What connection do 5 Jewish board members at the Brooklyn Museum have to what’s going on in Gaza?
Funny thing:
The idea that protesting the slaughter of Palestinians equals antisemitism requires starting from the position that slaughtering Palestinians is a fundamental part of the Jewish identity.
There’s really no alternative way to interpret that. If slaughtering Palestinians is not a fundamental part of the Jewish identity, then protesting such slaughter has nothing to do with Judaism, and thus cannot be antisemitic. It’d be like trying to claim that protesting cars is anti-Amish.
So all these people quoted here are essentially saying that slaughtering Palestinians is not just fundamental to being Jewish, but so deeply and uniquely fundamental - so much a part of Jewishness - that opposing such slaughter automatically equals opposing Jews.
Doesn’t that sound sort of… antisemitic?
I’m not sure we read the same article.
I think the quoted people were saying that throwing paint and writing slogans on the homes of Jews is antisemitism.
Lemme be clear and say what Israel is doing in Gaza is abhorrent.
I’m not seeing how defacing the homes of 5 people in NYC just because they’re Jewish stops the genocide of the Palestinians or helps them in any way.
just because they’re Jewish
Actually, a bit of quick research reveals that Brooklyn Museum, and Anne Pasternak specifically, have been the targets of protests since at least 2016, when the museum, under her directorship, put on a show called “This Place” that purported to be an unbiased look at Israel and Palestine, but was backed by pro-occupation funders.
In fact, the group that was organized in response to that show, called “Decolonize This Place,” still exists and is still active.
So it’s exceedingly safe to assume that she wasn’t targeted “just because (she’s) Jewish” but because for at least the past eight years, she, and the museum more broadly, have been seen to be sympathetic to colonialism broadly, and zionism specifically - so much so that at least one organization was formed and still exists specifically to protest them.
Here’s the most concise source for that - an interview with Pasternak from 2018
Thank you for adding context the article didn’t bother to.
FWIW I agree there’s a vile association that Zionism has created by claiming itself so intrinsically part of Judaism, one rife with hypocrisy and catalysts for undue hatred against Jews. That said, it’s difficult to see people’s homes targeted by protests like this with the rise of the Neo-Nazi right as it is in America. Its easy to get one’s hackles up. Personally, I’m not sure I agree with the tactics due to the optics, but I also don’t think it’s really my place to critique the methods of the oppressed against the oppressors. Though, I think these sorts of tactics make more sense in Israel and Palestine than in NYC and perhaps there are more fitting targets who have more impact on US policy towards Israel, but I also understand that those people may be far more difficult to reach and the consequences for trying far more dire.
That said, it’s difficult to see people’s homes targeted by protests like this with the rise of the Neo-Nazi right as it is in America.
That sentence neatly sums up a whole raft of issues.
First - yes - this sort of protest is and always will be problematic at best. I understand the impetus (intellectually at least - I’n far too old and cynical to feel that sort of fervor, and I was never that reckless), but even though the cause is just, there’s a point beyond which protest becomes counter-productive, since it alienates people who would otherwise support it.
And there is a very real looming spectre of antisemitism in the US.
But the thing is that protesting the war in Gaza or zionism broadly is NOT part of that threat, and every bit of (self-serving) effort expended on that is diverted from the real threat, which comes from an ever-growing subculture of stock-standard (neo) nazi antisemites - people who are specifically targeting Jews, collectively and individually and even using much of the same rhetoric and stereotypes that the Third Reich used. And notably, that threat doesn’t come from the left, but from the right.
That said though there is a potential threat inherent in the (almost entirely left-wing) protests against the war - the risk that it could expand to a broader condemnation of Israelis in general, or even Jews in general. I’ve actually been sort of half-expecting to see someone try to make a case similar to ACAB regarding Israelis or even Jews - that they’re all [pejoratives] because they’re all, necessarily, either murderous xenophobes or at best enablers of the murderous xenophobes in their midst.
And that then leads back to where you started. That was actually part of the impetus for my first response, though I ended up spinning it a bit different way.
The ongoing efforts to conflate opposition to the war or to zionism with antisemitism are, and I would say rather obviously, not only simply dishonest, but actually a threat to Jews. They invite antisemitism, and to some degree actually are antisemitic, insofar as they assign a particular set of beliefs that many find noxious and worthy of hatred to Jews collectively and individually, entirely regardless of and in many cases directly contrary to the actual beliefs and preferences of individual Jews.
