{"id":3767,"date":"2007-10-23T05:59:03","date_gmt":"2007-10-23T13:18:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/10\/23\/the-zionist-five-is-not-a-case-of-censorship\/"},"modified":"2007-10-23T05:59:03","modified_gmt":"2007-10-23T13:18:51","slug":"the-zionist-five-is-not-a-case-of-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3767","title":{"rendered":"The "Zionist Five" Is Not A Case Of Censorship"},"content":{"rendered":"

From a post on Oy Bay (curtsy to Muzzlewatch<\/a>) entitled “San Francisco Art Gallery Censors Writing and Art Work as Too Zionist”<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Himmelberger Gallery<\/a>, a well-known art gallery located in San Francisco\u2019s tony Union Square, has decided to cancel plans to publish an art catalogue of one of its represented artists, noted author Alan Kaufman […] The gallery objects to the expressly Zionist focus of several essay contributions to the catalogue by well-known authors and journalists[…]<\/p>\n

The catalogue was to present 15 of Kaufman\u2019s paintings which are under contract to the gallery and whose subjects range from the Holocaust to Israel to the New Antisemitism. The gallery\u2019s prices for the works in question have been cited at between $3,275 and $36,000. The works have hung in the gallery and a cross-section of them also appeared on the gallery website.<\/p>\n

At a meeting between gallery head David Himmelberger and Kaufman, Himmelberger surprised the artist and author with an eleventh hour decision not to proceed with the catalogue due to the Zionist \u201cagenda\u201d of the essays as well as some of the paintings. Himmelberger said that such a presentation was antithetical to the aims of the gallery, which promotes \u201cinternational understanding\u201d and forswears all forms of nationalism and religion. But the authors see this as a transparent example of the way in which the word Zionism has been exiled from civil discourse and has been turned by the cultural establishment into a refugee of a word, a pariah of an idea, and a euphemism for Antisemitism.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oy Bay also quotes a statement released by the “Zionist Five,” who are the five authors who were to be published in the catalogue. From reading the statement, my guess is that it’s not the word “Zionism” that scared the publisher away, so much as the extremism of the views presented. For example:<\/p>\n

Let us, then, be perfectly frank about one thing. To vilify, marginalize, suppress or outlaw Zionism politically, socially or culturally, for any reason whatever, is to wish no less then murderous extinction upon every Jewish man, woman and child in the world today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note the “for any reason whatsoever.” Next time I hear someone deny that Zionists mix up criticism of Zionism with anti-Semitism, I hope I remember that quote; according to these folks, criticizing Zionism for any reason at all isn’t just anti-Semitic, it’s wishing Genocide upon the Jews.<\/p>\n

Some thoughts:<\/p>\n

1) It’s not censorship for a private publisher to decide not to publish a book. Kaufman’s belief that he’s been “censored for expression of a Zionist perspective” is over the top.<\/p>\n

2) When I first read this story, I thought perhaps Kaufman was suffering from another form of censorship: When a publisher owns the rights to publish a work but refuses to publish it. I think that is censorship, but it doesn’t seem to be the case here; the gallery’s lawyer has said<\/a> that Kaufman is free to publish the catalogue elsewhere.<\/p>\n

3) There’s another form of de facto<\/em> censorship, which is when objections to a point of view are so overwhelming that that point of view becomes impossible to publish, or is in some other significant way cut out of “the marketplace of ideas.” It’s implausible that’s the situation here, though; one gallery owner declined to print one catalogue, but most of the authors in the catalogue are published elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Kaufman might argue that San Francisco’s “marketplace of ideas” effectively disallows pro-Zionist discussion. If that’s true, then that’s a reasonable complaint on his part. On the other hand, the fact that his paintings were displayed in a major San Francisco gallery, apparently without being protested, suggests that the San Francisco experience may not be as bleak as all that.<\/p>\n

4) Kaufman sees an equivalence<\/a> between his situation and that of Black men (what about Black women?) in “the old South”:<\/p>\n

“My standing up and declaring Zionist art in San Francisco is really like a black man standing up in the old South and declaring himself a free man.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The comparison trivializes slavery and Jim Crow, in much the same way that stupid concentration camp comparisons<\/a> trivialize the Holocaust. (I do think that comparisons can be worthwhile when they’re intelligently made<\/a>, as The Sideshow argues.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From a post on Oy Bay (curtsy to Muzzlewatch) entitled “San Francisco Art Gallery Censors Writing and Art Work as Too Zionist”: Himmelberger Gallery, a well-known art gallery located in San Francisco\u2019s tony Union Square, has decided to cancel plans … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,91,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anti-semitism","category-free-speech-censorship-copyright-law-etc","category-palestine-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}