The Hate Crimes Task Force of the New York Police Department is investigating several reports of antisemitic vandalism at the homes of Jewish board members of the Brooklyn Museum – including its director, a New York City law enforcement official told CNN Wednesday.
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.
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.
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?
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 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?