NY’s Museum of Jewish Heritage Bans DeSantis to Promote ‘Its Message of Inclusivity’
“A museum of tolerance has become intolerant.”
“A museum of tolerance has become intolerant.”
Elliott Abrams and Eric Cohen, co-chairmen of the Jewish Leadership Conference, wrote that sentence in The Wall Street Journal. They lashed out at cancel culture after New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage told them to disinvite Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Tikvah hosts the Jewish Leadership Conference. Abrams is chairman, and Cohen is CEO of the organization. The men thought it’d be great to have DeSantis speak since the Jewish community in Florida is flourishing:
A remarkable Jewish renaissance is under way in Florida. Jewish schools and synagogues are rapidly expanding. Jews from the Northeast and Midwest, as well as Latin America and Israel, are migrating to the Sunshine State in significant numbers, making the Jewish communities there lively and varied. Florida’s booming and low-tax economy is no doubt one of the attractions to young Jews seeking to build a prosperous future for themselves and their families. So is Florida’s educational system, which provides tax credits that assist many parents in sending their children to Jewish day schools.
A few years ago, we helped launch the Jewish Leadership Conference, an annual gathering to consider the challenges facing the Jewish people and Israel. It is hosted by Tikvah, a 20-year old Jewish educational and cultural institution whose main activity in America is teaching young Jews about Jewish history and civilization. We thought it would be interesting to invite Gov. Ron DeSantis to discuss how the “Florida model” has contributed to the growth and vitality of Jewish life in his state. The event was to be held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. Until, as the saying goes, we got canceled.
It sounds like Abrams and Cohen have never had a problem with speakers before at the museum. The conference has hosted speakers with “various political and religious views.”
But when it comes to DeSantis, the Museum of Jewish Heritage said he doesn’t “align with the museum’s values and its message of inclusivity.”
Tikvah had to disinvite DeSantis, or the museum would not host the conference.
“But we know things are bad when a Jewish institution—in this case, a museum whose purpose is to keep Jewish heritage alive by remembering the Holocaust—turns on its own and tries to make a virtue of its own intolerance,” wrote Abrams and Cohen.
Yikes. They’re correct, though. Why do these institutions freak out over people like DeSantis?
“In many cases, the explanation is sheer cowardice,” answered Abrams and Cohen.
Abrams and Cohen also pointed out the museum’s hypocrisy in its “inclusivity” explanation:
A lot of people dislike Mr. DeSantis, and the museum staff must have asked: What if there are protests? What if our progressive donors complain? In the current environment, protecting free speech requires moral and political courage. Many administrators, corporate CEOs and college presidents have weak spines. Preserving a free society requires at least some ability to respect other viewpoints and other people. The new czars of cancel culture seem to have little such moral imagination or civic tolerance.
The new thought police don’t see themselves as acting solely or primarily out of fear. They believe they are defending the good: inclusion against hate, equality against discrimination, victimized minorities against white privilege. Yet the pseudo-gospel of inclusion breaks down quickly. In the name of inclusivity, a Jewish museum sent us a clear message: Some people are to be excluded. In the name of fighting hate, the museum decided that the millions of Floridians who support Gov. DeSantis—including many Jews—are so hateful that they don’t even merit a voice in the great American conversation. A museum of tolerance has become intolerant.
Weird. The museum allowed then-Democratic Congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to speak in August 2018. She’s always been a critic of Israel, yet the museum had no problem with the Immigrant Arts Coalition inviting her to talk despite the widespread criticism from Jews and the media.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield spoke at the museum in April. She has said America is “a society plagued by white supremacy and lauded America’s re-entry into the anti-Israel Human Rights Commission.”
The Museum of Jewish Heritage forgot DeSantis’s appearance at a synagogue in June 2021. he denounced anti-Semitism and pledged to stand by Israel. He praised The Shul of Bal Harbor for helping and feeding the community.
DeSantis also signed two bills at the Shul, one of which was incredibly important to the Jewish Orthodox community:
The ambulance bill allows some volunteer first responders, including those run by faith-based groups, to use emergency lights and sirens when responding to emergencies. Some Orthodox Jews rely on these volunteer ambulance services to help overcome religious sensitivities that prevent some people from using traditional emergency services.
The ambulance bill was championed in the state Senate by Democrat Jason Pizzo, the only elected Democrat to take the stage with the governor during the bill signings.
Abrams and Cohen refused to disinvite DeSantis. Tikvah will hold the Jewish Leadership Conference in a different location.
“But it is sad to see that the misguided leadership of a Jewish museum won’t allow alternative ideas a seat at the Jewish table,” the men concluded.
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Comments
Golly gee whiz…..America halted the Holocaust!
I see some of the twelve tribes still wandering in the wilderness, and erecting another golden calf.
America and the rest of the allies won the war bringing an end to the Holocaust but that was never anyone’s goal None of them gave a damn about the Holocaust.
FDR didn’t care. It doesn’t mean America didn’t care about the Holocaust.
A modern example would be the China slaughtering their Uiger minority. If there wasn’t a MFM boycott on the matter, do you think Americans wouldn’t care?
The whole point of MFM censorship is that America will care. If they know about it. i
The golden calf today for far too many heterodox Jews is the woke world and its obsessions with systemic racism, gender fluidity and climate change
I think the Democrat virus has infected the Jewish bloodline in America. Once infected with it, no amount of reasoning can reason a liberal Jew out of his liberalism.
You have a bunch of liberal Reformed Jews in America that will consistently vote democrat time and time again even though they know full well that it’s against their better interests. A liberal jew is their own worst enemy.
