Art in the Service of Antisemitism

It’s not against the law to paint an antisemitic mural.

But that doesn’t mean that a museum is required to display it—especially when that museum is funded by taxpayers.

The museum in question is the History Colorado Center, a state institution, which commissioned a local artist named Madalyn Drewno to paint a portrait of Denver’s Vietnamese immigrant community.

Drewno decided, instead, to paint a mural showcasing anti-Israel and anti-Jewish themes, with a few Vietnamese-Americans thrown in. The history center objected, and now Drewno and the American Civil Liberties Union are accusing the museum of suppressing her right to free artistic expression.

Several scenes in the mural indulge in Holocaust-inversion, by falsely accusing Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza. One charges U.S. Senator Michael Bennet (D-Col.) with “funding genocide,” because he supports enabling Israel to defend itself against the mass murderers and gang-rapists of Hamas.

It should be noted that comparing Israeli actions to those of the Nazis—which is what the genocide slur means—is antisemitic, according to the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which the Obama administration began using more than fifteen years ago.

Several of Drewno’s images depict Jewish money controlling American politicians, which is one of the oldest antisemitic canards in the book.

In one, U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper (D-Col.) has dollar signs instead of eyes. In case anybody misses her meaning, Drewno helpfully explained to the New York Times this week that she was referring to Hickenlooper receiving donations from “pro-Israel lobbyists.”

The mural also has an image of a protester holding a sign that reads, “Congress is Not For Sale,” calling to mind the infamous claim by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) that her colleagues support Israel because they are bribed by the Jews. “It’s all about the Benjamins,” Omar declared.

There are quite a few scenes involving protesters in Drewno’s mural. Some show them waving the official flag of the PLO, a longtime symbol of the campaign to destroy Israel and replace it with “Palestine.” No fewer than thirteen PLO flags appear in the painting.

The most ironic aspect of the mural is its image of someone holding a sign that reads “Sudan Stands with Palestine.” The Biden administration labeled the ongoing slaughter in Sudan as “genocide” because “Arab militias” there “have systematically murdered men and boys—even infants—on an ethnic basis, and deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence.” That sounds a lot like October 7.

In Sudan, Arabs are massacring non-Arabs. In southern Israel two years ago, Arabs massacred 1,200 non-Arabs. That’s why both the Arab militias of Sudan and Hamas are guilty of genocide.

Thus the sign Drewno painted should say “Sudan Stands with Israel,” alluding to the natural kinship of victims of genocide.

Instead, in her mural, perpetrators of genocide in effect “stand” with other perpetrators of genocide, and Drewno cheers them on. The slogan “Sudan Stands with Palestine” will be remembered for its painful, unintended irony.

In its reporting this week on the Drewno controversy, the New York Times noted that the Colorado town of Vail last year canceled the artist residency of Danielle SeeWalker because, as the Times put it, she “posted a piece on social media that reflects her views on the war in Gaza.”

The problem was not that Vail objected to artists expressing their “views” on Gaza. The problem was that the piece in question promoted the same Holocaust-inverting lie as Drewno’s mural—that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

SeeWalker titled her painting “G is for Genocide,” and wrote this accompanying text: “Some days I have overwhelming grief & guilt for walking around privileged while people in Gaza are suffering.” Instead of expressing her grief by, say, donating her salary to Gazans, SeeWalker opted to invert the Holocaust and sue Vail when it objected.

The town of Vail decided to settle SeeWalker’s suit out of court. It remains to be seen whether Drewno will sue the History Colorado Center.

It’s difficult to imagine that Drewno has any legal grounds to force the taxpayer-funded history center to display her antisemitic mural. But leaving legal technicalities aside, let’s consider the moral angle.

What if the History Colorado Center commissioned an artist to create a mural about the state’s African-American community, and the artist produced a painting that justified lynching and apartheid, and glorified white supremacists marching through black neighborhoods waving racist flags?

Would that qualify as artistic free expression that the public must support and display? Would civil libertarians leap to the artist’s defense? Or would the bigoted mural be shunned?

In the United States, racist and antisemitic artists are free to paint whatever they choose. But that does not mean the public must embrace or fund them.

Dr. Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and author of more than 20 books about Jewish history and the Holocaust. His latest is The Road to October 7: Hamas, the Holocaust, and the Eternal War Against the Jews, published by the Jewish Publication Society & University of Nebraska Press.