I don’t inform this story typically, and have by no means instructed it in such element publicly earlier than. Nevertheless, given our present second of disaster in the US, only some months into the second Trump administration, it appears an essential story to inform. It’s a set of experiences that have been horrible to reside via, and but, I might not be the particular person I’m immediately had they not occurred. Finally, the story is about energy, leverage, and concern, and in addition concerning the potential for solidarity and love.
When Donald Trump was elected President of the US in November 2016, I had been the director of New York’s Queens Museum for lower than a yr. Even in these early months, it was clear that the rhetoric and insurance policies he, his marketing campaign, and administration have been selling offered materials threats not solely to the populations who interacted with the museum most recurrently, but in addition to many members of the staff on the museum. As we gathered the morning after the election at our common 9am employees assembly, many people with tears in our eyes, we acknowledged the realities that we might confront in brief order, and that may presage our present disaster in 2025.
What would unfold over the early years of the primary Trump administration was not an abstraction or a conceptual conundrum, however fairly a set of circumstances that have been being felt and skilled in life. Households within the neighborhoods surrounding the museum stayed at dwelling for concern of being within the “improper place on the improper time” throughout an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid; dad and mom stopped sending kids to highschool and solely left one by one to go to work, or to purchase groceries. Fears have been being sown over social media. Being located in a big, city-owned constructing in a public park with a historical past of partnering deeply with neighborhood and advocacy organizations, we on the Queens Museum needed to assist our companions and neighbors. And we did, in a bevy of the way: lending area, tools, human assets, internet hosting occasions, leveraging assist of elected officers, and so forth.
On condition that Queens is the borough the place most immigrants arrive and keep in New York Metropolis, immigrant rights have been a major concern. Nevertheless, one other set of politics entered our operations within the early summer time of 2017, which in the end led to my resignation from the Museum in 2018. It was not how I might have most well-liked my tenure to finish, however given immediately’s urgencies and threats to democracy, I hope the small print of the story are helpful.
In June of 2017, the Israeli Mission to the United Nations contacted the Queens Museum to hire the galleries for an occasion that may happen in November 2017. The occasion would rejoice the day the UN took a key vote in 1947 that paved the way in which for the institution of the State of Israel. You would possibly ask, why would the Queens Museum be the perfect place for such a convening? The historical past is fascinating: the New York Metropolis-owned constructing was commissioned by Robert Moses as a part of the 1939 World’s Truthful complicated, nevertheless it was additionally used as an early assembly place of the United Nations whereas its modernist complicated in Manhattan was being constructed. From 1946-1950, many essential conferences and votes happened on the UN within the constructing that a long time later turned, and immediately continues to be, the Queens Museum’s dwelling.
The Israeli Mission to the UN proposed to hire the Queens Museum, like people and companies did for weddings or receptions, serving to us meet our annual price range targets, however on this case, the proposed keynote speaker can be Vice President Mike Pence. On condition that I may hardly ever affirm a New York Metropolis Councilmember for an look on the Museum greater than per week prematurely of most occasions, I believed it uncommon, to say the least, that the vp of the US had confirmed his involvement over six months earlier than the occasion was scheduled. It appeared to me that way over the marking of a historic vote was being deliberate between the Trump and Netanyahu administrations. I believed the Museum shouldn’t be concerned in no matter that may be.
Whereas the board of trustees on the Museum sometimes didn’t get entangled in operational choices resembling to whom we would hire area, given the gamers concerned, I felt it was essential to convey the Govt Committee into the loop. The safety considerations for the occasion itself and the times main as much as it have been monumental, which meant interruptions to operations, by no means thoughts the hostility the staff and neighborhood felt from the Trump administration’s insurance policies, and the intense trepidation I had for permitting such an occasion to maneuver ahead. The committee of the board met a number of instances over the course of the summer time, in the end figuring out that the occasion mustn’t proceed. Nevertheless, fairly than the board chair talking instantly with the Israeli Ambassador to the UN as typical protocols would possibly demand, they insisted that I converse with him. After a number of back-and-forths, and far to my dismay, they didn’t relent, and I discovered myself phoning the Ambassador to let him know of the board’s determination.
I’ll always remember that dialog. He instructed me he knew who I used to be and threatened me. Two days later, a stream of hate was unleashed towards me because the Jerusalem Put up printed an article stating that I used to be “anti-Israel.” The article cited a guide I had co-edited titled Assuming Boycott: Resistance, Company, and Cultural Manufacturing (VLC/OR Books), which addressed cultural boycott as a tactic and technique, together with a chapter on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) marketing campaign by Palestinian civil society towards the state of Israel. A number of articles in New York media adopted, together with a name from a metropolis council member and a state meeting member for my removing, and a equally themed commentary within the New York Put up. My social media accounts have been overwhelmed by threats and direct messages; some threatening to comply with my youngster to highschool, others wishing demise on my household. It was unrelenting.
