Queens Museum Withdraws Arab Pamphlet `For Now`

The Queens Museum of Art has provisionally removed an emotionally-charged piece of literature that was part of an installation created by artist Emily Jacir. The handout re-creates a pamphlet originally distributed at the Jordan Pavilion of the 1964 World’s Fair, which was held at the museum’s site at Flushing Meadows.

In a poem lamenting the United Nations Partition of Palestine in 1948, the pamphlet contains lines such as, “The strangers, once thought terror’s victims,/Became terror’s fierce practitioners.” It asks visitors to “hear a word on Palestine/And perhaps to help us right a wrong.”

Jacir’s work is part of an exhibit on the activities of the U.N. during the four years it occupied the New York City building that now houses the museum. In 1948 U.N. Partition of Palestine was ratified there, and the museum commemorates the event with a news items and photographs.

It also includes a tent embroidered with the names of Arab villages whose residents were displaced after the Partition agreement, and a strong message of blame toward Israel.

On August 18 Nicole Levine of Brooklyn was visiting the museum with her children, ages 11 and 14. She told The Jewish Press she was shocked to discover the politically-oriented pamphlet “here in the art museum — a politically neutral place.... right next to the wall with the bubble gum!” (a hands-on exhibit for children).

The passing remark of a museum patron at the scene furthered her point:“The (expletive) Jews — they [the Arabs] should never have given in to them.”

For the Israeli-born Levine it was a highly emotional moment, bringing back memories of her family’s wartime ordeals and of friends and relatives wounded and killed by terrorists.

It was the handout rather than the entire exhibit that she found disturbing, since it is something one carries away and keeps. “It is not the museum’s business to help this Palestinian further her cause,” she said.

Levine called curator Tom Finkelpearl to voice her dismay. Finkelpearl politely expressed the view, she said, that the exhibit was simply a work of art.

“Don’t you understand that this feeds anti-Semitism?” she reportedly countered. The offending pamphlet was sheer propaganda, she said she pointed out — at a time “when people are dying on both sides.”

Finkelpearl promised to bring up the issue with museum officials. A few days later, he told Levine by phone that the pamphlet had been removed from the exhibit, pending further discussion.

Responding to a call from The Jewish Press, Finkelpearl took pains to note that the exhibit “doesn’t reflect the point of view of the museum.” He said he was “not unsympathetic” to the issues raised by Levine, but that the museum’s stance is basically that “Emily Jacir is an interesting artist living in Queens” and that the museum “didn’t want to censor the artist” once she had been asked to participate in the exhibit.

A panel discussion that will present both the Israeli and Arab points of view was already slated for Sunday, Sept. 15. Informed that the erev Yom Kippur timing was problematic, Finkelpearl said they were aware of the date and had therefore scheduled the meeting for 1 p.m.

“What I’m hoping for,” said Finkelpearl, “is that we can put forward a balanced program that will enable people to make up their minds.” He said he hopes the controversy won’t “overshadow the creative aspects of the exhibit as a whole.”