"Where Are the Jews?" Ask Academy Museum Donors

Salvador Dalí, Col. Jack L. Warner, 1951. Syracuse University Art Museum

Rolling Stone reports that some Academy Museum supporters are complaining that the institution's displays shortchange the role of Jews in founding the American film industry. Some of the quotes are unsourced, but notable is one donor willing to go on record: Haim Saban, whose name is on the main museum building. He and his wife Cheryl made a $50 million gift, the museum's largest. "Cheryl and I firmly believe that the Jewish contributions to the film industry, from its founding to today, should be highlighted," he said. "We shared our perspective with the Academy Museum’s management and appreciate that they are taking our feedback seriously."

As a measure of how seriously, museum president Bill Kramer says an installation on the film industry's founders and the studio system will go on view in about a year. Originally planned to be temporary, it will be the first and only permanent exhibition. (For now?)

The Motion Picture Academy is, if nothing else, cringily over-reactive. #OscarsSoWhite has led the museum to tout the contemporary film industry as a kaleidoscope of diversity (it's not), while presenting the past as problematic. That has left one of the biggest stories of a minority overcoming the odds on the cutting room floor.