Within the midst of this, the co-editors of the Assuming Boycott guide circulated an open letter calling for assist of my place, which was modestly signed and quoted in a Hyperallergic article on the topic. I knew there was an infinite quantity of self-censorship and concern within the air, stopping colleagues and associates from popping out to assist me or in any manner touch upon the state of affairs for concern of being focused themselves. It was deeply unsettling to see what number of highly effective voices wouldn’t converse up.
My husband, the grandchild of Auschwitz survivors, inspired me to publicly inform individuals about my very own Catholic grandmother, who helped Jews and partisans escape German occupied northeastern Italy by feigning to be lovers heading into the borderland woods. It felt insane to me to make use of our household histories to by some means show that I used to be not an antisemite, particularly to individuals who had recognized me for many years.
That is a part of an extended story that has knowledgeable my life and politics. After I was assigned to ask a grandparent about their life in sixth grade, my grandmother, Nonna, instructed me the next: She and her pal Maricci signed on to assist individuals over the border, no less than partially, to supply some additional meals to their households. My father was a younger boy, and one night time he fell ailing when Nonna was meant to wander into the woods together with her assigned companion. Maricci went as a substitute. That night time, they have been caught by the Nazis and Maricci was despatched to Auschwitz. Being tall and blond and never Jewish, she was assigned to the kitchens and survived the battle, finally reuniting with Nonna and coming to New York. I knew her as a part of my prolonged household. An aunt who was not technically associated to us however maybe nearer than a relative. She had a chic white bob, and at all times wearing lengthy sleeves, even in summer time, to cover her tattoo from the camp. She did present it to me as soon as. She turned a couture seamstress for Carolina Herrera.
Again to 2017. Within the wake of the “dangerous press” following the Jerusalem Put up article, the board reversed course. The board chair known as the ambassador and provided to host the occasion on the museum.
After in depth planning over subsequent months, the Israeli Mission held its occasion on the Museum in late November 2017. I attended the occasion and watched then-Vice President Pence ship a 45-minute coverage speech that introduced to the 800 in attendance that the US can be transferring the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. A number of days later, the President introduced this main US coverage shift to the remainder of the world, scary widespread worldwide condemnation and protest, together with vital objections from the UN and US allies alike. The aim of this occasion turned abundantly clear.
Subsequently, I attempted to return to my common duties of being the director of the Queens Museum. Nevertheless, it was apparent to me {that a} small handful of trustees have been sad with my suggestions earlier that summer time. It appeared that as a result of I used to be not in favor of internet hosting this rental of the museum, they assumed that, at worst, I may be an antisemite, and at minimal, my resistance to this Trump administration effort would possibly put them in a highlight during which they didn’t need to stand. Frankly, the job of operating a newly expanded and renovated museum, delivering high-quality and community-connected packages, to not point out managing a staff more and more destabilized by nationwide politics, was arduous sufficient with out feeling that I used to be underneath a microscope, and worse, doubted at each flip. I quickly got here to the terrible conclusion that I couldn’t proceed, and resigned.
I not too long ago learn a bit within the Washington Put up concerning the present spate of intimidations and persecutions of judges. A quote on the finish of the piece was significantly poignant to me: “There’s a type of performative sheen or a performative component that isn’t about simply the actual fact of quashing opposition wherever it may be discovered … but in addition demonstrating the information of that quashing via the overt and open humiliation … of the individuals concerned.” It’s precisely one of these humiliation that was visited upon me — these ranged from the plain strikes within the media by a wide range of actors, and the truth that I used to be by no means once more allowed again into my workplace and all of my private artist analysis information, accrued over years, have been “recycled,” to the Board’s months-long “investigation” into the choice to initially deny the occasion (which solely centered on me and my colleagues fairly than on the board that made the choice). The outcomes of the “investigation” have been revealed weeks after I resigned; phrase salad makes an attempt to undermine my fame with veiled accusations of malfeasance. It was absurd, but I felt tainted, and that was the purpose. And as these techniques are being much more radically and broadly applied immediately, we’ve got to study to acknowledge them for what they’re and meet them with resistance and braveness.
Trying again, I see myself as a proverbial canary in a coal mine. And since 2018, this coal mine has turn out to be a destabilized, poisonous nest that immediately have to be navigated with bravery, care, and diligence. On this second Trump administration, the stakes are larger than ever, and the weak are that rather more in danger. We should type solidarities regardless of the dangers they current to us personally. Silence is complicity, and pre-compliance just isn’t an possibility. Whereas we have to be strategic and tactical in our methods of talking out and our alliances, make no mistake that our bravery within the face of autocracy and oligarchy will decide the relative freedom of our collective futures.
This essay is tailored from a chat the writer gave on the School Artwork Affiliation’s 2025 Convention as a part of a panel titled “Decolonial Jewish Observe in Artwork and Visible Tradition after Gaza,” co-chaired by Nicholas Mizroeff and Jill Casid. One other model of this story, and its connections to bigger circumstances in artwork and tradition, seems in Raicovich, Laura. 2021. Tradition Strike: Artwork and Museums in an Age of Protest. London: Verso.
