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Artists are boycotting Finland’s national gallery over an Israeli billionaire on its board
(JTA) — Nearly 130 Finnish artists will not be working with Kiasma, the modern art wing of Finland’s national gallery, they announced, in protest of a Finnish-Israeli billionaire who supports the gallery and has connections to both countries’ arms industries.
The artists had signed the statement by Monday after the museum refused to remove a representative of the Zabludowicz Art Trust from its board. The trust was funded and established by Chaim “Poju” Zabludowicz, a Finnish-Israeli billionaire who is the son of Shalom Zabludowicz, a Polish-born Jew and Auschwitz survivor who made his fortune by connecting the Finnish and Israeli arms industries.
“As art workers, we expect the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art to refuse financial or other support from private parties involved in arms trading or manufacturing and financial investments in conflict zones,” the statement reads.
Poju Zabludowicz today lives in the United Kingdom and is in charge of Tamares, the family’s holding company, which invests largely in real estate, though it still has some connections to the Israeli and Finnish defense industries. He has also been involved in pro-Israel advocacy, establishing the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) pro-Israel lobbying group. He donated heavily to Britain’s Conservative party a decade ago.
Zabludowicz was investigated by Israeli police as part of their probe into allegedly illegal gifts given to former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, though Zabludowicz was not ultimately listed as a suspect in Netanyahu’s corruption trial.
Zabludowicz and his wife Anita are avid art collectors and have accumulated more than 5,000 pieces from over 500 artists. The Zabludowicz Collection, which is run by the Art Trust, is displayed in galleries in London, New York and Finland.
The trust has long been targeted by boycotts organized by pro-Palestinian activists. Some created a group called BDZ/Boycott Zabludowicz — a spin on the term BDS, referring to the international boycott, divestment and sanctions movement targeting Israel.
“Zabludowicz Art Trust uses art and culture to artwash the Israeli state’s ongoing racism and violence against Palestinians,” BDZ says on its website. “It is intimately connected to lobbying activities on behalf of the Israeli state, and to a company providing services to the Israeli Air Force. The Zabludowicz brand weaponizes culture to legitimate and reinforce the Israeli policy of apartheid.”
Last year, after the last flareup of military hostilities between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, 25 artists “deauthored” their works because of their inclusion in the Zabludowicz Collection, according to ArtNet.
In a statement last year, responding to the boycotts and de-authorizations, the Zabludowicz’s voiced their support for a two-state solution.
“We founded the Zabludowicz Collection to nurture art and artists and promote a culture of inclusivity. The war between Israel and Hamas has broken our hearts once again. We passionately support a Two-State Solution that guarantees the rights of Palestinians and Israelis to live and work side-by-side in peace,” the couple said.
According to Kiasma, it has no power to expel individuals, particularly Finnish citizens, from the board of its support foundation.
“As an organization operating under the Finnish state, the National Gallery and its museums cannot participate in boycotts directed at individual citizens,” the museum said in a statement.
It added: “We participate in those boycotts and blockades to which the Finnish state has committed and directed us to.”
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The post Artists are boycotting Finland’s national gallery over an Israeli billionaire on its board appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Mistrial Declared in Case of Students Charged After Stanford Anti-Israel Protests
FILE PHOTO: A student attends an event at a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at Stanford University during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Stanford, California U.S., April 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
A judge declared a mistrial on Friday in a case of five current and former Stanford University students related to the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests when demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the school president’s office.
Twelve protesters were initially charged last year with felony vandalism, according to prosecutors who said at least one suspect entered the building by breaking a window. Police arrested 13 people on June 5, 2024, in relation to the incident and the university said the building underwent “extensive” damage.
The case was tried in Santa Clara County Superior Court against five defendants charged with felony vandalism and felony conspiracy to trespass. The rest previously accepted plea deals or diversion programs.
The jury was deadlocked. It voted nine to three to convict on the felony charge of vandalism and eight to four to convict on the felony charge to trespass. Jurors failed to reach a verdict after deliberations.
