Gail Asper, who helped create the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, raises concerns about its upcoming Nakba exhibit along with Cotler, with balance provided by Lederman

2026/06/25 Leave a comment

Struck a nerve:

When the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg opens a show about Palestinian displacement this weekend, one of its founders may be standing outside protesting.

Philanthropist Gail Asper, who led the museum project after the 2003 death of her father, media owner Izzy Asper, fears that the exhibition about the exile of Palestinians from what is now Israel lacks historical context and might inflame antisemitism in Canada.

“I definitely would protest. I am not going to attend the opening,” she said, although she added she does plan to see the show. It opens to the general public Saturday, after a launch on Friday. “I’m never the sort of person that wants a book banned before I’ve read it, so I will go and I will take a look.”

The show, entitled Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present, is devoted to the Palestinian experience of exile after 1947 and uses photographs, videos and objects to relay first-person accounts. It has become controversial in the Jewish community because it does not cover the history surrounding the establishment of Israel, nor the displacement of Jews from Arab lands after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948….

Source: Gail Asper, who helped create the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, raises concerns about its upcoming Nakba exhibit

The Canadian Museum of Human Rights has failed its mandate

…In truth, 1948 produced a double catastrophe: Arab Palestinian displacement resulting from war, and the mass displacement of Jews from Arab lands. Any institution claiming scholarly seriousness must grapple with both.

Instead, the museum privileges one historical memory while marginalizing another.

That is not education. It is curation by omission.

Museums are not activist or propagandistic platforms. They are custodians of public trust. Their role is not to inflame but to illuminate; not to advance ideological narratives but to encourage inquiry, historical nuance and civic understanding.

When museums abandon scholarly neutrality for activism, they become instruments of polarization.

That risk is especially acute today, amid an unprecedented explosion of antisemitism, deep communal fracture and public anxiety.

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights should be helping bridge divides, not deepen them.

A museum devoted to human rights need not avoid difficult subjects. But it must present them with evidence-based inquiry, context, intellectual honesty and moral seriousness.

In this case, it has failed that test.

If the museum wishes to contribute meaningfully to public understanding, it must revisit this exhibition’s framing and ensure it reflects historical truth rather than a selective political narrative.

Canadians deserve better from one of their most important public institutions.

Irwin Cotler was Canada’s minister of justice and first special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and antisemitism,Mark L. Berlin is Professor of Practice at McGill University and former senior adviser on the Middle East to the minister of justice, Alan H. Kessel is a former assistant deputy minister and legal adviser at Global Affairs Canada.

Lederman: The Canadian Museum for Human Rights is right to portray the stories of displaced Palestinians

…Ms. Khan says she is concerned about antisemitism, as the head of a human rights museum should be – as every Canadian should be. She is also concerned that Palestinian experiences were under-represented in the museum. As she should be.

Rational people should be able to distinguish between a foreign dignitary’s museum visit and actual foreign interference. Reasonable people should understand that a human rights museum has every reason to profile the stories of displaced Palestinians. Reasonable people should also understand that the museum has a responsibility to present such stories with integrity. The Canadian public is counting on this national museum, this Crown corporation, to tell these stories. And to tell them fairly and responsibly.







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Human rights museum board member resigns over ‘one-sided’ exhibit on displaced Palestinians

2026/06/24 2 Comments

Of note. One sided is, of course, partially in the mind of the beholder but this is a hard issue to navigate but one that merits attention:

A trustee for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights says he has resigned from the Winnipeg facility’s board over an upcoming exhibit about displaced Palestinians.

Mark Berlin submitted his resignation in a letter to federal Heritage Minister Marc Miller and the museum’s board chair. In it, Berlin accuses the museum of putting forth “ideology” instead of an accurate history.

“Telling the story with a one-sided perspective chosen by the museum serves to deepen division and contributes to further hostility toward Jews in Canada,” Berlin wrote in his letter, shared with media outlets.

“Presenting the Palestinian displacement of 1948 without its proper historical and political context offers a narrow, one-sided argument of history that can only deepen the distrust and animosity that currently exists between Jews and Muslims in this country.”

Berlin, a professor at McGill University’s international development institute with a background in human rights law, argued the exhibit fails to explain that Arab states fought those who ultimately established the State of Israel in 1948 and then expelled Jews to Israel.

The exhibit, set to open Saturday, focuses on people affected by the forced displacement of about 750,000 Palestinians during the 1948 Palestine war — an event known as the Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe.

Source: Human rights museum board member resigns over ‘one-sided’ exhibit on displaced Palestinians

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