Community Update: Confronting Hate Together Exhibit in Seattle

MAY 30, 2024

The Washington State Jewish Historical Society (WSJHS) and the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle (JCRC) would like to express their gratitude to the community for their support of the Confronting Hate Together Exhibit.

This morning, the Black Heritage Society (BHS), Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Experience (WLM), and the WSJHS released a joint statement sharing that the exhibit will reopen at the WLM with a few additions later this month.

While we are grateful for this decision, the events of the last week have been painful for our Jewish community. The anti-Jewish biases, intentional or not, that underpinned the demands of the WLM staff who walked out were blatantly evident to the Jewish community. The silence from Seattle leaders more broadly on the anti-Jewish harm occurring further amplified our community’s pain.

This experience has made it abundantly clear that significantly more collaboration, relationship-building, education, and dialogue with our allies are needed. Because when extreme voices are allowed to overtake shared efforts to address hate, we all lose.

The WSJHS will lean into our work to capture the voices and experiences of Washington’s Jewish communities and turn our attention toward modernizing our oral history program over the next year. It’s clear that this work is needed now more than ever – the history of the past and the unfolding present has never been more critical.

The Federation’s JCRC will continue to support and amplify the work of our local Jewish organizations, address antisemitism through education and advocacy, and deepen partnerships and relationships beyond the Jewish community.

The decision to move forward with the Confronting Hate Together Exhibit will provide an opportunity for healing and reaching out, including building great understanding and sensitivity across our communities. We continue to believe strongly that there is much more that unites than divides us.

To sign up for regular updates from the WSJHS click here. To support their work, click here.

To sign up for updates from Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle’s JCRC, click here. To support their work, click here.