Written by by Tat Bellamy-Walker at seattletimes.com
A controversial Seattle museum exhibit will proceed next month — without support from two of the community organizations that co-created the exhibit.
In a news release published Thursday, Washington State Jewish Historical Society said the “Confronting Hate Together” exhibit will not be showcased to the public with its original partners, Wing Luke Museum and the Black Heritage Society of Washington State. Instead, the society will “show the CHT exhibit to the Jewish community alongside our friends and allies” next month, with more details to come.
The exhibit, which examines the historical and present-day experiences of Seattle’s Jewish, Black and Asian American communities, led to a staff walkout at Wing Luke Museum on May 22, as some museum staffers claimed the exhibit “conflate[s] anti-Zionism as antisemitism.” Since then, the exhibit has been in limbo.
“It is with great disappointment, pain, and sadness we share that, due to circumstances out of our control, the Confronting Hate Together (CHT) exhibit will not be presented jointly to the community in a public venue,” the news release states. The society will co-host the event with the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle.
“We worked tirelessly for months to prepare for the CHT exhibit,” the statement continues, explaining that the group “made adjustments and modifications to help people better understand the exhibit by clarifying language regarding the exhibition’s intent to focus on confronting hate locally by three historically redlined communities.”
In late May, some Wing Luke staff members protested the exhibit with a walkout. The staffers made four demands: Remove language that “attempt[s] to frame Palestinian liberation and anti-Zionism as antisemitism”; have a “community review” of the exhibit; “acknowledge the limited perspectives presented in this exhibition,” namely those of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslim communities; and center “voices that align with the museum’s mission & values.”
In response to the protest, the three producing organizations planned to edit the exhibit and to add new panels highlighting the historical connection and “shared experiences” between the three communities. On May 30, Wing Luke, the Jewish Historical Society and the Black Heritage Society released a joint statement, saying they aimed to reopen an amended exhibit at Wing Luke on June 30. But in a July 2 opinion piece in The Seattle Times, Wing Luke Executive Director Joël Barraquiel Tan said the groups were seeking a new venue for the exhibit.
“We are now exploring alternative venues for ‘Confronting Hate Together’ that can host more visitors, enable more interaction with facilitated conversations and address concerns around public safety,” Tan wrote. “We will announce a new opening date and venue soon.”
As of press time, it’s unclear when and why talks broke down between the groups.