Trying to erase Palestinians’ lives as exhibition is forced to close
JVL Introduction
You may not have heard of the “Stitch Their Names Together” project. It is producing and displaying panels with names of the Palestinians whom Israel has killed in Gaza since October 7th 2023 embroidered using traditional Palestinian Tatreez and the colours of the Palestinian flag with Black for men killed, red for women and green for the children. The aim is to provide a tribute to those lives wiped out by the genocide in Gaza, to honour each individual whose life has so cruelly been taken and to contemplate the grief of their families.
It is a powerful project and few places can display all the panels so far created that have c 50,000 names. Panels are being added with women from across the world making their contribution of time and skill. The say that “(b)y threading each name with deliberate care, we create a communal space for grief, remembrance, mourning, and bearing witness, affording each victim the dignity of time and reflection.”
But this act of remembrance is too much for some people. An exhibition was mounted at Leeds Minster with panels depicting 16,800 of the names. The so called Leeds Jewish Representation Council, together with Leeds leads against antisemitism ostensibly found up to 30 names that they associated with Hamas and demanded the exhibition be closed and more.
Below is more information about what happened, below which are the statements from the Project and also from Hastings Jews for Justice, the first Jewish group planning to mount the exhibition.
We are clear this is not the responsibility of the Canon of Leeds Minster who had been supportive and encouraging but following intolerable pressure and clear instructions from the Diocesan Bishop has had to close the exhibition.
STOP PRESS: The exhibition in Hastings – also due to be hosted by a Church – has also been cancelled because of instructions from the Diocesan Bishop for that area. The group is clear – as are the organisers in Leeds – that the local clergy have been extremely supportive and are extremely disappointed.
Leeds Minster hosted an exhibition of some of the panels from the Stitch Their Names Together project. Altogether there were panels with 16,800 of the c 50,000 names so far embroidered on display and the exhibition was up for several days. However, Zionist organisations in Leeds objected to this, claiming initially that 12 (of 16,800!) names were “known terrorists”. They have not provided evidence that this is the case but initially the project confirmed that they would not display those 12 names.
However, on Tuesday 15th September, a group of five people barged in, were very noisy and took many photographs despite notices saying that this was not allowed. Two days’ later they claimed that there were a further 18 terrorists’ names and that they have reported the Stitch Their Names Together project to the police. They have also reported the Minster to the Charities Commission and this led to the Bishop instructing the Minster to close the exhibition and also to apologise.
The project lead said: “I can assure you that we would not display panels with these 30 names as we have excellent records of every panel and the details. However we cannot know whether further accusations will be made about further names stitched. Members of the team are checking these 30 names against the government terrorist list and they are not there.” (my emph LL)
The complainants do not seem to consider that they should provide sources for their allegations. The project takes the names from the Gaza Ministry of Health’s register, which is “the same source relied upon by the UN, and cited by UK Government ministers themselves in Parliament.” They consider that this is an attack on the whole project. I would add that even if those making the allegations are proved to be correct and these names were all of terrorists (and not just people who worked for the government in Gaza, which was run by Hamas), those 30 people would comprise 0.0018% of all the names on display; in what world is it acceptable to seek to ignore and fail to honour and commemorate the other 16,770 people who are not terrorists?
The story gained momentum, with largely hostile reports in The Times, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Sun and the BBC – probably others, as well as the Jewish News, the Jewish Chronicle and the Times of Israel. The Sun report is unrestrained, turning into a full one attack on the church excoriating also the Archbishop of Canterbury for the award she gave to and then withdrew from the Muslim cleric.
Despite Press hostility, hundreds of supportive comments have been received by the Project, eg through social media, including Instagram that express outrage at the closure and support for the exhibition.
Project team members are checking the names pointed out as possible Hamas combatants against official lists and so far they have not found any substantiation of the accusations.
A Statement from the Project
This attack on our exhibition is a brazen attempt to smear and delegitimise the love and empathy of hundreds of stitchers and thousands of followers for their fellow human beings.
Once again, we are witnessing an attempt in this country to silence compassion and humanity. We have seen similar attacks on Palestinian children’s art displayed in hospitals, on the poet Michael Rosen for Don’t Mention the Children, and on musical performances that dared to speak the same truth. Just this week, an attempt to sideline the rap artist Macklemore for speaking out for Palestinian lives has drawn him far more attention and support than his critics bargained for. The world sees through these bad-faith attempts to silence those who speak out for humanity.
