AEJM Board Statement on the Antisemitic attack on our Board Member Prof. Dr. Mirjam Wenzel

The AEJM Board wants to express its support for board member Prof. Dr. Mirjam Wenzel, Director of the Jewish Museum Frankfurt, who became the victim of harsh anti-Israel criticism after attending a performance by Cuban artist and activist Tania Bruguera at Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof on Saturday, February 10.

Pro-Palestinian activists twice interrupted a 100-hour-long reading of Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism. We are shocked by the lack of nuance and aggressive personal approach of the activists, which leave no space whatsoever for an open discussion and put a museum professional in an impossible position.

On a more general level, we are deeply concerned about the way in which the polarized Israeli-Palestinian conflict is influencing our daily work and has a strong, negative influence on our freedom of expression and our wish and goal to be and remain safe and brave spaces for unsafe ideas.