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\n\tThe British Museum pushed back a planned lecture called \u201cThe Ancient History of Israel and Judah,\u201d claiming that a \u201csignificant proportion\u201d of the people expected to attend wanted to protest the event.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe London museum announced the postponement on Thursday, in a release that noted that the event was part of Jewish Culture Month but did not state the name or subject of the lecture. Then, on Friday, the museum said that \u201cThe Ancient History of Israel and Judah\u201d would now take place \u201cearly next month,\u201d without a date specified.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe reason for the delay, the museum said on Thursday, was that many attendees allegedly sought to \u201cdeliberately disrupt the event, preventing others from participating in good faith and undermining the purpose of the programme.\u201d Who these individuals were, and how they sought to interrupt the event, was not explained in the museum\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe British Museum fully recognises the importance of lawful protest and freedom of expression in a democratic society,\u201d the museum said on Thursday. \u201cEqually, we have a responsibility to ensure that events hosted within the Museum can proceed safely, securely and without intimidation for speakers, staff and visitors alike.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tMoreover, the museum said, \u201cThis decision was made to protect the event \u2014 not to diminish it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe postponement drew condemnation from many individuals along various parts of the political spectrum. <\/p>\n
\n\tSimon Schama, an art historian who has posted on social media in support of Israel, said the postponement sent \u201cthe wrong message\u201d on Thursday on X. Meanwhile, the activist group Jewish Artists for Palestine asked, \u201cWhat is the purpose of holding a talk on such a controversial topic if not to invite questioning and debate?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tSeemingly in acknowledgement of the firestorm, British Museum chair George Osborne linked to the institution\u2019s statement on X, writing, \u201cWorth reading before speculating.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe museum\u2019s statement from Friday contained little more in the way of information than yesterday\u2019s release. The four-paragraph statement from today concludes: \u201cExploring and understanding history lies at the heart of the British Museum\u2019s mission. We are proud to work with faith, community and national organisations across a wide range of subjects and perspectives, and this event is no exception.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe British Museum received scrutiny earlier this year after reports that the word \u201cPalestinian\u201d was dropped from certain wall texts following pressure from UK Lawyers for Israel. The museum subsequently denied that the word was excised from its didactics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/BritishMuseum.jpg?w=1024″] The British Museum pushed back a planned lecture called \u201cThe Ancient History of Israel and Judah,\u201d claiming that a \u201csignificant proportion\u201d of the people expected to attend wanted to protest the event. The London museum announced the postponement on Thursday, in a release that noted that the event was part of Jewish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1963137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1963137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1963137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1963137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1963137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}