[Marxism] FWD: Two lost battles this week: Spertus Museum and Pluto Press from Tracking efforts to stifle open debate about US-Israeli foreign policy.

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Two lost battles this week
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** "Tracking efforts to stifle open debate about US-Israeli foreign policy." - 
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* Two lost battles this week: Spertus Museum and Pluto Press - 
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We’ve been following the distressing story about the powerful show on 
display at Chicago’s Jewish Spertus Museum on maps and the Holyland which 
featured Palestinian and Israeli artists. First it opened, then suddenly 
closed, then opened. In a follow up post about how the exhibit ruffled feathers 
in the institutional Jewish world (read: funders), we pointed to a Chicago 
Reader story about changes the museum was forced to make when the exhibit 
re-opened. Hat tip to Richard Silverstein and Google Alerts for the devastating 
news from the Chicago Tribune tonight that the exhibit was forced to close down 
altogether by upset funders.


Under intense pressure from angry Jewish patrons, the Spertus Institute of 
Jewish Studies on Friday abruptly closed the controversial “Imaginary 
Coordinates” exhibition, which explored Israeli and Palestinian concepts 
of homeland and how that is defined both historically and in the present day.


Critics charged that the combination of historical Holy Land maps and 
contemporary artwork cast Israel in a negative light.


“Aspects of it were clearly anti-Israel,” said Steven Nasatir, 
president of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. 
“I was very surprised that a Jewish institution would put forward this 
exhibition. I was surprised and saddened by it.”


Jewish Voice for Peace’s own Lynn Pollack is quoted concerning the 
critically well received exhibit:


“These were not fringe Palestinian and Israeli artists,” she said. 
“These were mainstream artists who are able to display in their own 
country,” she said. “Why can’t this art be seen by American 
Jews?


Yet again, what’s the take home message here? That Jewish institutions 
can be counted on to be no-independent-thinking zones? For shame. Spertus 
deserves our support for having mounted such an important show.


Meanwhile, thanks to a tip from a reader, we learned from Inside Higher Ed that 
the University of Michigan finally, as many had long anticipated, severed its 
relationship with left publisher Pluto Press after pressure from right-wing 
pro-Israel groups.


In September, the University of Michigan Press faced intense criticism from 
pro-Israel groups–and questions from some regents–over its 
distribution of a book called Overcoming Zionism, which argues that the 
creation of Israel was a mistake and urges adoption of the one state solution 
to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which Israelis and Palestinians would 
form a


new country, without a Jewish character. Michigan wasn’t the publisher, 
but it distributed the book under a deal with Pluto Press, a leftist British 
publisher with extensive lists on the Middle East and international affairs.


Some critics of the book demanded that Michigan stop distributing the book, 
which it briefly did, and cut ties to Pluto immediately. The university 
declined to do so, and resumed distributing the book, citing both contractual 
obligations to Pluto and concerns that halting distribution because of content 
would raise issues of academic freedom. By the end of this year, however, 
Michigan will no longer be distributing the book or have any ties to Pluto 
Press.


This is a sad week.

 


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