At the Contemporary Jewish Museum, a Protest and an Opening

San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM) promises to be well attended on Thursday night. During the museum’s free June 6 opening reception of the group show California Jewish Open, activists from California Jewish Artists for Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace will hold a demonstration outside, drawing attention to Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza.

The protest includes live music, performances, poster-making and speakers from Bay Area Artists Against Genocide, who were at the center of a recent boycott of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Pro-Palestinian workers from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will also participate.

“This family-friendly action led by local Jewish artists has been organized to pressure the Contemporary Jewish Museum to disclose funding sources, divest from Israeli apartheid and focus attention on the genocide of Palestinians,” reads a statement from California Jewish Artists for Palestine.

“No one will be blocked from entering the museum or the exhibition, nor are any of the artists in the exhibition being targeted,” the artists added.

The California Jewish Open is a juried exhibition of nearly 50 artists centered around the theme of connection, the result of an open call for submissions from Jewish artists across the state. The works chosen for California Jewish Open by guest curator Elissa Strauss reflect a variety of artistic approaches and political viewpoints, some of which are sympathetic to Israel. From members of California Jewish Artists for Palestine, Strauss selected five works which had pro-Palestinian, anti-war themes.

In April, however, California Jewish Artists for Palestine withdrew their work from the show in an act of protest. (Another artist, Liat Berdugo, withdrew her piece — which is also critical of Israel — out of concern for how her work would be contextualized.)

The coalition of artists sent CJM leaders several demands, one of which was to divest from Israeli government funding sources and “pro-Israel philanthropic organizations, funders and board members.” Later, the artists asked the museum to join the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). PACBI calls for international institutions to refrain from collaborating with Israeli institutions until the country ends its siege and occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.

Museum leaders told artists that they couldn’t meet this demand, nor give artists full control over the wall text that would be displayed next to their works. In a previous interview with KQED, Senior Curator Heidi Rabben said she respects the artists’ decision to pull out of the show, but denied that the CJM had censored anyone.

The museum decided to leave blank spaces for each withdrawn work in California Jewish Open to symbolize the artists’ missing perspectives.

Meanwhile, in their May 10 open letter, California Jewish Artists for Palestine urged the public to refocus on Palestinians in Gaza, over 36,000 of whom have been killed by Israeli forces since Oct. 7, according to the health ministry in Gaza. Eighty-five percent of Gaza’s population has been displaced, and the United Nations has warned that 1.1 million people are facing catastrophic levels of hunger.

The California Jewish Artists for Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace will begin their protest outside the Contemporary Jewish Museum at 5:30 p.m. on June 6.

The Contemporary Jewish Museum’s opening for ‘California Jewish Open’ takes place June 6, 6:30-8:30 p.m.

This story was updated to accurately reflect the California Jewish Artists for Palestine’s initial demands of the Contemporary Jewish Museum.