In a New Exhibit, the Jewish Museum Avoids the Word Jew

Sept. 1 2021

During a recent visit to New York City’s Jewish Museum, Menachem Wecker noticed something odd about an art exhibit titled Louise Bourgeois, Freud’s Daughter:

I viewed every artwork and read each label, . . . without learning whether the artist was born, or identified as, Jewish. Given that “Jewish” appears in the museum name, I continue to find this shocking. Would the Air Force Museum remain mum on whether the subject of a massive exhibit ever flew a plane?

Known for her mammoth, arachnoid sculptures, Bourgeois (1911-2010) was also not Sigmund Freud’s daughter—despite the exhibit title. The latter, incidentally, was born Sigismund Schlomo Freud, but the Jewish Museum also neglects sharing his Jewishness with viewers.

As I navigated the show in the museum’s second floor galleries, I allowed for the possibility I missed a hint about Bourgeois’s faith. Quite a bit of sleuthing prior to the show had turned up empty, so I asked a guard if the exhibit shared anywhere whether Bourgeois was Jewish. “Oh no,” he informed me definitively. “It wouldn’t tell you that.”

Read more at Rough Sketch

More about: Art, Jewish museums, New York Jewish Museum, Sigmund Freud

Expand Gaza into Sinai

Feb. 11 2025

Calling the proposal to depopulate Gaza completely (if temporarily) “unworkable,” Peter Berkowitz makes the case for a similar, but more feasible, plan:

The United States along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE should persuade Egypt by means of generous financial inducements to open the sparsely populated ten-to-fifteen miles of Sinai adjacent to Gaza to Palestinians seeking a fresh start and better life. Egypt would not absorb Gazans and make them citizens but rather move Gaza’s border . . . westward into Sinai. Fences would be erected along the new border. The Israel Defense Force would maintain border security on the Gaza-extension side, Egyptian forces on the other. Egypt might lease the land to the Palestinians for 75 years.

The Sinai option does not involve forced transfer of civilian populations, which the international laws of war bar. As the United States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other partners build temporary dwellings and then apartment buildings and towns, they would provide bus service to the Gaza-extension. Palestinian families that choose to make the short trip would receive a key to a new residence and, say, $10,000.

The Sinai option is flawed. . . . Then again, all conventional options for rehabilitating and governing Gaza are terrible.

Read more at RealClear Politics

More about: Donald Trump, Egypt, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula