Arts Collaborative Medford and Medford for Palestine organized a two-hour “paint night for Palestine” in Medford, Mass., on Dec. 13. A fee of $50 ($25 for students) afforded attendees the chance to “create your own Palestinian landscape on canvas” and “leave with a beautiful decorative artwork and a deeper sense of the beauty of Palestine.”
Nina Abbas, who led the session where proceeds were to be “donated directly to families in Gaza,” has a history of creating antisemitic art, local artist Elliot Jokelson told JNS. He shared email correspondence with the collaborative, about his concerns about Abbas, with JNS.
“Arts Collaborative Medford’s decision to host this event shows a shocking disregard for the safety and well-being of Medford’s Jewish community,” he told JNS. “By platforming an artist whose work includes slogans like ‘Globalize the intifada,’ a known call for violence, they are complicit in normalizing antisemitism.”
“It is especially galling that they hired an artist, who specializes in graffiti that incites violence against Jews, in a community already grappling with a pervasive issue of antisemitic graffiti,” he added. “This unthinkable misstep isn’t about artistic expression. It’s about accountability and whether the organization supports inclusion or alienation.”
Jokelson told JNS that “dismissing the legitimate concerns of Medford’s Jewish residents amplifies hate speech.” (JNS sought comment from Arts Collaborative Medford and received a “holiday season” out-of-office response.)
The recent event, he said, “endangers community safety under the guise of cultural programming. The message is clear: the voices of those targeted by antisemitism are being ignored.”
In an email that Jokelson shared with JNS, leaders of the collaborative wrote: “It is our conclusion that this artist does not have antisemitic intentions in her work and that Paint Night Palestine is not in support of violence against Jews, Israelis or any other group.”
