Exhibition Review: Jewish Artists Take On Jew-Hate

by RIchard McBee, Jewish Press
June 28, 2024

Artists on Antisemitism, currently running at 81 Leonard Gallery in Manhattan, is a courageous artistic proclamation attacking an insidious cancer growing in the midst of New York’s cultural capital. Each artwork defiantly says, “Never Again!”

The myriad aspects of this disease should have been eradicated decades ago, but have remained hidden, dormant, and only now are sprouting their vicious tentacles into the public discourse. The October 7 massacre is clearly a stimulus fueling the shocking rise of global antisemitism which is addressed by this exhibition in the heart of the Tribeca art gallery district.

Curators Hannah Rothbard, Yona Verwer, Ronit Levin Delgado, Judith Joseph, and gallery owner Nancy Pantirer have chosen 21 artists for this exhibition. Almost all are members of the Jewish Art Salon, a global network for contemporary Jewish visual art, and have responded in their artworks to the tidal wave of antisemitism across the world.

Increasingly, in the contemporary art world, Jews and Israelis are considered the new axis of evil and thus legitimate targets. Considering that the art world, along with academia, has grown especially dangerous for Jews, this exhibition is especially courageous.

For example, as prominently reported on February 13 on Hyperallergic.com, a leading online magazine in contemporary art and culture, a group of mostly Jewish anti-Zionist activists aggressively disrupted a talk at the Jewish Museum and called Israeli artist Zoya Cherkassky’s paintings chronicling the Hamas attack “imperial propaganda” that serves to “manufacture consent for genocide.”