[News] Brandeis pulls artwork by Palestinian youths

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Brandeis pulls artwork by Palestinian youths

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2006/05/03/brandeis_pulls_artwork_by_palestinian_youths?mode=PF


School says show was one-sided

By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff  |  May 3, 2006

A bulldozer menaces a girl with ebony pigtails, who lies in a pool of 
blood. A boy with an amputated leg balances on a crutch, in a tent 
city with a Palestinian flag. A dove, dripping blood, perches against 
blue barbed wire.

Palestinian teenagers painted those images at the request of an 
Israeli Jewish student at Brandeis University, who said she wanted to 
use the art to bring the Palestinian viewpoint to campus. But 
university officials removed the paintings four days into a two-week 
exhibition in the Brandeis library.

University officials said the paintings depicted only one side of the 
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Lior Halperin, the student who 
organized the exhibit, said the university censored an alternative view.

Now, Brandeis is embroiled in a debate about how to portray 
Palestinian perspectives on a campus where 50 percent of the students 
are Jewish and where passions about the Middle East run deep. Six to 
a dozen students at the Waltham university complained about the 
paintings, which were hung on Wednesday and removed Saturday.

The controversy occurs at a sensitive time for the campus, which has 
angered some students and Jewish groups with the appointment of a 
prominent Palestinian scholar and with a partnership with Al-Quds 
University, an Arab institution.

''This is outrageous," Halperin said yesterday. ''This an educational 
institution that is supposed to promote debate and dialogue. Let's 
talk about what it is: 12-year-olds from a Palestinian refugee camp. 
Obviously it's not going to be about flowers and balloons."

Halperin said she is working with an Arab student organization at MIT 
to display the 17 paintings there, as early as tomorrow.

Brandeis officials said they wanted to make sure the 
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is presented in a balanced manner.

''It was completely from one side in the Israeli-Palestinian 
conflict, and we can only go based on the complaints we received," 
said Dennis Nealon, a Brandeis spokesman. ''People were saying: (a) 
what is this; (b) what is it trying to say; and (c) should there be 
some sort of balancing perspective here?" Nealon said that the 
university would consider displaying the artwork again in the fall, 
alongside pieces showing the Israeli point of view.

Brandeis, a nonsectarian institution, was founded in 1948, by 
American Jews seeking to establish a university free from the quotas 
that Jews faced at elite colleges.

Halperin created the exhibit as her final project for a class called 
''The Arts of Building Peace," which explores how music, painting, 
and poetry can help resolve conflicts. She contacted a friend who 
works in a refugee camp in Bethlehem and asked her to invite 
teenagers there to paint images of Palestinian life.

Halperin, 27, an Israeli Army veteran, received images of planes 
dropping bombs, snakes, and a famous scene of a father and child 
cowering from gunfire near Gaza City in September 2000. In her 
''Voices from Palestine" exhibit, she hung the paintings near the 
names and photos of the young artists and synopses of their hopes and 
dreams. A Palestinian psychologist and a child-care worker spoke at 
an opening reception.

''This was, for me, an opportunity to bring to Brandeis the 
Palestinian voice that is not spoken or heard through an Israeli or 
an American Jew, but directly delivered from Palestinians," Halperin 
said. ''Obviously, that was just too much for Brandeis."

Within days, students complained to the university that the exhibit 
was jarring and lacked context and reference to the Israeli point of view.

Dmitry B. Vilner, 19, a sophomore, said he found it ''utterly 
ludicrous to find these hung up with no explanation." Vilner said, 
''I was very surprised that it would appear at Brandeis, because 
Brandeis is a traditionally Jewish, pro-Israel campus."

Vilner and his roommate, Alan D. Meyerson, 19, e-mailed an 
administrator to ask why the exhibit was on display. ''There's a 
certain line that's crossed when it no longer becomes a fair debate, 
but it becomes a one-sided attack against a nation and a people," 
Meyerson said, ''and that was very much the case with these images."

Last weekend, administrators in charge of student affairs decided 
that the paintings should come down, with the support of Daniel 
Terris, director of the university's International Center for Ethics, 
Justice, and Public Life. The center sponsored Halperin's class. ''If 
students are reacting in a strong and negative way, with no context 
and no structure to have a meaningful conversation . . . you can do 
more harm than good," said Terris, who said he asked Halperin to 
voluntarily take the paintings down. ''I advised her that I thought 
it was undermining the long-term goal of making more space for 
Palestinian voices on campus."

On Saturday evening, after Halperin refused to stop the exhibit, 
administrators removed the artwork, provoking an immediate response. 
Students said they circulated e-mails debating whether the decision 
was about censorship, sensitivity, fairness, or cowardice.

''I would like to think of my university as a place that is open to 
discussion, and I see art as one of the purest forms of discussion we 
can have," said Aaron Voldman, 19, a freshman who is Jewish and 
active in a student peace group. ''As we are members of a Jewish 
institution, where the Israeli support is very strong, the 
conversation is not quite as open as it possibly could be."

Ralph Ranalli of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Michael 
Levenson can be reached at <mailto:mlevenson at globe.com>mlevenson at globe.com.


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