The charges were among the most serious against participants in the 2024 pro-Palestinian protest movement on US colleges in which demonstrators demanded an end to Israel’s war in Gaza and Washington’s support for its ally along with a divestment of funds by their universities from companies supporting Israel.
Prosecutors in the case said the defendants engaged in unlawful property destruction.
“This case is about a group of people who destroyed someone else’s property and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. That is against the law,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement, adding he sought a new trial.
Anthony Brass, a lawyer for one of the protesters, told the New York Times his side was not defending lawlessness but “the concept of transparency and ethical investment.”
“This is a win for these young people of conscience and a win for free speech,” Brass said, adding “humanitarian activism has no place in a criminal courtroom.”
Protesters had renamed the building “Dr. Adnan’s Office” after Adnan Al-Bursh, a Palestinian doctor who died in an Israeli prison after months of detention.
Over 3,000 were arrested during the 2024 US pro-Palestinian protest movement, according to media tallies. Some students faced suspension, expulsion and degree revocation.
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Exclusive: FM Gideon Sa’ar to Represent Israel at 1st Board of Peace Meeting in Washington on Thursday
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar speaks next to High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas, and EU commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica as they hold a press conference on the day of an EU-Israel Association Council with European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar will represent the country at the inaugural meeting of the Gaza Board of Peace in Washington on Thursday, i24NEWS learned on Saturday.
The arrangement was agreed upon following a request from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will not be able to attend.
Netanyahu pushed his Washington visit forward by a week, meeting with US President Donald Trump this week to discuss the Iran situation.
A U.N. Security Council resolution, adopted in mid-November, authorized the Board of Peace and countries working with it to establish an international stabilization force in Gaza and build on the ceasefire agreed in October under a Trump plan.
Under Trump’s Gaza plan, the board was meant to supervise Gaza’s temporary governance. Trump thereafter said the board, with him as chair, would be expanded to tackle global conflicts.
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Two Men Jailed in UK for Islamic State-Inspired Plot to Kill Hundreds of Jews
Weapons seized from the home of Walid Saadaoui, 38, who along with Amar Hussein, 52, has been found guilty at Preston Crown Court of plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired gun rampage against the Jewish community, in Britain, in this handout picture obtained by Reuters on December 23, 2025. They are due to be sentenced on Friday. Photo: Greater Manchester Police/Handout via REUTERS
Two men were jailed on Friday for plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired attack on the Jewish community in England, a plan prosecutors said could have been deadlier than December’s mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, were both convicted after a trial at Preston Crown Court, which began a week after an unrelated deadly attack on a synagogue in the city of Manchester, in northwest England.
Prosecutors said the pair were Islamist extremists who wanted to use automatic firearms to kill as many Jews as they could in an attack in Manchester.
They were found guilty little more than a week after a mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach in which 15 people were killed.
Prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu said on Friday that, had Saadaoui and Hussein carried out their plan, it “could have been very much more serious” than the attacks in Australia and Manchester.
Judge Mark Wall sentenced Saadaoui to a minimum term of 37 years and Hussein to a minimum term of 26 years, saying: “You were very close to being ready to carry out this plan.”
Hussein refused to attend his sentencing, having refused to attend most of his trial, which Wall said reflected Hussein’s cowardice, describing him as “brave enough to plan to threaten an unarmed group with an AK-47 but not sufficiently courageous to face up to what he did.”
POTENTIALLY ONE OF DEADLIEST ATTACKS ON UK SOIL
Saadaoui had arranged for two assault rifles, an automatic pistol and almost 200 rounds of ammunition to be smuggled into Britain through the port of Dover when he was arrested in May 2024, Sandhu told jurors at the trial.
He added that Saadaoui planned to obtain two more rifles and another pistol, and to collect at least 900 rounds of ammunition.
“This would likely have been one of the deadliest terrorist attacks ever carried out on British soil,” Wall said.
Unbeknown to Saadaoui, however, a man known as “Farouk,” from whom he was trying to get the weapons, was an undercover operative who helped foil the plot.
Walid Saadaoui’s brother Bilel Saadaoui, 37, was found guilty of failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism. He was sentenced to six years in jail.