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.”
Kevin Corbett, the CEO of Plus Investment (USA), waited over eight years for a master-use permit to build a 46-story residential tower near Pike Place Market. But he’s indefinitely paused the construction over the Seattle crime crisis.
“Unfortunately, I don’t see us going vertical anytime soon with the continued public safety concerns in the neighborhood,” Corbett told the Puget Sound Business Journal. “Open-air drug markets are still visible day and night on Second and Third Avenue. I know the city needs more resources, but I don’t see much new downtown commercial development happening until there is a stronger crackdown on these illegal activities.”
The Pike Towers project was slated to be two glass towers, one 46 stories and the other 16 stories. A rendering of the project, per the Real Deal, suggests ground-level retail.
More from Jason Rantz: Prominent Seattle business leaders fed up with crime plaguing city as major Starbucks shuts down for safety
Why did the developer pause a massive construction in downtown Seattle?
It’s not surprising that a developer would pause a project in the downtown core. While tourism is recovering thanks to cruise season, the area can still feel like a ghost town with many workers still remote. Perhaps “ghost town” is less appropriate than zombie wasteland where fentanyl addicts waste away near the most used metro and light rail stops downtown. It’s fueling the area’s crime crisis.
Homeless addicts openly buy and use their drug of choice, usually fentanyl but sometimes meth, across the downtown core. Some stand tall, swaying back and forth, stuck in their high. Others have bodies contorted into shapes and positions you didn’t think possible. Others are so blissfully high, they don’t even notice the oozing, festering wounds on their arms or legs.
There’s trash everywhere. The smell of urine near on 3rd between Pike and Pine is so pungent you can taste it in the back of your throat. It’s what tourists first experience if they walk to Pike Place Market or take the light rail from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
Locals don’t want to even walk near the area. Why would they want to live there?
Is there a plan to address Seattle crime?
The residential project already had to pivot because of the deteriorating conditions in downtown. Originally slated as condominiums, the project switched to rentals. But now the project is paused, leaving needed housing units off the market because of city mismanagement from the mayor’s office.
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell has prioritized building more housing in the downtown core. Rather than address concerns from developers like Corbett, however, Harrell seems more interested in transforming offices — vacant because of the crime crisis — into housing. They’re “practically begging” developers to take on these office-to-housing conversion projects by offering incentives that they should be offering all developers. It’s a foolish plan that will only further stall downtown’s resurgence.
About a third of offices remain either empty or available for sublease in the downtown core. By replacing the office space with housing, you’re ensuring the downtown core won’t be able to attract businesses again. This effectively displaces businesses to other Seattle neighborhoods where they won’t have the same access to the metro or light rail for commutes. Worse, it could encourage businesses to stay remote.
More from Jason Rantz: Seattle restaurant owner ‘lost all faith’ in city after 23rd break-in
Where’s the media coverage?
Normally, news of such a high-profile project being put on pause would generate media coverage. For this one, not so much. It’s been relegated to business and real estate outlets.
Local media, like The Seattle Times, have gone out of their way to not blame the crime crisis for the problems in downtown Seattle.
Reports in The Seattle Times in June painted grim pictures of the commercial and residential real estate market in downtown Seattle. One article pointed to astonishingly low price tags for previously pricey commercial buildings, including the near-empty Pacific Place Mall and the Downtown Hilton. A second article noted the price of homes downtown is trending lower than the costs citywide.
Other reports noted that downtown housing prices took a nosedive and are now cheaper than the citywide average.
But these reports blamed COVID-19, not even mentioning the Seattle crime crisis.
More from Jason Rantz: King County Public Defender director aims to stop many prosecutions, pay criminals instead
Sounding the alarms over Seattle crime
It’s not just projects that are quietly put on pause that should worry locals. High profile business leaders have been sounding the alarms about downtown as well.
Jeffery Judson-Baker, Investment Manager at Lake Union Partners, recently penned an open letter about the conditions downtown. He blamed the crisis on “misplaced compassion” that left “addicts to rot in doorways and the mentally ill to suffer on the streets.”
“I’ve had these conversations for a long time, kind of behind closed doors,” Judson-Baker explained on “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH. “Business leaders are often doing things behind the scenes, lobbying with local groups. Those are all things we certainly do, and at a certain point, me and my peers have just gotten fed up.”
