There’s a right way and a wrong way for Jewish institutions to welcome visitors. The moment the balance between security and openness starts to close an institution off from the wider community is the moment it gets harder to repair the world.
As reported in today’s Chicago Tribune, this week, downtown Chicago’s Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies bowed to pressure from Jewish United Fund (JUF)/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago president Steven Nasatir and closed its multimedia exhibition on Holy Land boundaries, ‘Imaginary Coordinates’, three months early. For reasons that smack of reverse racism.