Three elderly Israeli-Jewish women, wearing Stars of David and carrying an Israeli flag, were expelled from the Reina Sofía National Museum of Art in Madrid on Sunday.
The women – one of whom is a Holocaust survivor – were verbally harassed by some of the visitors who shouted “Genocide!” “Child killers” and “Murderers!” Some visitors also said they were “disturbed” by the three women’s presence. Instead of removing the other visitors, the museum staff asked the women to leave.
A Spanish woman who was accompanying the three Jewish ladies recorded the incident. The video shows her arguing with the staff member over his attempt to make them leave, telling him that they were doing nothing illegal – and that under Spanish law, the museum could not lawfully kick the women out.
The guard continued to say that the three old women had to put away their symbols.
The Spanish woman continued to say that this was illegal. “It is unacceptable that something of this nature is happening in official facilities that are linked to the Government of Spain, despite us doing nothing illegal,” she said. The museum is a public institution supported by state funds.
Victims removed for displaying Jewish symbols
The woman told Okdiario that the symbols were “totally normal Jewish symbolism, not at all offensive.”
“But as soon as we arrived and they saw that we were Jewish, we were subjected to overt hostility from the museum staff. It was outrageous, intolerable.”
“The incident is one additional example of the climate that the government is creating in the country,” Angél Mas, president of pro-Israel and anti-antisemitism organization ACOM, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
“The abnormal thing is that some representative of the museum ordered the guards there to expel these people instead of going after the people who were abusing them. Our criminal code is designed to prevent this hatred and discrimination, and we will take action.”
“The Reina Sofia Museum is a state-owned museum that has been pushing for the government agenda of the monetization of Israel and the glorification of fellow terrorist Palestinian classes.
“They have been flying the Palestinian flag on and off for a number of years, which is illegal in Spain in a public institution. But again, remember, the Reina Sofia Museum is owned by the government, and in particular by the Culture Ministry, which is far Left and has been very active in the demonization [and] criminalization [of Israel and Jews and the] visceral calling for genocide, etc.”
“There are so many incidents like this, again promoted by the narrative of the government, and in public spaces where the government should be ensuring that minorities are protected, that it’s becoming almost impossible to act against all these situations, but every day, we are starting legal proceedings against such situations.”
The European Jewish Congress called the incident “deeply troubling and unacceptable.”
“Instead of protecting those subjected to antisemitic abuse, the apparent decision to remove the victims raises serious concerns about discrimination within a public cultural institution.”
“Jewish identity must never become grounds for exclusion,” the congress added. “Such conduct demands full clarification, clear accountability and decisive action, to ensure that antisemitism is confronted without ambiguity.”
The Israeli Embassy in Spain’s Head of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires Dana Erlich said that the Israeli flag is not “provocation,” but represents thousands of years of history of the Jewish people.
“It is hypocritical that other flags and displays of disinformation are accepted without any problem in that museum, while my flag, our flag, is considered provocative,” she noted.
"The Museum wishes to state unequivocally its commitment to equality, religious freedom, and zero tolerance toward any form of violence or discrimination related to antisemitism," the Reina Sofía Museum told The Jerusalem Post. It also added that it would immediately launch an independent and transparent investigation into the video.
"We wish to highlight the importance that both Jewish artists and Jewish patrons and benefactors have had for the institution and its Collection - particularly within the avant-garde movements - without whose selfless collaboration the Museum as we know it today would not be conceivable," it stated to the Post.
The museum received negative attention last week for hosting an anti-Israel seminar titled “Gaza and aestheticicide” on February 10.
“This seminar examines the systematic destruction of Palestinian collective sensibility – what we might call ‘aestheticicide’ – that has accompanied Israel’s genocide and ecocide in Gaza, and considers the conditions of artistic practice in its wake,” read the description.
“This conference should not have been held in a public institution that claims to be committed to culture, critical thinking, and human rights,” wrote Esther Benarroch, a member of the Spanish Jewish community, in a column in El Español. “Not because the suffering in Gaza does not deserve attention, but because instrumentalizing it through concepts loaded with historical biases and antisemitic resonances does not contribute to peace, justice, and truth.”
In a separate incident, on October 12, a group of activists from Marea Palestina: Educación contra el genocidio [Palestinian Wave: Education against genocide, a member of La Educación con Palestina (LEcP), self-defined as “an umbrella group of over 30 organizations, syndicates, and collectives working with state-run schools across Spain to support the Palestinian people and their rights”] staged a sit-in protest in front of Picasso’s Guernica with signs that formed the phrase “Stop genocide.”
In response, the Reina Sofía Museum made all visitors leave the room for 20 minutes. When they returned, the protesters were still seated in front of the painting.
The Jerusalem Post approached the Spanish Jewish community for comment, but received no response prior to publication time.