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Canada’s national human rights museum is set to open an exhibit next week centered on the “Nakba,” the Arabic word for “catastrophe,” referring to the State of Israel’s founding in 1948.
The Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg will launch the program on June 27. The museum spent four years developing the project while shutting out Jewish community input at every stage.
The display makes no mention of the nearly 850,000 Jews expelled from Arab countries in the years following Israel’s founding, a documented historical parallel the museum chose to omit entirely. Jewish groups, including the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), B’nai Brith Canada, and the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada, say the one-sided framing fuels antisemitism and called on the museum to provide full historical context.
CIJA CEO Noah Shack said the process itself was disqualifying. “They have ensured that no matter what the content of the exhibit, this, by virtue of the way it has been handled by the leadership of the museum, is a divisive and incendiary program,” he noted.
Shack also criticized the museum for consulting activists he said held deeply hostile views toward Zionism, including one who described the core of Jewish identity as “a disease to be destroyed,” while excluding mainstream Jewish voices.
Bryan Schwartz, a law professor at the University of Manitoba, called the initiative “a partisan exercise in the demonization and delegitimization of Israel” and said it “excluded and marginalized the mainstream Jewish community at every stage.”
The museum’s only Jewish board member, Mark Berlin, resigned over the planned exhibit. Museum Chief Executive Isha Khan defended the handling of the exhibit, saying “Ultimately, those decisions are all made by us.”
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