They might want to check the definition of “inclusivity” one more time.
Elliott Abrams and Eric Cohen, co-chairs of the annual Jewish Leadership Conference, revealed in a Wall Street Journal commentary that the group has been blackballed from hosting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage.
The JLC had planned to host DeSantis as a keynote speaker for the June 12 conference. The conservative governor would have spoken about the development of Florida’s Jewish community.
Florida has one of the largest Jewish populations in the country, a community that has grown since DeSantis took office.
Weeks before the conference, the Museum of Jewish Heritage told the JLC that DeSantis was unwelcome on its premises.
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It said that the popular governor doesn’t “align with the museum’s values and its message of inclusivity,” according to Abrams and Cohen.
The museum claimed that hosting the Florida governor would be too “political” when pressed on the motive for the ban, but its concern about partisanship seems to only run one way.
The museum has previously hosted progressive stars such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Chuck Schumer and former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Is this the opposite of “inclusion”?
Abrams and Cohen are pointing to the cancellation as an acute irony, questioning why a Jewish museum that documents the history of intolerance is barring a popular American governor from speaking at its facility.
“We know things are bad when a Jewish institution — in this case, a museum whose purpose is to keep Jewish heritage alive by remembering the Holocaust — turns on its own and tries to make a virtue of its own intolerance,” they wrote.
Disgraceful. I’m so embarrassed to have anything in common with these woke weaklings. I hope any Jewish conservative who makes donations to New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage (@MJHnews) pulls it. They don’t just hate DeSantis, they hate you too. https://t.co/l49BiDO8hj
— Karol Markowicz (@karol) May 5, 2022
Abrams and Cohen suspect that the museum pulled the chair out from DeSantis out of cowardice, fearing protests from progressive liberals and complaints from big donors.
“In the name of inclusivity, a Jewish museum sent us a clear message: Some people are to be excluded.
“In the name of fighting hate, the museum decided that the millions of Floridians who support Gov. DeSantis — including many Jews — are so hateful that they don’t even merit a voice in the great American conversation.
“A museum of tolerance has become intolerant.”
JLC has not been deterred from hosting DeSantis at its upcoming conference.
The group is reorganizing the event at a different, secular venue, rather than cowing to the museum and disinviting DeSantis.
