I called John Judis Friday afternoon and invited him to join
me at the Museum for a public discussion of his new book, Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origin of the Arab/Israeli
Conflict. Readers of the Forward, and some recent blogs, may very
well be surprised by this statement. They might ask, didn’t you just disinvite
him? What’s going on? Here is what happened:
Our public programs department asked me to evaluate Judis’s book for a
possible public program. I reviewed it
and concluded that we should take a pass as we do with dozens of books that are
pitched to us each season. My reading
suggested that the book was less a thoughtful history of Truman’s actions in
relation to the establishment of the State of Israel and more a book about what
Judis suggests was, and is, the pernicious impact of American Zionist and
pro-Israel influence on American policy (and policy-makers) up to the present
day. The tone of the book (“The British
and the Zionists had conspired to screw the Arabs out of a country….” p. 251)
raised concerns as well, and my conclusion was that the proposed program would
produce more heat than light. I told my staff that I thought we should skip
this one. I later learned that my staff then rescinded an invitation to Mr.
Judis, which they had, unfortunately, already extended without my
knowledge.
Of course, rescinding an invitation (even one that I was
unaware of) is a far different matter than simply not extending one in the
first place. It naturally raises the
ugly specter of succumbing to pressure and giving in to outside influence. I have worked very hard over the years to
avoid precisely the kind of mess that we found ourselves in, and I am
particularly concerned that the Museum should be accused of censorship or of
being allergic to controversy. As a
result, we decided to schedule (or reschedule) the program with Judis, this
time with me as the interviewer. This
format will give me an opportunity to raise with him the very questions that gave
me pause in the first place, and I look forward to discussing these important
issues with him. Please join us on June
1st.