And… I’m yet again, as I am on pretty much a daily basis, reminded of the purported old Chinese curse - “May you live in interesting times.” We certainly do.
Thanks for the response.
That curse has been rattling around in my head a lot these days…
Well said points and also thank you for your responses.
If you’ve got hackles left to raise over percieved antisemitism then you’ve not been paying attention. We’re building slums in metropoli. We’re trying to boil an ocean covered in trash. We’re buying lead painted toys for the low, low cost of enough smog to smother entire school yards all at once. These protestors cared enough to symbolically piss blood on the homes on those with some small measure of authority, but you hem and haw over the optics?
throwing paint and writing slogans on the homes of Jews is antisemitism
This is a very, very dangerous idea to perpetuate. Saying any act of protest against Jewish people, whether or not it’s related to their religion or heritage, is antisemitic means we cannot criticize Jewish people for valid reasons unrelated to their religion or heritage. Misguided or not, it does not seem that these protestors were attacking them because they are Jewish but rather because they are Zionist and just happen to be Jewish. A natural extension of this idea is that protesting the rampant fraud from previous Netanyahu terms would make me antisemitic which is patently false.
To quote you, I’m not sure we read the same article if you think the homes were vandalized because the occupants are Jewish.
This whole conversation is super fraught with nuance.
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I think that’s a fantastic description of the Israeli colonizers!
Edit: very important to note that not all Jews are Israeli, not all Israelis are Jews or colonizers, and not all Palestinians are Muslim or Hamas.
Edit edit: it’s kinda fucking stupid that I have to pull a “not all…” because that’s really fucking dumb with any discourse. It shows just how loaded this conversation is and how difficult it is to call out the problem, Zionist colonizers, without being misinterpreted eg assumed antisemitism
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You very clearly did not process either one of my comments. Have fun with that!
I’m not sure how hosting an art exhibit commemorating the deaths of people murdered by Hamas on October 7th automatically makes the board members Zionists endorsing the persecution of Palestinians. Perhaps there is some context this article doesn’t touch on
Perhaps there is some context this article doesn’t touch on
There is.
This is the most concise and complete summation I could find of the (early) history of the protests against Brooklyn Museum and Anne Pasternak.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/anne-pasternak-brooklyn-museum-interview-part-2-1409434
Note too that there’s another controversy - regarding the hiring of a white curator for African art - that likely provides the context for the “white supremacist” part of the graffito.
I can’t even find any connection between the Boston Museum and that exhibit in Manhattan.
It’s the Brooklyn museum, but yeah I’m not sure if there was one either as I think the exhibit was in Manhattan, not Brooklyn. This is the quality of article I have come to expect from CNN.
Why were they targeted?
Idk when vandalizing a unrelated persons property became protesting, but sure?
Next time some African Nation tortures someone, am I allowed to vandalize the House of a black Person in my Neighborhood?
It’s not racism, because saying that would mean that torturing people is in black people’s DNA, no?
Anti-semitic or anti-zionist? Cause there’s a difference.
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So glad there are a few individuals holding these organisations and their members accountable.
You want to be pro-genocide and support a terrorist state like Israel? You shouldn’t expect to live comfortably.
Also sickening how the article talks about the festival deaths and ignore the tens of thousands of dead Palestinians.
It’s not sickening, it’s context as to why these board members may have been targeted.
I’m also not sure how hosting an art gallery automatically equates to support for what Israel is doing. Those people were murdered.
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Democracy Now! was on the scene and spoke with protesters, who said that almost eight months into Israel’s brutal assault on the Gaza Strip, prominent institutions in the U.S. have an obligation to disclose their ties to the occupation and divest. “We are making it clear that we will continue to occupy institutions just like this one and call out individuals like the board of the Brooklyn Museum to make clear that their money and our money is being used for this genocide,” said Abdullah Akl, a member of Within Our Lifetime, a Palestinian-led community organization
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/6/3/brooklyn_museum
Divest from Israel if you don’t want to support genocide. If you do support genocide, some paint on your house is the least you deserve.
That article doesn’t spell out how the museum is invested in Israel, just says they are. Am I supposed to take their word for it?
