Uncategorized
This Jewish museum is lending art across America — with one condition
Take a stroll through the Cleveland Museum of Art. Look closely in the Korean art galleries, and you will find a Jewish ritual spice container.
Among its collection of Italian Baroque art, you’ll stumble upon a marble Jewish marriage panel.
In the Middle East galleries, 19th-century Torah finials from Tbilisi, Georgia, blend seamlessly with the Islamic art that surrounds them.
Until recently, none of those objects were there. Like many art and history museums across the U.S., Cleveland had almost no Jewish ceremonial art on display. The few that do often display it in separate galleries exclusively reserved for Jewish art.
Now, Cleveland is just one of about a dozen museums across the country participating in a quiet initiative led by New York’s Jewish Museum, which is lending works from its collection to institutions that have little or no Jewish works on view. The Jewish Museum has one condition: don’t put them in a Judaica gallery.
“Jewish culture exists because for 3,500 years it’s been wandering the global diaspora,” said James Snyder, the director of the Jewish Museum, the art museum at the helm of the initiative. “How it looks is a function of its engagement, not its disengagement.”
An Iraqi menorah adorned with peacocks belongs in a Middle East gallery, he argues, where visitors can see that the peacock was a common decorative motif across the region’s art, regardless of religion. A German Torah crown belongs among European decorative arts to tell the story about how, for centuries, Jewish ceremonial silver was largely crafted by non-Jewish silversmiths after Jews were barred from joining silver-making guilds.
20th century. Courtesy of The Jewish Museum
Bill Griswold, the director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, told the Forward that while the museum has had significant collections of Islamic, Christian, Buddhist and Hindu works, it “didn’t have a single important object of Jewish ceremonial art.” This, despite the fact that Cleveland has one of the country’s largest Jewish populations.
At the Toledo Museum of Art, curator Robert Schindler said there was “exactly zero Judaica” there until November 2025, when the museum purchased a rare 12th-century Afghan kiddush cup for $4 million — a record price for Judaica. The Toledo museum also joined the Jewish Museum’s lending initiative; a 13th-century synagogue inscription from Cairo will be displayed in a gallery that intends to compare different world religions.
“It’s a gap in the collection, and it’s a gap in the stories and narratives that we’re telling,” said Schindler. “This is sort of a very active way of trying to reckon with, and also make up for some of the things that we just didn’t collect previously.”
Jewish Museum curator Danny Smith-Salfati calls the partnerships “artistic interventions,” each one tailor-made. Staff from the Jewish Museum work alongside local curators to identify objects that naturally fit within existing galleries. They also train docents on the Jewish significance of the objects and how they fit into the historical narrative of the gallery where they are placed.
Museum directors say the response has been overwhelmingly positive. At the Detroit Institute of Arts, hundreds of visitors have shown up for events dedicated to the viewing of objects that include one of the oldest known Torah shields in the world and a casket from the 15th century adorned with zodiac symbols.
Judith Dolkart, the museum’s deputy director, said the interest has prompted the museum to think seriously about adding Jewish ceremonial art to its permanent collection.
Griswold said the Cleveland museum has welcomed more guests in this calendar year than in recent history, a surge he attributes in large part to interest in the works on loan from the Jewish Museum.
“When I’ve been in the galleries, and these works have been on view, there have been people gathered around these vitrines [glass cases], fascinated to discover something really new in the context of our collection,” he said.
Snyder began his tenure at the Jewish Museum in October 2023, just three weeks after the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. He found himself navigating a moment of extraordinary tension. Museums across the country are still wrestling with pressure to take a stance on the conflict, confronting challenges such as disputes over public-facing staff members wearing keffiyehs to work and protests and vandalism tied to accusations that museum officials were providing support to Israel during the Gaza War. Jewish museums were not immune to that strife. According to a survey by the Council of American Jewish Museums, 81% of Jewish museums in North America and Europe reported antisemitic or anti-Israel harassment after Oct. 7.
“Museum staff were making statements that were shifting to the left, and shifting to pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli,” Snyder said. “Museum boards were shifting the other way: pro-Israeli, shocked, horrified, and that was producing conflict in museums … it was in every museum in town.”
Once he took the helm, Snyder created a post-Oct. 7 action plan to help the Jewish Museum navigate the moment, which included a directors’ talk series and an educational program for staff on the Middle East, racism and antisemitism, and exhibits about the traumas of the war. He also thought hard about the museum’s approach to curation, seeking to explicitly draw connections between Jewish objects and the places and cultures in which they developed.
“A culturally specific museum is segregating itself,” he explained. “What you need to do is show that Jewish culture has been in the global diaspora longer than any other single culture for 3,500 years, demonstrating resilience and engagement worldwide.”