The names we stitch come from the Gaza Ministry of Health’s register, the same source relied upon by the UN, and cited by UK Government ministers themselves in Parliament. It currently records over 73,000 people killed, more than 21,000 of them children. Tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.
To some, it is the fact that we name them at all that is the threat. Naming is a recognition of their humanity and, by implication, a recognition that a terrible crime is taking place right now, on our watch.
This week alone, the register grew to include Mohammad Abdul Zinati, 15, and the paramedic Sharif Shadi Labad, killed together in Gaza City; Iman Shalouf, nearly eight months pregnant, shot dead in al-Mawasi; Udai al-Muridi, 5, killed in al-Bureij; and sisters Lana, 12, and Bana, 6, killed alongside their parents when their home in Beit Lahiya was struck, according to UNICEF. These are not statistics. They are why we stitch.
We will not be silenced for saying that people deserve to live. We will keep stitching their names, because at this point, silence is complicity.
Mary Evers
Founder & Irishwoman
Statement from Hastings Jews for Justice
We are one of the many Jewish communities around the country who say: ‘Never again – for anyone’ and who speak up in every way we are able for our brothers and sisters in Gaza as they continue to endure unimaginable suffering and demolition. Many of us have family who were caught up and extinguished in the Holocaust; collectively we bear the trauma of this catastrophe, and we refuse to watch in silence as another group of our fellow humans is being destroyed in front of our eyes.
We were honoured to become the first Jewish group to be invited to host the exquisite and heartbreaking ‘Stitch their Names Together’ exhibition of embroidered names of those who have been killed in Gaza, and we have been offered a beautiful local church to which we can invite our fellow citizens to share with us an act of reverence and remembrance as we contemplate these embroidered panels of the names of the dead.
We know that the Christian church is, like our political leaders, moving towards a recognition of the suffering of the people of Gaza and Palestine, exemplified most recently by the Church of England’s General Synod’s decision to stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine, and to hear the voice of Palestinians as expressed in Kairos Palestine II. We have been moved by Bethlehem theologian and pastor Munther Isaac – of the riveting sermon ‘Christ in the Rubble’ – who has stated explicitly his gratitude to Jewish voices like ours – so few in Israel, but growing here in the UK and burgeoning in the USA – who are taking a stand against the dehumanisation and destruction of the children, women and men of Palestine.
Among those names embroidered by so many stitchers from across the entire world, are the names of thousands of children. We saw Ed Miliband pause, in his announcement of a new Government line on our toleration Israel’s policies and actions, when he was giving the number of children so far recorded as having been killed in Gaza, among the 70,000 total of deaths; “ at least 20,000 of them children” he said; and he looked up, and repeated this awful number: “…twenty (pause) thousand (pause) children…”
In our hosting of the exhibition, we plan a ‘Chapel of the Innocents’, where there will be prayers available for those wishing to pray for all people killed in the dreadful conflicts of our times – in Sudan, in Ukraine… and of course in Israel on October 7th , 2023.
It is cruelly disheartening to learn of attempts to silence the voices of those of us –Jewish and not Jewish – who seek to hold in honoured memory those whose names will otherwise disappear, along with their bodies under the rubble; and the attempt thereby to make permanent the dehumanisation and erasure of those precious children and their parents, in death as they were erased in life.
We are all the children of God.
Absolutely shameful.
A grave and very worrying injustice
Echoes of the non- evidenced attack on UNRWA employees and the more general attempt to erase Palestinian identity
500 stitchers for Stitch their Names Together from across the entire world, from Iceland to New Zealand, are now receiving this post about the closure of the exhibition and the removal from view of the names they have so lovingly embroidered in their acts of compassionate and heartbroken remembrance. So many people coming to honour the precious memory of the thousands of the slaughtered in Gaza no longer permitted to do so.
WE WILL REMEMBER THEM. How low can you get? Small-minded low- lifes, supporting a vile Israeli Government and they have no proof at all any of the named dead were Hamas ( because they even point to infants as Hamas, and they kill infants) . If there was one stitched Hamas soldier among thousands, so what? They are dead and probably died surrounded by grandmothers and children as Israel takes no hostages. The names of the dead are all printed in Hansard apparently. These denialists, these liars who we know invent things and work up the foam of rage to cover their shame, invaded a Christian church. Are they going to invade Parliament next? Probably. This is a surefire way to bring attention to the monumentally disproportionate evil done by Israel. They wish to erase all Palestinians and forget they ever existed, that is the truth of it-just as that non-human Melanie Phillips would like. Well it will not stop the display of the embroidery and it will pass down the ages because of what Israel did. We will remember them. By the way, the Mail Times Telegraph and Sun are all complicit with Israel and its murderous ways writing sensationalist lies about the stitched names.
