Why are museums in Israel avoiding mentioning their names alongside loaned works?

In the wake of several pro-Palestine demonstrations and escalating tensions between Israel-Hamas since October 2023, some museums in Israel are reportedly avoiding a mention of their names alongside loaned artwork on display at museums outside of the country.

According to a report published in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, these policies were never publicly announced. The report quotes Suzanne Landau, Anne and Jerome Fisher, Director of Israel Museum, stating that the decision was made in response to the mounting “demonstrations and hostility toward Israel.”

In the article, she also states, “We understood that in the current situation we have an obligation to protect our collections, and that is also part of Israel’s Museum Law.” While the museum name does not feature in the wall text, it does find mention in the catalogue.

One of the largest cultural institutions in Israel, Jerusalem-based Israel Museum, is among the leading art and archaeology museums. A news report on the art website artnet notes that the museum has currently loaned several works of art to museums world over. This includes “a Peter Paul Rubens painting at Rome’s Borghese Gallery and three paintings by Chaïm Soutine that were loaned to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark for an exhibition that closed in mid-July.”

 

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Some other museums in Israel, including the Reuben and Edith Hecht Museum at the University of Haifa, meanwhile, are reportedly allowing their names to be featured but not their location on the wall text.

In April 2024, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, some of participating artists in the event ‘Love Letter to SoMa’ altered their works and spray-painted ‘Viva Palestine’ on one, demanding, among others, that museums boycott Israeli institutions and “remove all Zionist board members and funders.”

In May 2024, 34 people were taken into custody at the Brooklyn Museum after hundreds of protesters marched into the museum and unfurled the ‘Free Palestine’ banner from the roof of the building. Pro-Palestine demonstrations have also taken place at the London Science Museum, British Museum in London and Museum of Modern Art in New York.

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