British Museum Retreats on ‘Ancient Israel and Judah’

The postponement of a talk on “Ancient Israel and Judah” at the British Museum for “security reasons” is shocking, even if it cannot be reckoned surprising when set against the explosion of antisemitism in the United Kingdom. The event, whose webpage is still up, was intended as a lunchtime lecture given by the Keeper of the Department of the Middle East, Professor Paul Collins. He was to dilate on the “histories of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.”Registrants received an apology note “for any inconvenience” from the “British Museum Ticketing team.” Mr. Collins’s lecture was meant to mark Jewish Culture Month. The museum, which houses such treasures as the Elgin Marbles and the Rosetta Stone, boasts that some of the “most significant” objects attesting to the Jewish kingdoms in the Land of Israel “are preserved” on its premises. Mr. Collins’s talk was to revivify “key historical moments.”When reached for comment by the Sun, the British Museum emailed a statement explaining that “a significant proportion of registered attendees were individuals intending to deliberately disrupt the event, preventing others from participating in good faith and undermining the purpose of the programme.” The decision to postpone was made, the museum explains “to protect the event — not to diminish it.” Earlier this year the British Museum attracted criticism when it used, according to UK Lawyers for Israel, “historically inaccurate and misleading descriptions in its Ancient Levant and Egypt galleries.” The group denounced the “repeated use of the term ‘Palestine’ to describe the region now comprising Israel and surrounding areas during historical periods when that name did not exist.” That name was imposed by Hadrian only in 135 CE. The lawyers’ group argued that “this anachronistic terminology distorts the historical record and obscures the history of Israel and the Jewish people.” Much the same goal, executed more crudely, would appear to be behind the threats that led the museum to cancel the lecture by Mr. Collins, which was advertised as covering such events as the “Assyrian siege of Lachish and the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem.”A member of the Lords, Baron David Wolfson — he serves as the Shadow Attorney General — ventures that the cancellation raises “serious questions” about the museum’s public funding. A spokesman for Israel’s embassy at London declares that “it is shameful that historical and academic truths are being stifled by a grotesque violent pressure campaign.” The historian Simon Schama calls it “pathetic cowardice.” The denial of a Jewish connection to the land of Israel has long been a hallmark of those who seek to delegitimize the Jewish state. A decade ago, Unesco passed an infamous resolution referring to the Temple Mount only as “al-Haram al-Sharif” and to the Western Wall Plaza as “al-Buraq Plaza ‘Western Wall Plaza,’” with only the latter description in quotation marks. Solomon’s Temple was built some 1,500 years before Mohammed was born.A British actor, Elliot Levey, told our A.R. Hoffman earlier this month that “October 7 changed everything for British Jews,” and now it appears that the rising tide of bile has reached even the British Museum. The museum’s patron is no less than King Charles III, who has been stalwart in his defense of his Jewish subjects. What a magnificent statement it would be if he attended Professor Collins’s eventual lecture, pen and notebook in hand.

British Museum Retreats on ‘Ancient Israel and Judah’

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