Peabody, they’re not liberal except for liberally dissing the Torah of Moses. They are Leftists.
Note that the people who invited DeSantis, and who refused to disinvite him and will relocate their conference in order to keep him, are just as Jewish as the musuem board, and probably more so (by which I mean that the museum board is probably not all Jewish, whereas I expect the boards of both Tikvah and the JLC are). So it’s not fair to use this story to characterize Jews in this way.
Some Jews have replaced the God of Israel with the false god of “social justice”. Many more have not.
Good points Milhouse!
“…the museum board is probably not all Jewish…”
Would it have mattered if it were “all Jewish”? The Left has done such a great job of infiltrating our institutions, that if the board was “all Jewish”, the likelihood it would have also been “all leftist” is very high.
My point is that the boards of the two organizations that want DeSantis are probably more Jewish than the museum board that rejected him, simply because it’s likely that not all the museum board members are Jews. So if you’re comparing the two and deciding which is more typical of “the Jews”, then logically you have to go with the more Jewish of the two, i.e. the one with the greater proportion of Jewish members.
(I’m carefully not saying that one Jew is “more Jewish” than another, even if one practices Judaism and the other practices some other religion or none at all. Both people are equally Jewish; but their beliefs and actions are not.)
If you had said Orthodox Jewish you would be 100% correct but a lot of modern (actually a large majority of modern) non-Orthodox American Jews are actually secular and Jewish in name only (similar to large numbers of people claiming “Catholic” religion while say advocating abortion) and have as their religion leftism (again similar to the fake catholics).
Don’t believe me?
Which area with large numbers of non-Orthodox Jews are conservatives winning and which side do the vast majority of secular Jews vote for and are the answers to those questions consistent with them not believing the leftist BS spoon fed to them from kindergarten onwards?
That said there are plenty of secular Republican Jews, just as there are plenty of Black Republicans, and even Muslim Republicans, but just pretending most Jews are religious like us and reject the racial narratives of the left is putting your head in the sand.
I didn’t claim that most Jews are religious. But we are discussing two (actually three) Jewish entities — the musuem, Tikvah, and JLC — none of which are religious, let alone orthodox. The museum rejected DeSantis, Tikvah and JLC stood up for him. So the question is which of these is more typical of “Jews” in general.
And my point is that going by the boards, which are the ones who make these decisions, it’s likely that the museum board includes one or more gentiles, while it’s likely that the other two groups have only Jews on their boards, because they’re not the sort of organizations that gentiles are likely to be interested in joining. Therefore those two are “more Jewish” than the museum. So using the museum’s decision to rail against “the Jews” is not correct.
Your point that the more orthodox a Jew is the more likely they are to vote Republican is also correct, but that’s not the issue here; JLC and Tikvah are not religious entities, and I’m sure they have board members who vote Democrat, but they still want to hear from DeSantis.
The board of the museum is clearly Reform, Conservative and secular with a strong dose of woke ideological commitment, Tikvah, the think tank that organized the conference, definitely is more committed to Jewish literacy and continuity and support for Israel.
Tikvah’s board doesn’t seem to be particularly religious or orthodox either. But they are politically conservative.
Well Mr. Smarty Pants…here I am right here replying to your post. I was raised in Chicago’s northern suburbs on top of it. I’m not easily offended but you have come really close with your perjorative comment.
When you substitute wokeism for Judaism, you worship the false gods of systemic racism, gender fluidity and climate change as God forbid a substitute for authentic Jewish belief, continuity and literacy
Jews by an accident of birth who have traded the Torah of Moses for the ideology of leftism.
There are times I really don’t like “my people” very much…
What do you have against bears?
The diversity and inclusion crowd are so exhausting to deal with. Overgrown colicky toddlers.
At least the colicky toddlers eventually get over it. These diversity & inclusion lunatics never stop. It’s just one thing after another.
“Why do these institutions freak out over people like DeSantis? . . . In many cases, the explanation is sheer cowardice.”
The JFK Library just found a heretofore unknown book by JFK, “Profiles in Putty.” A press release from the library stated that a project is underway to update the book and the Jewish Museum’s actions will be included.
Sounds about right. And then the Jews whine & complain about anti-semitism and the fact that people are picking on them. And we’re supposed to care.
And you should care. Even if some of those antisemites are Jews. That’s always been the case. Lavrov got a lot of flak for pointing out that Jews have a proverb that the worst antisemites are Jews themselves, but it’s the plain and easily ascertained truth. (That we have the proverb, not that it’s actually true; I have no idea how much truth the proverb has, but it’s not only well known in the current century, but well documented for many centuries in the past.)
Oy vey
Land sakes!
Heavens to betsy!
A small, but courageous, stand against the Left and cancel culture. We need more people with such grit. It’s not that difficult. Just do it.
This is indeed a “courageous, stand against the Left and cancel culture. This museum has hosted many Jewish communal functions and dinners and private parties such as Bar and Bar Mitzvahs. It is disgraceful that an institution dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust but whose board and staff are clearly woke refused to allow DeSantis to speak , a great friend of Israel and the Jewish People, De Santis, in addition to being a great patriot and defender of the family, appreciates the fact that the heritage of the Jewish People is transmitted from one generation to another by parents who enroll their children in day schools and sought to ameliorate the cost of such an education . It is disgraceful to the memories of those who the museum is dedicated to that this museum, allowed AOC, an associate of the anti Semitic Squad to speak,.
Diversity [dogma], Inequity, and Exclusion (DIE)… never again, and again, and again.