Moving Up the Hudson River from the Battery to Chelsea Piers: The Tikvah Fund Proudly Stands with Trumpscum White Christian Fascist DEATH SENTENCE No Matter the Venue!

[David Shasha]

Ron DeSantis Is Persona Non Grata at a Holocaust Memorial

By: Elliott Abrams and Eric Cohen

A remarkable Jewish renaissance is under way in Florida. Jewish schools and synagogues are rapidly expanding. Jews from the Northeast and Midwest, as well as Latin America and Israel, are migrating to the Sunshine State in significant numbers, making the Jewish communities there lively and varied. Florida’s booming and low-tax economy is no doubt one of the attractions to young Jews seeking to build a prosperous future for themselves and their families. So is Florida’s educational system, which provides tax credits that assist many parents in sending their children to Jewish day schools.

A few years ago, we helped launch the Jewish Leadership Conference, an annual gathering to consider the challenges facing the Jewish people and Israel. It is hosted by Tikvah, a 20-year old Jewish educational and cultural institution whose main activity in America is teaching young Jews about Jewish history and civilization. We thought it would be interesting to invite Gov. Ron DeSantis to discuss how the “Florida model” has contributed to the growth and vitality of Jewish life in his state. The event was to be held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. Until, as the saying goes, we got canceled.

Over the years, Tikvah has hosted numerous conferences at the museum, always including prominent Jewish, Israeli and American thinkers and leaders of various political and religious points of view. We were working closely with the museum on the details for the June 12 event—until, out of the blue, we were told by the museum staff that Mr. DeSantis didn’t “align with the museum’s values and its message of inclusivity.” Either we disinvite the governor, they said, or our event was unwelcome.

Throughout the modern age, Jews have suffered the consequences of this kind of intolerance. We see it all the time on college campuses, where anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism have become a tolerated (and even celebrated) form of discrimination. We see it in the boycott, divest and sanctions movement, which advocates treating Israel as a pariah. We see it in the U.N., with its odious anti-Israel Human Rights Council and with Amnesty International’s “apartheid state” calumny.

But we know things are bad when a Jewish institution—in this case, a museum whose purpose is to keep Jewish heritage alive by remembering the Holocaust—turns on its own and tries to make a virtue of its own intolerance.

What drives our elite institutions—museums, universities, large corporations, the media—to shut down speakers and ideas that question progressive orthodoxy? In many cases, the explanation is sheer cowardice. A lot of people dislike Mr. DeSantis, and the museum staff must have asked: What if there are protests? What if our progressive donors complain? In the current environment, protecting free speech requires moral and political courage. Many administrators, corporate CEOs and college presidents have weak spines. Preserving a free society requires at least some ability to respect other viewpoints and other people. The new czars of cancel culture seem to have little such moral imagination or civic tolerance.

The new thought police don’t see themselves as acting solely or primarily out of fear. They believe they are defending the good: inclusion against hate, equality against discrimination, victimized minorities against white privilege. Yet the pseudo-gospel of inclusion breaks down quickly. In the name of inclusivity, a Jewish museum sent us a clear message: Some people are to be excluded. In the name of fighting hate, the museum decided that the millions of Floridians who support Gov. DeSantis—including many Jews—are so hateful that they don’t even merit a voice in the great American conversation. A museum of tolerance has become intolerant.

When pressed for a further explanation of why our event was canceled, the museum’s CEO adopted a common form of doublespeak: We don’t do politics, he told us, whether left or right. Not surprisingly, this was false. In August 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, then a Democratic candidate for Congress, was a featured speaker at an event at the museum, sponsored by the Immigrant Arts Coalition. Her speech was widely covered in the news—both before and after the event—including public criticism of the museum for giving such a vociferous critic of Israel a prominent platform at a Jewish institution. Yet the event went on as planned.

The museum has hosted other politicians, including then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and then-Mayor Bill de Blasio. In April the museum hosted a conversation with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who recently described America as a society plagued by white supremacy and lauded America’s re-entry into the anti-Israel Human Rights Commission.

When we launched the Jewish Leadership Conference a few years ago, we gave our inaugural Herzl Prize for Jewish Leadership to the great freedom fighter Natan Sharansky, who endured nearly a decade in a Soviet prison in his fight to rejoin his people in Israel. In his memoir, “Fear No Evil,” he tells how the Soviet thought police suffocated liberty “not by tanks and missiles, or even camps and prisons,” but by turning free citizens into frightened supplicants, afraid to speak their minds.

The preservation of Jewish heritage depends not only on remembering the lost Jews of the past. It depends also on channeling those sacred memories toward a vibrant Jewish future—the kind of Jewish renaissance we are seeing today in Florida.

The Jewish Leadership Conference won’t be canceled, and the governor of the state with America’s third-largest Jewish population will speak. We will hold our event as planned, at a different, secular venue. But it is sad to see that the misguided leadership of a Jewish museum won’t allow alternative ideas a seat at the Jewish table.

Mr. Abrams is chairman and Mr. Cohen is CEO of Tikvah. They are co-chairmen of the Jewish Leadership Conference.

From The Wall Street Journal, May 5, 2022

Did a New York Holocaust museum ban Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis? Depends whom you ask.

By: Jacob Henry

Two leading Jewish conservatives ignited a firestorm Thursday when they announced, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, that the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City had told them they could not hold an event there if Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was invited.

The op-ed was titled “Persona Non Grata at a Holocaust Memorial” and was authored by Elliot Abrams and Eric Cohen, the chairman and CEO of the Tikvah Fund, a think thank that is an engine of Jewish conservatism.

Tikvah had hosted many events at the Holocaust memorial museum, they wrote, but the leadership conference set for June 12 hit a wrinkle — one that Abrams and Cohen said pointed to growing intolerance of conservative ideas.

“Out of the blue, we were told by the museum staff that Mr. DeSantis didn’t ‘align with the museum’s values and its message of inclusivity,’” the op-ed said. “Either we disinvite the governor, they said, or our event was unwelcome.”

That account made sense to many of the people who read it. To many people on the left, it was obvious why New York’s Holocaust museum wouldn’t welcome DeSantis, who has close ties to former President Donald Trump and mocked but declined to condemn neo-Nazi protesters in his state. To people on the right, the purported incident fit neatly into a prevailing narrative about “cancel culture,” in which liberal elites seek to tamp down ideas they don’t share.

However, according to the museum, there was no cancellation. In fact, as the museum said in a statement Friday, there was no event at all.

“No one was banned or canceled,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “The fact is that no contract with the Tikvah Fund was ever signed for this rental event to be held at the Museum and no deposit was ever made.”

As a private institution, the Museum of Jewish Heritage has full discretion about who can rent its space. The New York Jewish Week obtained a copy of the contract between the museum and Tikvah, which Cohen said he had signed. That contract explains that museum facilities cannot be used for advancing a particular religious doctrine, political fundraising or activity that is advocating for a political candidate, group or ideology.

It was after Cohen signed the contract that the museum learned DeSantis was a scheduled speaker, Cohen said. Cohen said he had spoken by phone with the museum’s CEO, Jack Kliger, who told him that the museum does not welcome political speakers of any ideology.

“I explained to him that we have had many events there with prominent speakers from public life, and asked him to reconsider,” Cohen said. 

Critics of the museum have noted that Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke at an arts event there in 2018, when she was a congressional candidate. The museum’s leadership has changed since then, and the country has grown more politically polarized.

The latest episode offers further evidence of that polarization — and that even Holocaust museums are not immune from America’s mounting culture wars.

In the op-ed, Abrams — a former Trump administration official — and Cohen said the museum’s decision reflected dangerous currents in contemporary society.

“The new thought police don’t see themselves as acting solely or primarily out of fear. They believe they are defending the good: inclusion against hate, equality against discrimination, victimized minorities against white privilege,” they wrote. “Yet the pseudo-gospel of inclusion breaks down quickly. In the name of inclusivity, a Jewish museum sent us a clear message: Some people are to be excluded.”

They added, “In the name of fighting hate, the museum decided that the millions of Floridians who support Gov. DeSantis — including many Jews — are so hateful that they don’t even merit a voice in the great American conversation. A museum of tolerance has become intolerant.”

The museum called the piece “factually inaccurate” and said it had not been contacted for comment. The Wall Street Journal did not return a request for comment.

The op-ed elicited a flurry of responses, including pride from DeSantis’ critics and concern from conservatives. 

“The Museum has always taught ‘Thou shalt not stand idly by.’ They just met the challenge of that message and they did so admirably,” wrote Danny Wool, a historian who worked as an educator at the museum in the past, on Facebook. “I never felt prouder to say that I am an MJH alum.”

The Coalition for Jewish Values, a group of right-wing rabbis that formed in the wake of Trump’s election to advance conservative political ideas, issued a statement “castigating” the museum.

“It is hard to see this decision as anything but politically motivated, and directly contrary to Jewish interests as well,” Rabbi Moshe Parnes said in the statement. “As a Floridian and a rabbi, I can say that one would be hard-pressed to find an elected official more attentive to the Jewish community than Ron DeSantis.”

In New York City, Republican City Council members Inna Vernikov and Joe Borelli sent a letter to Kliger, the museum’s CEO, expressing “disappointment” about Abrams and Cohen’s charge. They asked that the museum “immediately rescind” the decision to prohibit DeSantis from speaking at Tikvah’s conference.

The letter compared barring DeSantis from the museum to Nazis censoring freedom of speech in the 1930s.

“In modern day America, we have seen attempts to cancel political speech, in a way that is reminiscent of Nazi and Soviet Era censorship,” the letter said. 

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The episode comes as DeSantis makes news for his stances on abortion — Florida would ban abortion after 15 weeks if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, as it is expected to do shortly — and LGBTQ inclusion. He is a champion of Florida’s new “Parental Rights Education” legislation – dubbed by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill – prohibiting schools from discussing gender and sexuality with students in kindergarten through third grade.

According to the museum, none of that was the reason for Tikvah’s event not taking place there.

“This is not a free speech or censorship issue,” the spokesperson said. “This was simply a contractual and logistical decision.”

He added that the Tikvah Fund is “trying to create a fight where none exists.”

Michael Glickman, who ran the museum from 2016 to 2019 and now leads JMuse, an organization seeking to improve Jewish arts and cultural institutions, told the New York Jewish Week that he regretted that “the cancellation became the story” given how much value the museum could add in the current climate.

“This museum has a depth of resources in their collections that could easily come to life and speak to situations like this,” said Glickman, who added he did not have any information about the saga beyond what had been publicly reported. “At the same time, public history museums have the opportunity of calling on history to address contemporary moments (perhaps even shining a light on what happens when people in power actively work to restrict basic human rights and/or stay silent in the face of Nazi protests).”

He added, “It’s just too bad that everyone got sidetracked and distracted by politics. I suppose that is just the environment we live in.”

For now, Tikvah is planning to stage its conference as planned on June 12 at Chelsea Piers’ Pier Sixty, a private event space. Confirmed speakers include Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo; Bari Weiss, the writer who quit the New York Times over what she said was antisemitism there and has since built an anti-“cancel culture” brand on Substack; and Ruth Wisse, the Harvard professor and Tikvah mainstay.

Meanwhile, the museum is gearing up to open a major revision of its main exhibition June 30 — and it says DeSantis is invited.

In a statement, it said, “We welcome Governor DeSantis and elected officials from across the spectrum to visit the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust for a tour of our new exhibition, The Holocaust: What Hate Can Do, when it opens this summer.”

