BDS in NYC

[yankeedoodle]

Right there in Jew York City - the Borough of Queens, that gave us shit-for-brains shabbos goy Donnie-boy - they found a lady running the Queens Museum who disrespected Israhell.  Any guess what happened to her.

Museum manager fired for plot to block Israel celebration
https://nypost-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/nypost.com/2018/02/15/museum-manager-fired-for-plot-to-block-israel-celebration/amp/?amp_js_v=0.1#webview=1

The head of the Queens Museum and a top deputy have been ousted after a boneheaded move last year to try to prevent Israel from celebrating its 70th anniversary at the facility.

The board of trustees was shocked to learn that its top manager turned out to be a fierce opponent of Israel, according to a bombshell investigative report.

Last year, the Israel Mission to the UN asked to rent space at the museum since it was the temporary location where the United Nations actually took the vote that led to the creation of the Jewish state.

Israel was able to hold the event only after museum officials reversed a decision to reject the request following a public outcry.

But the controversy gave the museum a black eye.

Upset at what happened, the board of trustees then hired an outside firm to conduct an independent probe into why its own staff sought to block the commemoration and the dubious explanations given to board members to justify it.

The investigative report found that museum director Laura Raicovich and deputy director David Strauss "exercised poor judgment" and "knowingly misled" the board.

As it turned out, Raicovich had a massive conflict. She was a staunch critic of Israel and did not disclose her hostility to the museum's board, the report said.

She co-edited a book that backed the boycott and divestment movement against Israel and allowed the museum to become a "fiscal sponsor" for a different museum critical of Israel.

Raicovich even wrote a foreword to the book that said the anti-Israel goals discussed in it are "complemented by programs, exhibitions and educational initiatives" at the museum.

She also paid a co-author with museum funds and even placed the book for sale in the museum's gift shop.

"She volunteered to communicate the museum's declination of the event to the Israeli ambassador even though these facts would leave the museum vulnerable to accusations that it's decision was driven by anti-Israel animus," said the pro-bono report conducted by the law firm KattenMuchinRosenman.

Queens Councilman Rory Lancmann was infuriated by the findings.

"Raicovich used our museum as a vehicle for her anti-Semitic, anti-Israel views," he said.

Raicovich "showed immediate hostility" to hosting the Israel event before consulting with the board and then Strauss concocted lame reasons why the board should reject it, the report said.

"Mr. Strauss told the Board that the Museum had a longstanding written policy prohibiting the Museum from renting space for political events — which was not true," a summary of the report found.

The investigators then said Strauss tried to cover the lie by adding the political prohibition to the board's website "only after the request for the event was already under consideration by the Board."

Strauss also reported to the board that the NYPD advised that the museum would have to be closed for a week in order to provide security for the event. But that explanation was only based on a preliminary phone call in what was deemed a "worse case" scenario.

"Mr. Strauss made false statements to representatives of the Permanent Mission [of Israel] regarding the Museum's concerns about hosting the event," the report said.

The board accepted Raicovich's resignation and fired Strauss after reviewing the findings.

The report doesn't let the board off the hook, saying trustees should establish clear written policies and procedures for renting the museum.

Board members should have been "more skeptical" of the explanations given by the museum staffers and realized it has the authority to set or change policy.



Her boycott book:

Assuming Boycott
RESISTANCE, AGENCY, AND CULTURAL PRODUCTION
http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/assuming-boycott/

Edited by KAREEM ESTEFAN, CARIN KUONI, and LAURA RAICOVICH

"The brilliant writers and debaters assembled here come at the issue from different angles, all from the central belief that art is never not political. In the end, they are less interested in arguing for or against tactics than they are in advocating an art of political thinking."
—Holland Cotter, co-chief art critic, The New York Times

"Artistic resistance has seldom proven so socially useful, or as complicated. This intellectually engaging study targets the paradoxes, limitations, and media spectacle of organized cultural boycotts and state-sponsored censorship from South African apartheid in the 1980s, to present day Israel-Palestine, Cuba, the Gulf States, the United Kingdom, and the United States among other geopolitical zones of conflict." —Gregory Sholette, artist and author of Delirium and Resistance: Activist Art and the Crisis of Capitalism

"Assuming Boycott defiantly holds the best arguments regarding boycott. It shows that boycott is not only a form of sanctions but also an invitation to dialogue. This collection of essays offers a historical perspective with comparative case studies, making it the ultimate resource to help decide where to draw the ethical line." —Galit Eilat, writer and curator, co-curator of 31st São Paulo Biennial

"Assuming Boycott is an essential contribution to an ongoing, urgent conversation about how artists, writers, and thinkers have time and again created subtle, meaningful, powerful, and vibrant ways to engage the political sphere. This book is a valuable guide to cultural boycotts from South Africa to Palestine." —Walid Raad, artist, professor, Cooper Union

"Without a trace of left-wing melancholy, the authors offer us an essential guide to the terrain of cultural politics today. With colleagues and comrades like these, one feels not only bolstered but downright emboldened." —Hal Foster, Townsend Martin Professor of Art and Archeology, Princeton University; editor, The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture