The Jung-Luke Museum in Seattle announced in a statement on Friday, June 28 that an exhibition at the museum, which sparked a staff walkout in protest of the exhibition for equating anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism, will be moved to a new location that has yet to be determined.
Twenty-six staff members, about half the museum’s staff, walked out of the institution, which is centered on Asian Pacific American art history, in response to “Together Against Hate,” an exhibit co-hosted with the Washington State Black Heritage Society and the Washington State Jewish Historical Society. The exhibit focuses on violence against local black, Jewish and Asian communities. The museum’s text describes its intention: “to serve as a unifying response and community rallying cry to the bias and bigotry that sows division and hatred in the community.”
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Much of the staff’s anger was directed at an image of a wall text in KUOW’s introduction to the exhibition, published before it opened on May 22. That text begins, “Today, anti-Semitism often masquerades as anti-Zionism,” and later refers to a phrase graffitied on Temple Herzl-Ner Tamid on Mercer Island, Washington, in November: “Stop the Killing” — however, the museum’s text incorrectly refers to it as “Stop the Killing” and says the graffiti was written “as if the Jews of Mercer Island could control the actions of the Israeli government.”
The text also reads, “On college campuses, pro-Palestinian groups express support for Hamas (classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government) and a Palestinian state ‘from the river to the sea,’ a term defined as the elimination of Israel.”
In a letter sent to the museum’s leadership on May 19, staff asked the museum to abandon language and partnerships that “seek to characterize Palestinian liberation and anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism” and for the museum to “acknowledge the limited perspectives in the exhibition,” which staff claimed excluded Palestinians and the broader Arab and Muslim world communities. Staff left the exhibition when it opened and did not return until May 29. The museum remained closed for much of June.
“While we acknowledge the damage caused by recent events, our goal is to move forward, share this important and timely exhibition with our community, and begin to heal together,” the museum said in a June 28 statement.
“We will relaunch Together Against Hate as a united front. As always, we remain steadfast in our commitment to presenting a show that upholds the core message of Together Against Hate. We acknowledge that this work is challenging, but we learn from each other and recognize the complexity of this work. We ask for your continued tolerance and understanding as we move forward, and we extend our deepest gratitude to our community.”
Museum spokesman Steve McLean said Emerald South Seattlesaid staff and exhibition partners are continuing discussions on how to iterate at the new venue.
“Since the exhibition closed, or was postponed, we’ve spent a lot of time doing revision work, learning a lot, educating a lot of students, working with staff who have challenges and concerns,” McLean said. “We’ve really, really worked with our partners to not only revise and add panels, but also explain and outline what happened and why it happened. Essentially, we’re making a much larger exhibition out of it.”
