With Jewish Friends Like These ...

"We have before, and will continue to present works that may be critical of Israel and show support for Palestinians."

"However, what we cannot do is question the right of Israel to exist at all, implicitly or explicitly."

Kerry King, executive director, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco

 

"We dared to hope that maybe this was a sea change moment."

"Maybe the CJM [Contemporary Jewish Museum] would be the first mainstream Jewish museum to take a stand against the genocide of Palestinians through the display of our artworks."

"However, this was not the case." 

California Jewish Artists for Palestine

"I felt removing my work wasn't going to further goals toward ending a war, and it was a net positive to have Jewish voices being heard, creating community and support."

Kim Kyne Cohen, artist

"I thought the open call could be very fraught."

"I still was interested in being within a conversation about Jewish identity and this war, and if it was possible to feel comfortable in a Jewish-designated space as an artist."

Amy Trachtenberg, artist

Ava Sayaka Rosen, Arielle Tonkin, and collaborators, "Morocco to the Bay: A diasporic Prayerformance" (2023) (photo by M. Fields, all images courtesy the artists)

 

An art exhibition that opened in June at San Fancisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum faced some controversy  over its invitation to Jewish artists to submit their work for a new show. Over 500 Jewish-identifying artists in California responded by submitting their artworks to appear in the prestigious venue willing to showcase their art. It was anticipated by the curators that the response to their open call during a time when the Jewish community was split over Israel's response in Gaza to the October 7 attacks perpetrated by Hamas that they would face a certain level of controversy

Even so, the reality of the situation that did arise, caught them unprepared. While some pieces of art were apolitical, others indicated support for Israel, while yet others did so for Palestinians. Israel's military response in Gaza in response to the sadistic savagery meted out to Israeli civilians on October 7, an ideological choice of interpretation took the curators aback in the ferocity of the  art-infused statements  rejecting the Israeli operations.

Steph Kudisch, “nisht keyn tsedek, nisht keyn sholem” (2023), linocut on muslin, 9 x 10 inches

 

Of the close to 300 submissions, some 70 of the artworks were selected for the exhibition. Following the selection process, seven of the artists retracted their artwork in April in the wake of discussions with the museum, when the artists  insisted on control of the presentation of their works as well as institutional divestment by the museum from companies doing business with Israel and the additional demand that Israel itself be boycotted.

What has resulted is six wall spaces intentionally left free of art. Preserved in a blank state "to honour the perspectives that would have been shared through these artworks and to authentically reflect the struggle for dialogue that is illustrated by the artists' decisions to withdraw." Left intact and on display is 63 works of art representing the work of 47 artists.

 

Courtesy the artist.

Georgina Reskala, Horas Transparentes, 2022

 

California Jewish Artists for Palestine members submitted their pro-Palestinian artworks in response to the open call in the belief they would be rejected -- for the greater purpose of "bring[ing] visibility to anti-zionist Jewish artists in California", according to the group's reasoning. Five of the collective's artists' works were accepted, however, one of which was "nisht keyn tsedek, nisht keyn shalom", a lino-cut holding Yiddish and English phrases for "no justice, no peace".

Several of the collective's demands were rejected by the Contemporary Jewish Museum, leading those members to condemn the museum even though the dissenting artists were informed by the museum's executive director that the requests "were not feasible". Those artists who remained in the show defended their decisions to remain. That it was preferable to remain visible even though their message was diluted.

Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco