Seattle, WA
Seattle Jews to remount an antisemitism exhibit alone, after staff shut it down for Zionism
After dozens of staffers at a Seattle museum walked off the job to protest an exhibit on antisemitism they claimed was “Zionist,” area Jewish groups and the museum all pledged that the exhibit would find a new home.
Months later, the Jewish groups are still planning to mount a version of the exhibit, called “Confronting Hate Together.” But they will do so without their original partners, the Black Heritage Society of Washington State and a museum dedicated to Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander heritage. Instead, the Jewish groups say the exhibit will be housed in a Jewish space.
The groups cited “circumstances out of our control” and said that the experience had left local Jews feeling isolated at a time of great need.
“Immense harm has been caused to the Jewish community by not being able to show the exhibit,” the Washington State Jewish Historical Society and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Seattle said in a joint statement. “Antisemitism today is at its highest levels in over 40 years, and more allyship is needed to help meet the moment.”
The statement summarized a feeling that Jews in many quarters have expressed over the last 10 months, since Hamas attacked Israel and triggered an ongoing war that has induced tensions in countless museums, universities, cultural centers and workplaces. Many Jews have lamented not feeling the support they say they have shown to people from other backgrounds in the past.
“We need partners who are stakeholders in the safety and well-being of the Jewish people and who stand with us even when it gets hard,” the Jewish groups said. “Ironically, in an exhibit that was supposed to be about coming together to confront hate, hate has won. And, our community feels more alone as a result.”
Crafting the exhibit
The Jewish Historical Society had spent 18 months crafting the exhibit alongside the Black Heritage Society and Seattle’s Wing Luke Museum. Modeled after a World War II-era American Jewish Committee anti-hate campaign, the exhibit first opened at the Wing Luke in late May and included descriptions of how all three ethnic communities have experienced hate over the years.
But controversy quickly engulfed the project when 26 Wing Luke staffers walked off the job days later, claiming the parts of the exhibit that were focused on antisemitism contained material that “conveyed Zionist perspectives.” The museum promptly closed altogether, and the staff, declaring themselves “on strike,” launched a GoFundMe that has raised more than $11,000 to date.
Museum leaders announced the exhibit would be reconfigured and presented to the public at a different venue later in the summer. The Wing Luke’s executive director, Joël Barraquiel Tan, in a piece for the Seattle Times, shared what he said were “lessons learned” from the efforts to restage the exhibit, including, “Our best work happens when we offer platforms for complex dialogue and vulnerability to inspire civility, grace and understanding across differences.”
The reason the Jewish groups decided to go their own way stemmed from challenges surrounding the search for a new venue, the Jewish Historical Society’s director, Lisa Kranseler, indicated to the Cholent, an independent newsletter covering Jewish Seattle.
But the ultimate decision to pull back was the Jewish groups’, a representative for the Wing Luke Museum told the Cholent. “We are naturally disappointed that the Jewish Historical Society felt they needed to do that,” the spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for the Seattle JCRC did not respond to repeated requests for comment. In its own statement, the Black Heritage Society seemed to take issue with the Jewish groups’ narrative of events, noting their statement “questions our allyship and tenacity for when times get tough.”
“We have been good and tolerant partners,” the society’s president, Stephanie Johnson-Toliver, wrote. Johnson-Toliver concluded by thanking the Wing Luke museum and “the writers, editors, interns, consulting staff, and funders whose contributions have been great,” but did not mention the Jewish groups by name. (Asked for comment, the society directed JTA to the statement.)
In their objections to the original exhibit, the Wing Luke’s staff contingent, WLM4Palestine, cited portions that read “Today, antisemitism is often disguised as anti-Zionism” and spotlighted campus protests and the phrase “from the river to the sea.” Such passages, the staff allege on their GoFundMe page, “attempt to frame Palestinian liberation and anti-Zionism as antisemitism.”
On Instagram, they further alleged that the exhibit “sets a dangerous precedent of platforming colonial, white supremacist perspectives and goes against the Museum’s mission as a community-based museum advancing racial and social equity.”
Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat argued that the staffers’ anger was misplaced, and had the effect of abandoning Jews.
“What the exhibit is saying is, don’t take your anger about the Middle East conflict out on local Jews, who are independent, freethinking humans,” he wrote. “For a highly fraught subject, this is pretty basic stuff.”
While decrying the staff response as “fueled” by “anti-Jewish ideas and attitudes,” the Jewish groups added that they had made “adjustments and modifications” to the exhibit following the walkout. They said this was done “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.”
A digital version of the exhibit with the original partners listed, including content focused on the Black and Asian-American experiences, is viewable on the Jewish Historical Society’s website. An accompanying podcast, released shortly after the museum staff walkout and featuring guests including the mayor of Seattle, is also still accessible.
Kranseler told JTA that the Jewish Historical Society was “still working with our partners on two additional panels that will explain the genesis of our collaboration on this exhibit and provide additional information regarding the history of our three communities working together.”
The digital version still includes language the Wing Luke staff had walked out over, such as the declaration that “Today antisemitism is often disguised as anti-Zionism.”
Mike Macdonald is attempting to do something unprecedented in his first year as Seattle Seahawks head coach. No first-time NFL head coach hired since 2017 – who is still active as a head coach today – has ever gone into their first season with either an offensive or defensive coordinator who had no prior NFL experience.
The league has taken notice of Seahawks’ lack of home-field advantage
Why 2017? Sure, that seems like an arbitrary data point, and it very well could be – feel free to go back as far as you want to satisfy any lingering curiosity. But it’s important for two reasons. First of all, to be hired as a first-time head coach back then and still be coaching is impressive. Eight years is an eternity in the fickle world of head coaching. Secondly, that hiring cycle produced three of the most successful coaches in the entire league since then: the Los Angeles Rams’ Sean McVay, San Francisco’s Kyle Shanahan, and Buffalo’s Sean McDermott.
The Seahawks are all too familiar with what McVay and Shanahan have done since then, including the Rams’ immediate and meteoric rise under McVay. Shanahan’s tenure began a little slower, but the Seahawks’ roster is in better shape than the 49ers’ was in 2017 and more closely parallels the situation McVay walked into at the start of his career. Because of that Rams success and the comparisons that Mike Macdonald has evoked as a defensive equivalent to the offensively-minded McVay, the path is laid out for what the Seahawks could achieve in the next few seasons.
However, the deviation has occurred in the coordinator decisions, especially on the side of the ball counter to the specialized area of the head coach. For McVay, that was on defense, and he opted to hire then-69-year-old Wade Phillips, who had been coaching in the NFL in some capacity since the Seahawks had existed as a franchise.
The year before Phillips was hired, the Rams’ defense ranked 23rd in points allowed per game. In 2017, that mark improved to 12th in the NFL. The next season, the Rams’ defense held Tom Brady and the Patriots to the fewest points they had ever scored in a Super Bowl. The Los Angeles defense was never a top unit in the league, but it also was never detrimental to the team.
There is a deluge of information and new responsibilities for a first-time head coach to process, in addition to the week-to-week task of actually coaching either the offense or defense. Even that description feels like it minimizes just how much a coach who also functions as a play-caller has to do each week, but it should serve to illustrate the point that the other coordinator has an outsized importance, even to the point of autonomy, on the impact of that entire side of the ball.
It is both a testament to Macdonald’s accolades as a defensive mind while simultaneously an indictment that the Seattle offense, which returned more star power and had fewer holes to fill, has become the biggest liability for the Seahawks. The offensive line has been subpar, but there have been confounding decisions all season that speak to the inexperience of an offensive coordinator (Ryan Grubb) and O-line coach (Scott Huff) who are still acclimating to the myriad of differences between the NFL and college football after jumping to the Seahawks from the UW Huskies.
We’re not going to sit here and litigate every single decision, but what strikes me are the observations from analysts and former NFL players Ray Roberts and Mark Schlereth – who can analyze and explain offensive line play as well as anyone in the NFL – about the general inconsistencies that have plagued the Seahawks’ offense all season, especially on that line.
They have put most of the scrutiny on the play-calling and coaching, and it was particularly insightful on Tuesday when Roberts guest hosted Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob. Roberts opened our show by explaining how the Seahawks essentially out-thought themselves with their offensive game plan against the Packers instead of emphasizing their own strengths.
Big Ray Roberts: How Seahawks overthought the plan on offense
Mark Schlereth is a weekly Wyman and Bob guest on Tuesdays, and he has consistently hammered home the message that the coaching on the offensive line and the play-calling has not put the offense in a position to succeed. I highly recommend listening back through his appearances on the show this season for both comedic and football value.
There is an extra layer to this that expedites the urgency for the Seahawks to figure it out on offense. Next season, the following players are entering the final year of their contracts: Geno Smith, DK Metcalf, Kenneth Walker III, Abraham Lucas, Noah Fant and Tyler Lockett. Throw in the rest of the 2022 draft class (outside of Charles Cross) who will need new deals, and it’s going to be prohibitively expensive for the Seahawks to keep all of their key players around. With those pieces currently in place, this team can’t risk another season of questions surrounding the offense.
Oh yeah, so back to those other coordinator hires for the first-time coaches in 2017 besides McVay.
Kyle Shanahan hired a defensive coordinator named Robert Saleh, who had spent the prior 11 seasons coaching in a variety of roles in the NFL. It worked out pretty well for San Francisco.
Sean McDermott opted to go with Rick Dennison, a former offensive coordinator for the Broncos and Texans, as his OC choice. That didn’t work out, with the Bills firing Dennison after that first season. There’ s a lesson to be learned from that as well, because McDermott proceeded to hire Brian Daboll, and the Bills emerged as one of the most prolific offenses and best teams in the NFL in the four seasons Daboll was in Buffalo.
For Mike Macdonald, a wrong coordinator choice isn’t the death knell for a coaching career, but it does require a critical eye and tough conversation this offseason. I have no doubt that Ryan Grubb would be much improved in Year 2. It’s the natural growth and progression that comes in any vocation after doing something for the first time. For the Seahawks, though, time is quickly running out on offense with this current collection of talent. They must ask themselves whether “improved” is good enough to reach the standard for success.
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“Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio will soon have a new sound. On Thursday, Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien will host their last show together after a decade of co-hosting.
Dave is retiring after an esteemed 47 years at the station, while Colleen is departing to move on to other ventures.
More details: Dave Ross, Colleen O’Brien retiring after co-hosting ‘Seattle’s Morning News’ for a decade
Dave will leave behind a legacy that has profoundly impacted both KIRO Newsradio and the Seattle community.
“Dave has not only been a trusted voice in Seattle but a powerful example of journalistic excellence,” Tanya Vea, President and Chief Operating Officer of Bonneville International, said. “For nearly five decades, his dedication to truth and commitment to the Seattle community have left a lasting impact on KIRO Newsradio and beyond. We are deeply grateful for his service and the legacy he leaves behind.”
Dave first joined KIRO Newsradio in 1978 as a news anchor, quickly earning the trust of listeners across the Pacific Northwest. Known for his thoughtful commentaries and balanced perspective, he began hosting “The Dave Ross Show” in 1987, where his engaging storytelling and sense of humor made complex topics accessible and relatable. In 2013, Dave began anchoring “Seattle’s Morning News,” kicking off Seattleites’ day with news analysis that boasted both clarity and insight.
“Dave Ross is more than just a broadcaster; he’s the heart and soul of KIRO Newsradio,” Cathy Cangiano, market manager for Bonneville Seattle, said. “His ability to present a balanced perspective and his distinctive voice has made him an irreplaceable part of our team. Dave prefers not to make a big fuss, but we can’t let this moment pass without honoring his incredible service to our station and our community.”
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Colleen has been an integral part of the morning show, offering sharp insights and a compassionate presence to Seattle listeners.
She joined Dave one year after “Seattle’s Morning News” officially kicked off. The University of Washington graduate worked a plethora of journalism gigs before becoming co-host of Seattle’s Morning News, including news anchor, reporter, photographer, video editor, producer and web editor.
“Colleen cares deeply about the community and she wants you to be informed and aware by sharing stories that affect you,” KIRO Newsradio’s outgoing News Director Charlie Harger said in a Tuesday commentary. “There’s no pretense the person you hear on the air is the person you meet in real life.”
Harger, a veteran Seattle journalist, will be taking over for Dave and Colleen as the new host of “Seattle’s Morning News.” He met Colleen while she was in college and interning at KOMO radio.
“We knew from day one, this kid was special,” Harger said. “Knows her news, curious about the world around her, willing to put in the hard work and what a voice.”
Learn more: Charlie Harger to replace Dave Ross as host of ‘Seattle’s Morning News’ on KIRO Newsradio
Harger’s work has been recognized with numerous awards, including being named Major Market “Radio Reporter of the Year” for the Western U.S. by the Associated Press Television Radio Association (APTRA) in 2015. He has received multiple APTRA and RTDNA Murrow Awards for investigative reporting, enterprise coverage and documentaries, among others, and was nominated for an Emmy.
“I’ve known Charlie for 20 years, my whole career, and he is such an inspiring storyteller and a good steward of journalism,” Colleen said. “When I heard that he was going to be taking over the show, I went, ‘OK. This show is going to be OK.’ Our listeners are going to be OK because you’re going to do a bang-up job, and you’re going to bring true journalism and great storytelling.”
Therefore, while “Seattle’s Morning News” is losing two legends, the show will be left in trustworthy hands. Tune in to KIRO Newsradio Thursday from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. to hear the last show with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien.
More on MyNorthwest from Colleen O’Brien:
Colleen O’Brien: Who’s afraid of little old TikTok?
Colleen O’Brien: Mount McKinley became Denali; will Mount Rainier’s name also change?
Colleen O’Brien: Sen. Karen Keiser explains why this is the time to retire
More on MyNorthwest from Dave Ross:
‘Don’t cut a cent:’ Dave Ross on why the national debt never gets under control
Dave Ross: ‘The Love Fest’ that was also known as ‘The Insurrection’
Ross: Blue Angels, and their noise, a good reminder of America’s war machine
Contributing: KIRO Newsradio staff; Julia Dallas, Steve Coogan and Frank Sumrall, MyNorthwest
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