May 6, 2022- 7:44 a.m.
Ahead of June’s Jewish Leadership Conference, where Gov. Ron DeSantis will reportedly be a speaker, the New York Museum of Jewish Heritage has banned the governor from its grounds.
The Tikvah Fund is a philanthropy organization, founded to support the “intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish State.”
According to the Tikvah Fund, the organization “invests in a wide range of initiatives” around the world, including in the United States and Israel.
Museum staff reportedly told Abrams and Cohen that “DeSantis didn’t ‘align with the museum’s values and its message of inclusivity.’”
Conference leaders were told that either the governor could be disinvited, or the event would not be welcome at the museum, according to the editorial.
As Abrams and Cohen tried to get more information about the reported ban of DeSantis at the museum, they say the CEO told them the museum doesn’t “do politics…whether left or right.” They claim “this was false” and that the museum had featured Democratic Rep.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a speaker in 2018. The museum has also “has hosted other politicians, including then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and then-Mayor Bill de Blasio.”
Abrams and Cohen wrote in the Journal that they will not cancel the Jewish Leadership Conference, and the governor of the U.S.’s state with the third largest Jewish population will still speak in June.
