Pen-Elayne on the Web

No Such Thing as Safe Art

As someone who grew up Jewish and embraced the peaceful way quite early on, one of my constant frustrations is the conflation of "anti-Semitism" with "anti-Israeli policy," particularly by right-wing Jews. I can't tell you how many times I've encountered the "self-hating Jew" epithet aimed at folks who don't think Israelis should be, you know, killing people and bulldozing homes and mowing down olive trees and building walls. To me it's pretty simple - Jews have had enough prejudice directed at us through the millenia that we shouldn't keep doing things that engender more. There's little to be done about people hating you just because you worship differently (short of educating them that, no, you don't have horns and a tail); but why on earth give them actual logical reasons to hate you (like if you've razed their house or killed their relatives) on top of that?

This is what makes Israel such a difficult topic for many American Jews to discuss like adults. Israeli Jews who don't agree with their government's actions seem to have it easier; you never hear the Israeli press denounce peace groups as "self-hating Jews." But elsewhere this guilt card is often played to such a ridiculous extent that it effectively curtails reasoned discourse. And that's just when dealing with surface facts, not representational stuff.

When it comes to art, which is supposed to be controversial and subject to interpretation and to, you know, make people think, things get much trickier. David at Barista reports on the latest controversy, this time in Australia, where an art exhibit condeming Israel's treatment of the Palestinians has been dismantled. CIRCA Art Magazine also discusses other recent controversies involving artistic critique of Israel, including Zvi Mazel going nuts in Stockholm over Snow White and the Madness of Truth, and the portion of the Out of Line free speech exhibition at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam which includes caricatures comparing Ariel Sharon to Adolf Hitler. These exhibits weren't designed to be taken any more literally than Piss Christ or Sensation - but nuance and passion and symbolism appear lost on the uninitiated, as we've seen time and again when the arts are attacked and free speech curtailed.

You want to go after idiots who vandalize synagogues and mosques with swastikas, I'm with you all the way. You seek to tear down art you don't understand that happens to criticize a government steeped in atrocities against fellow human beings? You won't get much sympathy from me. Even if I do happen to have a religion in common with the heads of that government.