Suddenly, Snyder began receiving calls from directors of encyclopedic museums across the country. How could they build a collection of Jewish art and artifacts in their spaces?
His answer was blunt. “You really can’t today,” he told them. Most major Judaica already belongs to museums or private collectors, and when important objects do come to market, private buyers often outbid institutions, he said. Instead, he offered them another solution: borrow from the Jewish Museum.
“Take a dozen from us and don’t put them in a room,” Snyder recalled telling museum directors. “Sprinkle them. Take something from the Italian Renaissance, German Baroque, British Imperial, American Colonial, Asian…”
Smith-Salfati says this initiative fulfills part of the Jewish Museum’s mandate.
“We’re introducing Jewish material and Jewish concepts and Jewish ideas that are not widely known,” he said. “And debunking myths about what Judaism is and looks like.”
Snyder agrees.
“We see part of our job as dispersing Jewish culture across the landscape of our own American diaspora,” Snyder said. “It’s what we feel is our mandate — and one that’s all the more relevant because of the times we’re in.”
The post This Jewish museum is lending art across America — with one condition appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Talarico blames Netanyahu, not the Israeli people, for devastation in Gaza
(JTA) — James Talarico, Texas’ Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, said he holds Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, rather than the Israeli people, responsible for civilian devastation in Gaza.
Talarico, a Texas state representative, is running neck and neck against Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, in a race whose results could affect which party controls the Senate this November. Israel has been one of many sources of disagreement among the candidates, who have sparred on issues ranging from affordability to immigration to reproductive rights.
“I believe that Israel, like any nation, has a right to defend its people,” the candidate said while fielding questions on Wednesday at a CNN town hall. “But I don’t believe that Benjamin Netanyahu has a right to wage war against civilians or use collective punishment or restrict aid to civilians.”
A Texas Politics Project poll, issued by the University of Texas this week, showed Paxton trailing Talarico by 3 percentage points, with 47% to the Democrat’s 50% and a margin of error of 3.34 percentage points.
Talarico said in August that he supported stopping arms sales to the Netanyahu government and conditioning military aid “on ending the death and the destruction in Gaza and the West Bank.” He declined to call the crisis “genocide,” noting that the term is being litigated in the International Court of Justice. But he said he’d “use every bit of our nation’s diplomatic and financial leverage to protect the lives of Palestinians.”
When he was pressed further by Rabbi Holly Levin Cohn of Congregation Beth El Binah in Dallas during the town hall, Talarico stressed the importance of directing his criticisms “toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and not the Israeli people.”
Addressing Israelis’ trauma, Talarico acknowledged that the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel “was the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”
Cohn pushed back on his comments regarding aid restrictions, noting Israeli support of humanitarian efforts and arguing that there’s much more going on in the country than the media may be projecting.
Talarico told the rabbi he recognized that his “words carry weight” and gave her his word that he’s “going to continue to listen to all sides of this conflict.” He also expressed hope that “we can all come together to fight for a two-state solution where we have security for Israel and we have freedom and self-determination for Palestinians.”
Talarico also gave a “shoutout” to a local rabbi, Neil Blumofe at Congregation Agudas Achim in Austin. “I spent my first year of my seminary studies learning the Hebrew scriptures from a local rabbi,” he said. “Shout out Rabbi Neil Blumofe!” Cohn grinned.
The post Talarico blames Netanyahu, not the Israeli people, for devastation in Gaza appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Irish Jewish leader ‘shocked’ after hotel cancels over 70 rooms for antisemitism conference
(JTA) — DUBLIN — An Irish Jewish leader said a Dublin hotel canceled rooms reserved for European delegates after learning that they were visiting for an antisemitism conference.
Maurice Cohen, the president of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, said he booked over 70 rooms at the Herbert Park Hotel for people attending a meeting of the Special Envoys and Coordinators Combating Antisemitism (SECCA).
The envoys, who included Jewish community leaders, diplomats and government ministers from across Europe, were invited to the conference this week organized by the World Jewish Congress and the European Commission. The event was tied to Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which rotates between EU member states, and included delegates meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin. Most of the government-appointed special envoys are not themselves Jewish.
Cohen said he met with Herbert Park Hotel’s general manager in May to inspect its conference rooms and explained the purpose of the event. According to Cohen, the manager responded by asking, “Will the IDF be involved?”
That question “shocked” Cohen, he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“I said, this is about antisemitism. It’s not about Israelis, it’s not about Israel, it’s not about the IDF,” he said.
Cohen said the manager told him she had to consult with the hotel owners to determine if his booking could be accepted. The next day, he learned that the rooms were canceled without explanation. The Herbert Park Hotel did not respond to JTA requests for comment.
Cohen booked rooms for the delegates and the conference at different hotels. He described the cancellation in a speech at the SECCA meeting on Tuesday, calling it an example of “contemporary antisemitism.”
