CAEF Letter to Royal Ontario Museum concerning representation and support for individuals whose public personas are problematic, spreading anti-Jewish propaganda

June 3, 2025

Mr. Jason Basseches, CEO & Mr. Andrew MacLeod, Chair

Royal Ontario Museum

Dear Messers Basseches and MacLeod;

I am writing to draw to your attention that two of the curators you are using and lauding for the current Islamic Art and Archtecture Walk (https://muslimlink.ca/events/toronto/event/24037-islamic-art-architecture-walk ) have social media profiles that express messages that one can easily interperet as supporting acts that are antisemitic and unCanadian in verbiage that calls for harming Jews,  and spreading lies about the Jewish state. Surely, the ROM has serious vetting of individuals whose art, whose words, whose craft you promote?

These are the words posted on X by Mitra Fakhrasharafi, under the name fakhmitra:

constantly thinking about what holds "us" back from abandoning individual comforts at the rate and scale this violence is demanding of us.jamil al amin is 80 years old in prison. assata shakur has been in exile for 44 years. so many others did not make it. i am curious if fear of revolution is rooted in knowing that the day-to-day and "business as usual" sets us up to fail the imprisoned, the martyrs, the deported, the paperless.the criminalization of past liberation movements goes hand in hand with suppressing our collective power to confront settler colonialism and genocide. and must be remedied with so much abolition.please consider donating to this newly launched @pymtoronto community defence fund (link in bio) which serves to offer a network of support for people bravely putting "by any means" into action ❤️”

Endorsing the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) and the phrase, ‘by any means,”  is a call for violence; this is a reiteration of the message that harming Jews, Jewish iinstitutions and threatenting the lives of Jewish Canadians, is perfectly fine-that defending actions that can harm Canadians, is laudable, while Israel is fighting for its very existence against organized terrorists.

This is the image that accompanies the post, showing that it is quite fine to be a masked terrorist and smash a bank, clearly that of Israel. The intifada, an Arab Palestinian armed conflict led to tragic deaths, but were the sole responsibility of the Arabs who initiated the violence. Promoting violence is contrary to Canadian values and criminally irresponsible.

Jewish Canadians and all peace loving Canadians would be totally shocked at the choice of the ROM to collaborate with someone who has little regard for the well being of all Canadians and who spreads lies about the indigenous people of Israel—the Jews, who have dwelled in the land for over 3500 years, long before Islam existed and long before the Arab invasion of the 7th century. Additionally, the Arabs were a massive colonial power across the Middle East and North Africa whereas the Jews have never been colonizers in any land. There is no “genocide” by Israel, though  Mitra suggests it. Note the Arab population has grown steadily since the re-establishment of the Jewish state, and even in Gaza the population increased, but the stated and much publicized intent of Hamas, was to exterminate Jews. And they did so in the most barbaric ways-burning and beheading babies, slashing pregnant women, raping and torturing and kidnapping. Is this a remedy to a perceived injustice?? Is Mitra supporting savagery?

Omar Uddin is only slightly less directly spreading Jew hatred, with his X account featuring the words, “Free Palestine,” a phrase well recognized as calling for the eradication of the only Jewish state, Israel. There is not now, nor has there ever been, a state called Palestine, so one cannot pretentiously assign the phrase a meaning that was never intended. One cannot “free,” a non-existent state, so clearly the notion is to destroy Israel and implement  one state—Palestine. That is a call for genocide of the Jewish people!

Everyone is entitled to their opinions.  Artists and curators might well want to destroy the Jewish state, and install a terrorist regime, but facts matter, and a government-funded institution ought to imbue worthy values in its programs by working with individuals whose values are worth sharing, not those who undermine our multicultural society. Uddin pays homage on his X account to a young man who self-immolated—hopefully he is not suggesting that Canadian youth take this as a model? The suicide, Uddin claims, was in protest to free Palestinians. Perhaps Uddin lacks any knowledge of history or current affairs or he might have noticed that Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, despite their having been Jews living there since Biblical times. Jews, not Arabs, were sovereign in the land before the spread of Islam.

If both Uddin and Fakhrahrafi care about peace, then they ought to demand that Hamas lay down its arms, and free the Gazans from the tyranny and oppression they have endured under radical Islamism since 2006.

We sincerely hope the ROM will revisit its selection processes when contracting with program staff and artists at any level.

Sincerely,

Andria Spindel, Executive Director