Multiculturalism at the Museum: Race and Gender on Display

This article examines the rhetoric of visual representation through which the national story is rewritten in various museums throughout Israel. It argues that to this day, even though curators are aware of the need to reflect the multicultural character of Israeli society, the museums still impose a strict separation between their departments of art, ethnography and archaeology. This division, rooted in the 19th century, allows the museums to adopt a multicultural curating approach and provide a showcase for diverse communities of Israeli society that have been excluded from exhibits in the past – but to do so without actually questioning the prevailing ethnic power balance in Israel. Thus, the costumes of Middle-Eastern communities that are still worn today are displayed as ethnography; everyday Palestinian objects that were in use until the mid-20th century are displayed as archaeology; whereas works painted 100 years ago by European artists are displayed as national Israeli art. In this way the national museums preserve the ethnocentric-national meta-narrative even at a time when the national power relations are being undermined in reality.