“How quickly does the word ‘Jewish’ change a conversation?” he said to the attendees. “How easily does a gathering about antisemitism become associated with the Israeli army? And how quickly can people who were welcome when they were simply 70 hotel guests become something rather different once they are known to be attending a Jewish conference?”
Yoni Wieder, Ireland’s chief rabbi, suggested that the hotel could have based its decision on fears of controversy.
“It’s possible that whoever took the decision had no objection to the conference itself,” Wieder told JTA. “They may simply have wanted to avoid the possibility of protests outside the hotel or some other backlash.”
Ireland’s government has been sharply critical of Israel. The country has recognized Palestinian statehood, barred Israeli far-right ministers from entering its borders and in July passed a law that banned imports from Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories. Martin has said that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, a charge Israel vigorously rejects. He has also condemned rising antisemitism in Ireland, which is home to about 2,200 Jews.
Herbert Park Hotel is “actually quite familiar with Jewish guests,” according to Wieder, who said that he has overseen kosher catering at the hotel.
Cohen, who has lived in Dublin all his life, said he had fond memories of the hotel. For years it was his favored site for meetings, New Year’s Eve celebrations and his mother’s birthdays through her 93rd.
“Over time the hotel became associated in my mind with friendship, celebration and my mother,” he said in his speech. “So it was strange that, many years later, the same hotel would acquire a very different place in my memory.”
The post Irish Jewish leader ‘shocked’ after hotel cancels over 70 rooms for antisemitism conference appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Whatever you think of Ilhan Omar, these threats are unconscionable
The Trump administration is reportedly planning to build a case to strip Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) of her citizenship and eventually deport her.
It is my hope that American Jews — even those who do not like Omar and can recite every questionable comment she has made over the past 15 years to illustrate why — will understand this as offensive and outrageous not only because they are Americans, but because they are Jews.
The Trump administration may claim that it is building a case against Omar due to paperwork (reports suggest that they are interested in whether her father listed her age as 17 on her citizenship application when she was really 18). It is similarly filing dozens of lawsuits attempting to denaturalize citizens by trying to prove they lied in the process of gaining citizenship. However, that this is happening now, ahead of the midterm elections against a sitting member of Congress, a high-profile progressive whom the president has said should “go back” to her country of origin, suggests that it is, to put it mildly, politically motivated.
Evidently, the Trump administration sees citizenship not as a right or a responsibility but as a reward, one that can be taken away if that is seen as useful to the president and his adherents. That use could be silencing political opposition or something as simple (and callous) as an opportunity to brag about the sheer number of attempted denaturalizations.
Jews, too, have found themselves on the wrong end of political denaturalization. I do not mean to compare the Trump administration to the Nazis, but the stubborn fact is that Jews were indeed stripped of their citizenship as part of a political project in Germany and elsewhere in Europe in the 1930s and 40s. And in the early 20th century in the United States, it was Jews who politicians claimed were incapable of assimilating, of ever really being a part of the United States. These arguments culminated in legislation that kept out Jews who could have found refuge here. The threat of denaturalization and the experience of perpetual otherness is a grievous part of modern Jewish history; we should be offended by its presence in our political present.
Jewish tradition as well as history encourages us to stand up to authority when that authority is wrong. Mordecai refuses to bow to Haman; Nathan yells at King David for sleeping with Bathsheba and having her husband killed; Moses famously urges Pharoah to change his oppressive ways. Even God is on the receiving end of pushback when Abraham pleads and negotiates to spare Sodom.
I do not think one needs to be Jewish to be outraged by the attempt to denaturalize Ilhan Omar. I think it is also bone-chilling as an American who believes we, including our elected officials, have the right to openly oppose our president, and I am worried as a person who thinks it would be good to continue to live in a democratic republic. And I am sure that there are Jews who will say that Omar deserves to lose her citizenship because she has said things about Israel they do not like.
But the Jewish lens through which I see this is that it is right to challenge power when it is abused, and it is wrong for the powerful to make a show of trying to cast their opponents out of the country.
The point is not whether Trump can make good on the threat to strip Omar of her citizenship and deport her, but that it is obscene to use denaturalization as punishment for being a high-profile political opponent in the first place. If he is trying to make it more dangerous to speak out while being from the “wrong” country, then the rest of us need to say that this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be an American citizen.
We should do this because we are Americans and we should do this because we are Jews. We should do this because of the ways in which our American and Jewish identities bleed into one another. And, we should do this because we may not know exactly whether it is as Americans or as Jews that we know we have to protect the right to speak truth to power, but we know we need to do it all the same.
The post Whatever you think of Ilhan Omar, these threats are unconscionable appeared first on The Forward.
