The New Anti-Semitism at Ramapo College-College defending work that equates Jews with Nazis?

Frontpagemagazine ^ | 3-28-06 | Lee Kaplan

[SJackson]

 

Ramapo College in Mahwah, New Jersey, has been rated number one among regional public community colleges and ninth in the United States for educational value by U.S. News & World Report magazine. Now a six-week art exhibit at the college’s Kresge Gallery threatens to tarnish that reputation.

The guest curator is Isolde Brielmaier, a Ugandan art professor from Vassar College who seems to have a particular affection for anti-social “art” including explicit anti-Jewish themes. One work featured in the exhibit, created by artist Deborah Grant (who has no relationship to Ramapo College), depicts a Jewish rabbi dressed in phylacteries with a Star of David on his yarmulke, holding up Torah scrolls with the Nazi swastika instead of text.  The inscription below the image reads: “The Old and the New Testament.” The implication could not be clearer: the Jews’ holy text is fascism and they are the new Nazis.

The exhibition is part of African Ancestry Month.  What does such an anti-Semitic image have to do with African ancestry? One also wonders what American taxpayers would make of the exhibition which they are funding in part by grants from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.

 

For obvious reasons, the college has not been eager to publicize its controversial exhibition. Indeed, I learned of the art only after a Jewish student, upset with the college’s insistence on keeping it in the exhibit during its entire six weeks run, provided a photograph she had secretly taken of it.  

 

That an outsider obtained a copy of the photo did not go down well with the college publicist, Bonnie Franklin, the Vice-President of Communications at Ramapo.  Her initial reasons were bureaucratic:  the campus gallery discourages photos of exhibits and especially their release to the public. But Franklin was eager to defend the artist’s right of self-expression.  Although admitting that she personally found the work “offensive,” she stressed that it “has been extremely stimulating on our campus as an educational instrument.” She further explained that the campus had held several forums to discuss the work. “The piece is subject to interpretation, people have read other things into it. Some have seen it as anti-Christian for example. There have been a number of interpretations.” Finally, she fell back on the default position that the college is a “public institution and such things are protected by the first amendment.”

 

The simple truth is that Grant’s image equates Jews with Nazis, as curator Isolde Brielmaier admits.  Speaking in the post-modernese language of Grant’s work, she says that it “frequently engages in pop culture and politics, issues of race, neo-colonialism, oppression, violence against women, and the history of fascism.”  Brielmaier also notes that artist Deborah Grant studied the style of Nazi film propagandist Leni Riefenstahl—a fact that reveals much about her intent in contrasting the Old Testament, the holy book of Jews, Muslims and Christians, with a New Testament of Nazism.

 

Ramapo president Peter Mercer said that when he first saw Grant’s piece, he contacted the state attorney general to determine whether exhibiting it was illegal. Informed that it was legal, he proceeded to give his go-ahead, after being assured by Isolde Brielmaier that the artist had “no intention to shock anybody.” Today, he defends it mainly on free-speech grounds. “I’ve had positive comments about the exhibit from Jewish faculty here at Ramapo who felt the exhibit was justified as free speech,” said Mercer. When asked how many Jewish faculty had actually praised the display, he replied that there were “two of the Jewish persuasion” whom he declined to identify.

 

Meanwhile, the College Board of Trustees, Visual Arts Faculty and Mercer himself felt the need to write disclaimers about Grant’s work justifying its display as necessary to “free and lively artistic expression.” Would Mercer defend a similarly offensive work if it targeted, for instance, blacks rather than Jews? This was a question he pointedly refused to answer.

 

If "a work of art is a confession," as Albert Camus once said, then Deborah Grant’s piece is a candid admission of anti-Semitic views. That Ramapo’s leadership is determined to defend such views as a “stimulating” component of campus discussion says much about the way that ideas are used as a bludgeon on its campus.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking the keyword or topic Israel.

---------------------------

"He turned the devil into God, and God and the world into the devil's mockery."

[Theoden]

I am currently a Junior at Ramapo College. The administration and faculty are mostly left-wing loonies, but most of the students, and some professors, are very conservative. In fact, Mahwah is a conservative town. This doesn't surprise me at all.

No one ever goes to view the artwork anyway. It is such a waste of time. They tried to have that "Vagina Monologues" program, but I believe it fell flat on its face. The provost and new president of the school are whacked out Canadians(Not the good Canadians on FR), and they imported their liberal rhetoric. They are the typical spineless cowards though, and will quickly bow to outside pressure.

We need to leak this to the American Family Association, and other activist groups, and then the artwork will be quickly removed.

I don't know if they posted anything about this on the school site, but here are two links:

Ramapo Intranet

Ramapo Main Site

[Alexander Rubin]

Nifty, thanks for the tip. Now, to leak faster than a sieve filled with sand!

[jocon307]

“no intention to shock anybody.”

A lie.

[mware]

I just forwarded this on to a friend who is going to see that Rabbi Postanki (VP of NYC Board of Rabbi's) gets it.

[adam_az]

This calls for an impromptu display of performance art involving a machete, a strike anywhere match, and a half gallon of 87 Octane.

[SJackson]

No one ever goes to view the artwork anyway. It is such a waste of time.

It doesn’t have to be, there are several lessons which could be taught.

First, the persistence of bigotry and the effectiveness of art in developing hate based propaganda. The similarity to Der Sturmer is obvious. There is a clear Nazi connection here, perhaps the pschology department could examine the artists mindset.

As well as the reaction. Condemnation of the work is deserved, and a legitimate reaction. Contrast that with the cartoon of Allah and the bomb turban. The artist would be in hiding, the target of a fatwa, and Ramapo College would be under heavy armed guard, were it not already burned to the ground.

[Theoden]

Come to think of it, Ramapo has a lot of conservative Jews from Rockland county who take classes here. I would think that I would have heard of an uproar or seen a demonstration of some kind. Something is definitely wrong here. When I head up to school later, I am going to take a look at this.

You are right in your points as a matter of principal.

Wouldn't it be a shame, as I am viewing the artwork, that I suddenly choke on my Soda, and "accidentally" spit it all over the painting? /sarcasm of course

I really hope the media takes notice of this, and that this artwork, if you want to call it that, is removed.