of the First Amendment. It’s like the Arabs have replaced Nazis in their demonology. Younger Jews just seem to want the news, even about the right of return, so they can judge for themselves. I think I know who’s going to win this one.
Related posts:
- Chicago Jewish Museum, Trying to Move ‘From Parochial to Civic’, Is Censored by Its ‘Donors’
- Anti-Zionist Jews Allege Censorship on Wikipedia
- Most Israeli Jews are for Palestinian state– but most of the young are against it!
- Jews Are Richer, Older and Better Educated Than Other Americans
- Gaza photo exhibit faces censorship threat in Montreal
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thats nice. What can we DO about it?
Here are some quotes from the Chicago Jewish Star, a 2nd article re: the Spertus affair:
In the first review of the exhibit to appear, the Jewish Star (May 9) predicted that Jewish viewers would be "puzzled, distressed and possibly angered by the show's perspective," which promoted the symmetry of Jewish and Palestinian visions, views and national identities, without offering context.
"The exhibit unhinges the specifically Jewish ties to the land," and "is as much a [political] treatise as an exhibit," the Jewish Star review stated.
In a June 20 statement announcing the early closing of "Imaginary Coordinates", Dr. Howard A. Sulkin, President of Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies (of which the museum is one facet), said that the board of Trustees voted to end the exhibit when they "came to realize that parts of the exhibition were not in keeping with our mission as a Jewish institution and did not belong at Spertus.
Thus a 1942 drawing by a father to his son during the holocaust, that concluded with the hope of the land of Israel was mounted together with a vial containing earth from a destroyed Palestinian village that was gathered in 1992 by an individual born in that village.
A viewer would understandably conclude from this pairing that what the nazis did to the Jews of Europe, is equivalent to what the Jews of Israel did to Arabs in Palestine. The Israelis are today's nazis, was the implication.
I used them in my 'am I an anti-semite' blog post.
http://americangoy.blogspot.com/2008/06/is-americangoy-anti-semite.html
"thats nice. What can we DO about it?"
Expose Americans to a non-propaganda point of view?
Americans are not THAT stupid – they are VERY uninformed.
By design.
Seymour M. Hersh lays out the stupidity of American terrorist activity against Iran:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all
Iran confirms it will shut down the Persian Gulf if attacked by Amerisrael:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-iran29-2008jun29,0,377280.story
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"I see this episode as evidence of the generational split I often talk about here. "Exodus"-generation Jews are clearly threatened by this type of speech. They are actually afraid. … Younger Jews just seem to want the news, even about the right of return, so they can judge for themselves. I think I know who's going to win this one."
Me, too. Indeed, this paragraph could serve as the overview of a book proposal. It would, in effect, be the Jewish version of Harvard professor Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone," which detailed (with incredibly exhaustive research) the Boomers' changing level and style of civic participation, as compared to their parents' generation.
Similarly, younger Jews are questioning or discarding the obsessions of the 'Exodus' generation, as it emerges that some of its bedrock zionist assumptions are flawed, and have been flawed from the beginning. It's going to be a long climbdown from "a land without people for a people without land," which is about as nonsensical and bellicose a slogan as "fifty-four forty or fight." The old dogs bark, but this caravan is moving on without them.
Drive on, Wagonmaster Phil.
Those that only condemn have got it wrong, young or old.
Those that only applaud have got it wrong, young or old.
Yeah, let's have some "context"–on both sides. Is there any context to what are politicians have been saying about our relationship with Israel for decades? Nope, not by them–McCain's a true believer & Obama knows on which side his
power campaign is buttered. Paul & Kuncinich are dismissed
as mere sticks in the mud and, worse, anti-semites…
When W & M finally came out with some context after decades
of one-sided public Exodus spiel, what happened? Suddenly, there came a cry for some context–context which hadn't been provided for so long about American foreign policy and the nakba, etc…
Amazing to watch a major bully suddenly cry out for help.
Is anyone else wondering about how long it's been since Phil's gotten laid? It seems the longer he goes without, the more we get his fantasies about "youth" and what the young think. Well, one thing is for sure, they're not thinking about anything he says.
"Those that only condemn"
Strawman, thy maker is Witty.
Though Sy Hersh writes of US actions against Iran, he decidedly leaves out any mention of "the elephant in the room." Even truth-tellers, it seems, can only tell a portion of the truth.
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