The New York Times · New York, New York · 18 June 1970

CP-1970-019

Jewish Museum Bars Pamphlets By Artist Group

By GRACE GLUECK

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The Jewish Museum has removed Black Panther literature from a table of political pamphlets set up in its lobby by members of the New York Artists Strike Against Racism, Sexism, Repression and War.

While the artists charged the museum with “censorship,” David Finn, chairman of the museum’s board of governors, said: “One of our basic rules is that nothing will be shown in the museum that is offensive to anybody of any religious persuasion.”

He added that some of the museum’s members and visitors had objected to the display of Panther literature “because in the past it has contained anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist statements.”

At its board meeting on May 27, the trustees passed a resolution agreeing—“with no commitment to their aims and policies”—to the artists’ request for the establishment of a ground-floor information center. The resolution also specified that the material selected must have “the discretionary approval” of the museum’s director and an ad hoc committee to be selected by the board.

Receive Complaints After a table with the literature was set up on June 4, a museum spokesman said, staff members at both the museum and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, its parent body, began to receive complaints about the display. One of the apparently offensive quotes in a pro-Panther pamphlet referred to “U.S. warmongers in Vietnam, Cambodia and Palestine.”

Palestine as a reference to Israel is no longer accepted by Zionists. Mr. Finn and other members of the museum board, along with seminary officials, met with three members of the artists’ Ground Floor Committee and, reminding them of the resolution, asked them to remove the offending literature.

But the artists replied that they could not accept a “censored” table, and said that they personally had no knowledge of the resolution, although other members of their group had known about it. If the museum wanted to put up its own table, they said, they would remove theirs until the matter had been resolved by a full committee.

The museum then removed the table in the artists’ presence. But yesterday, the artists came back with their own table, and set it up again. Their literature included a number of pro-Israel pamphlets in addition to the Black Panther material, but Mrs. Ann Doherty, administrator of the museum, removed the samples of both.

After the literature had been removed, Merle Leech, the solitary artist on political duty, said that he and the table would remain.

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