‘This person’s fully naked, running around the street, screaming at six in the morning’
Judson-Baker said a recent walk from his home in Pioneer Square to a business meeting prompted his letter.
“I get up early in the morning and I wake up to somebody having a manic episode right outside my door, screaming at nothing,” he explained.
An hour later, it happened again.
“This person’s fully naked, running around the street, screaming at six in the morning,” he said.
He said his walk to a light rail station was a tour of human misery.
“Every person I see is either folded in half, looking for drugs, having a mental breakdown or asking for money to go, who knows,” he recalled. “And I finally get to the Third and Cherry light rail station, and there’s human waste in front of it, needles, people sleeping directly in front of the escalator, as you’re watching all of these commuters that are coming to the CBD core, which is dying actively. You see office occupancies way down.”
He called the area a “war zone.” And he’s speaking up because he loves his city and doesn’t want to see it continue to deteriorate. Now, he’s waiting for more local leaders and the mayor’s office to act.
Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3-7 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason on X, formerly known as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
The Seattle Mariners enter play on Wednesday at 64-63 on the season. With that record, they are 5.0 games back of the red-hot Houston Astros in the American League West and 6.5 games back of both the Kansas City Royals and the Minnesota Twins in the wild card.
The offense has been the worst in baseball in many metrics, and the bullpen has faltered at all the wrong times, which has contributed to the M’s two-month collapse. However, the starting pitching has remained the best in baseball. The group, led by Logan Gilbert, Luis Castillo, Bryce Miller, Bryan Woo and George Kirby, is on track to make baseball history not seen in the last 24 years.
Per Ken Rosenthal of ‘The Athletic:’
Entering Tuesday, the Mariners’ major-league best 3.26 rotation ERA was 0.20 runs per nine innings better than that of the next-closest team, the Philadelphia Phillies. That difference, if it holds, would be the sixth largest between the first- and second-place finishers since 2000, according to STATS Perform.
Bryce Miller gave up two runs over 4.0 innings on Tuesday, so the rotation ERA rose slightly, but Rosenthal’s point still stands. Emerson Hancock has also contributed greatly to that statistic, as he’s posted a 4.76 ERA in nine starts this year. He’s filled in for Woo, who has had two separate stints on the injured list.
The Mariners will be back in action on Wednesday night looking to finish out a hellish road trip with a win. They’ve gone 1-7 thus far through Detroit, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles.
First pitch against the Dodgers is 7:10 p.m. PT on Wednesday.
NEW PODCAST IS OUT: The latest episode of the “Refuse to Lose” podcast is out as Brady Farkas just talks from the heart about how tough this road trip has been and why this Mariners disappointment hurts just as much or more as all the others. CLICK HERE:
NO OFFENSE: The Mariners offense is on pace to be the worst of the Divisional Era. CLICK HERE for more:
SETBACK FOR FORMER M’s FAN FAVORITE: Penn Murfee is now with the Houston Astros, but he’s not ready to get back to the majors yet after undergoing Tommy John surgery with the Mariners. CLICK HERE:
Continue to follow our Inside the Mariners coverage on social media by liking us on Facebook and by following Teren Kowatsch and Brady Farkas on “X” @Teren_Kowatsch and @wdevradiobrady. You can subscribe to the “Refuse to Lose” podcast by clicking HERE:
The newly appointed CEO of Starbucks, Brian Niccol is likely to cost his company a hefty amount with his latest decision.
As reported by several outlets on Tuesday, Niccol will not be moving to Seattle where Starbucks headquarter is located, instead, he will be using firm’s private jet to commute from California to Seattle thrice a week.
Niccol’s offer letter which was made public in an SEC filing last week confirmed his commuting arrangements with the company while highlighting a shocking example of the hypocrisy of high-profile companies regarding climate change.
An insider at CNBC confirmed that Brian Niccol will be working from Starbucks’ Seattle office in remaining days of the week.
“Brian’s primary office and a majority of his time will be spent in our Seattle Support Center or out visiting partners and customers in our stores, roasteries, roasting facilities and offices around the world,” the source revealed.
“His schedule will exceed the hybrid work guidelines and workplace expectations we have for all partners,” they added.
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