National Jewish organization takes human rights museum to task over Palestinian exhibit – Winnipeg Free Press

The National Jewish Organization has launched a campaign against the Canadian Museum for Human Rights over its upcoming exhibition on the 1948 forced displacement of an estimated 750,000 Palestinians into what is now Israel.

The campaign, initiated by the Center for Israeli and Jewish Affairs, expresses concern that the exhibition, titled “Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present,” does not tell the full story of what happened to many people in the region, including Jews, during that time.

“Human rights matter, as does history,” CIJA says on its campaign page. “Unfortunately, this exhibition was not properly consulted and does not take into account the experiences of hundreds of thousands of Jews who were forcibly displaced from centuries-old communities in Israel and throughout the region.”

The organization further states that “national, publicly funded museums have a mandate to contribute to the 'collective memory and sense of identity of all Canadians' and not to serve as tools for one-sided political agendas.”

Nicole Amiel, CIJA's director of media relations, said “thousands” of emails about the exhibition have already been sent to CMHR.

The email campaign follows a statement about the exhibit released Nov. 19 by Belle Jarniewski, director of the Jewish Heritage Center of Western Canada.

“We are extremely concerned that the planned exhibition will lack balanced scholarship and will ignore key issues of the historical and current geopolitical reality that is Israel, such as the millennia-long history of successive colonization and enslavement,” Jarniewski said in a statement.

She added that the opening of the exhibition is now a problem for the Canadian Jewish community due to a surge in anti-Semitism.

“This exhibition will likely make our situation worse,” she said.

“This exhibition will probably make our situation worse.”

Due to a lack of consultation, the heritage center abandoned its plans to host a program at CMHR to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day in January, she said.

The Jewish Federation of Winnipeg lent its support to the heritage centre, issuing its own statement praising CMHR for the way it has built trust in the past by inviting meaningful consultation with diverse communities.

For the Jewish community, however, “trust has been shaken,” said a statement released by CEO Jeff Lieberman and Chairman Paula Parks.

The lack of public consultation “has left many of us concerned that the exhibition may present a narrow and one-sided picture of this complex history,” they said.

An exhibition that focuses on the displacement of people in the region but overlooks that reality “loses essential context,” the statement said, adding that the federation has “repeatedly and respectfully attempted to engage the museum” on the issue.

The statement concludes by saying that while the federation values ​​its long-standing partnership and collaboration with CMHR, they hope that “it will pause its plans until it has engaged in a proper, open consultation process and has substantiated the exhibition with credible research that reflects all historical data. Our community is committed to being a part of this effort.”

Gustavo Zentner, vice-president of CIJA Manitoba and Saskatchewan, approached CMHR leadership when he learned about the exhibition. He said he proposed convening leading experts to help ensure that any exhibition presented a balanced, fact-based and comprehensive narrative.

“As currently formulated, the proposed direction would represent an incomplete and unbalanced narrative that completely ignores the Jewish refugee experience and would have reputational consequences for the museum,” he said.

CMHR CEO Isha Khan released a statement about the exhibit, saying it is “not a historical retrospective, but rather a multimedia exhibition that will share the personal stories of Palestinian Canadians who were displaced during the 1948 Nakba until today.”

The exhibition, which opens in June, “is subject to the same academic and curatorial rigor as all of our exhibitions,” she said, adding that “there are always individuals or groups who are interested or concerned about the nature of our content.”

CMHR is confident that this exhibition, like others at the museum, is “developed with responsibility and care to ensure that we advance understanding of human rights.”

While CMHR has received emails from Jewish Canadians about the exhibition, Khan said they have also received emails of support from members of the Jewish community across Canada “who believe the Palestinian experience should be shared.”

Khan expressed disappointment at the heritage center's withdrawal from the Holocaust Remembrance Day program, saying, “We hope to work with them again in the future.”

She added that CMHR shares the community's concerns about the rise in anti-Semitism, saying it remains “steadfast in our commitment to providing Holocaust education and programs to combat anti-Semitism.”

Ramsey Zeid, president of the Canadian-Palestine Association of Manitoba, said the exhibition is “great and long overdue. We've been advocating for it for a long time.”

While some Jewish organizations have expressed concerns about the exhibit, he has heard from others in the Jewish community “who support the exhibit and are glad it's happening,” he said.

Canadian Jews are “more than welcome to discuss with CMHR the possibility of holding an exhibition about their experiences of displacement during this period,” Zeid said. But he added: “This exhibition is about the Palestinian experience. It is about Palestinians and made by Palestinians. Palestinians are telling it for the general Canadian public to understand our experience.”

“Nakba” means “disaster” in Arabic. This is the word Palestinians use to describe their forced displacement during the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

At the same time, according to CIJA, about 70,000 Jews were displaced from places such as the Jewish Quarter of the old city of Jerusalem, Gaza and other areas, as well as an estimated 800,000 to one million Jews who fled or were forced to leave Middle Eastern and North African countries such as Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria and Egypt.

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