From The New York Jewish Week, May 6, 2022

 

Ron Desantis To Speak At Chelsea Piers On Sunday Following Jewish Museum Flap

By: Jacob Henry

A conservative Jewish think tank will hold a daylong conference at Chelsea Piers on Sunday, one month after asserting that it was blocked from holding the event at the Museum of Jewish Heritage because Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is among the speakers.

DeSantis will be speaking Sunday at the Jewish Leadership Conference, sponsored by the Tikvah Fund, in a private event venue at Pier 60 in Manhattan.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage, a Holocaust and Jewish cultural space in Lower Manhattan, disputed a complaint by Tikvah, aired in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, that the museum had cancelled an agreement to host the conference because it featured DeSantis. Tikvah claimed it was told that DeSantis — who has pushed a number of bills targeting Florida’s LGBTQ community — didn’t “align with the museum’s values and its message of inclusivity.”

Sunday’s event will feature a number of conservative heavy-hitters, including Mark Meadows, former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff; Mike Pompeo, Trump’s former secretary of state; and former New York Times editor Bari Weiss, a vocal critic of “cancel culture.”

Tikvah Fund Executive Director Eric Cohen told the New York Jewish Week that the conference will focus on ideas about “the Jewish future.”

“We look forward to an important gathering — with roughly 20 great speakers — focused on the great questions facing the Jewish people, America, Israel and the West,” Cohen said.

A number of left-wing activist groups are planning to protest the event, including United Against Racism and Jews For Racial & Economic Justice.

JFREJ communications director Sophie Ellman-Golan said that the event is regressive and is “aligned with a white Christian nationalist movement.”

“If you look at what DeSantis is doing, it is a very clear effort to annihilate trans people,” Ellman-Golan said. “If anyone doesn’t fit into their narrow vision of ‘Judeo-Christian’ society, they are not welcome and must be silenced, and must not even exist.”

In March, DeSantis signed the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” legislation that prohibits instruction and discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity in some elementary school grades. His administration has also sought to ban transition-related care for transgender minors and Medicaid coverage for medical procedures related to gender reassignment.

In contrast, Chelsea Piers is honoring LGBTQ Pride Month with rainbow motifs in its marketing and social media. Pier 60, which is part of Chelsea Piers, did not respond to a request for comment, but did tell the New York Daily News that the event “in no way implies that we endorse the respective organization or its speakers.”

The event is taking place in State Senator Brad Hoylman’s Chelsea district. Hoylman said in a statement that he opposes DeSantis speaking in New York.

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“Through his ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law, Ron DeSantis has caused incalculable pain and suffering to LGBTQ children and their families in Florida,” Hoylman said.

Hoylman, who is one of two openly gay state senators in New York, called on Chelsea Piers to cancel this “offensive speaking engagement immediately.”

“It’s an absolute outrage that a homophobic and transphobic official like DeSantis would be invited to speak during Pride Month in the heart of Chelsea, one of New York’s largest LGBTQ neighborhoods,” Hoylman said.

Council members Erik Bottcher and Deborah Glick, whose districts include Chelsea, also called on Chelsea Piers to cancel the event.

Glick, who is a lesbian and Jewish, told the New York Jewish Week that DeSantis passed “insulting” legislation in Florida and holds “antisemitic views,” an apparent reference to a recent tweet by DeSantis targeting the left-wing Jewish philanthropist George Soros.

“Someone who has his kind of record shouldn’t be invited to New York during Pride Month,” Glick said.

She added that many of the speakers at the event, including Meadows and DeSantis, have supported “the big lie,” Trump’s false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen by President Joe Biden.

“If any community should understand the danger of the big lie, it is the Jewish community,” Glick said. “To invite people who are supportive of the big lie that will undermine American democracy. It is a mistake.”

In a statement to the New York Jewish Week, DeSantis’s office did not address criticisms of his LGBTQ policies, and instead asserted that he is “the most pro-Israel governor in the nation.”

“The Governor will always stand up for what is right and will not be deterred by the radical Left,” the statement said.

From The New York Jewish Week, June 9, 2022