As a Jewish woman I am horrified by the actions of people claiming to represent me! They should be ashamed.
Naming victims is important to recognise their rights to be remembered as our fellow human beings. It is scandalous that there are UK citizens wanting them to remain anonymous numbers.
https://www.stitchtheirnamestogether.com/giving-page
Is it possible to defeat this awful censorship by gathering information on sympathetic local faith groups and others able to display the exhibition and less easily attacked by Zionist and pro-Israeli organisations and by the right-wing press?
I’m thinking of the Secular Society, the Sikhs, the Buddhists, the Jains, Quakers, etc. It would not be kind or sensible to approach the mosques for help, I feel.
If more willing hosts could be found than needed perhaps it would be possible to exhaust the bullies by making their efforts unproductive.
The other possibility would be the legal route. The Leigh Day legal opinion shows this harassment almost certainly breaks at least two major UK laws. A sympathetic qualified solicitor or barrister connected with the exhibition organisers may be willing to draft template-type legal warnings (copies to be handed immediately to anyone beginning a bit of harassment); and to talk to the local police in advance to get their support, if the harassment continued.
Also would harassment of this type, putting people in fear or infringing their rights, be breach of the peace? The friendly solicitor or barrister would know.
The people behaving in a bullying fashion are likely to be respectable citizens who don’t want to damage their careers or personal standing by getting into legal difficulties. Normally such people are easier to deter than hardened criminals.
Thank you Hastings Jews for Justice.
There is a fundamental arrogance among those supporting hostilities & and murder towards Palestinians; they appear to be impervious to their own racism and inhumanity. Also their cruelty meted out to (mainly, if not totally) Palestinians they take prisoner.
having this exhibition banned is typical of UK Lawyers for Israel who try to have any reference to Palestinians erased. A vile vexatious organisation
The zionist lobby and the control they have over silencing the pro palestine voices and calling out atrocities by the IDF in Gaza and in the West bank is horrific … ( look up Zeteos most recent posts re AIPAC and their dark actions , its beyond belief!)
This beautiful , heartbreaking work of art should be allowed to travel through our communities unhindered .. Israel calls the whole if Gaza terrorists .. including the children… all 23,000 that have been Slaughtered are terrorists !! 🤯😔 .. and then theres the many thousand’s more with out limbs and traumas that will last their lifetimes and beyond .. .. the zionist state bombed all the hospitals in Gaza and medics and press .. why would anyone listen to their propaganda ???
I can tell you why in a moment .. money ! ..It talks it controls and it is such a force for EVIL .. Love to all my Jewish , Christian and Muslim brothers and sisters and may peace one day be permenant in Palestine ❤️🌟❤️🌟🍉💚🌿💚🙏🔥
What sort of church obeys the oppressor or its representatives rather than listen to the cries of the oppressed?
So beautifully put. I was so privileged to have seen this exhibition before it was forced to close. I will remember it for the rest of my life.
The pettiness and cruelty of this is the whole point.
The object is to intimate that there is no escape from the influence of the Zionist lobby.
The continued denial of any dignity or recognition of our brothers and sisters in Palestine is an integral part of the racist and expansionist policy of Israel.
Zionists worship the idf, including members who are known to have committed atrocities, not to mention the illegal settlement real estate events some venues have hosted, so this is pure Zionist double standards.
Pretty soon in the minds of the majority the word “Zionist” will be the new “khkhkhkhkhkhkhamass”. Pretty soon their project will be the trigger word. A sense of superiority metastasized with impunity will lead people to underestimate all others. They themselves become the stupid ones.
Such a disappointing response from the Church. They could have said no, they could have asked for evidence. They chose not to.
Another evidence-free bad faith attack on our own compassion and morality. The message is that we are not allowed to mourn 74,000 people who have been killed because these complainants believe that a few of them did not align with their world view. I’ve got news for those complaints – the vast majority of people in the world no longer align with their world view.
That they can be offended by this rather than 21,000 dead children speaks volumes about who they are and nothing else.
The Church does us all a disservice for failing to point out this clear moral outrage and taking the exhibition down.
Those “twenty thousand children” and the tens of thousands more human beings, their parents, brothers sisters grandparents cousins aunts uncles, all senselessly murdered, will be remembered regardless of the scandalous cancellation of this showing in Hastings. It is hard to imagine that the cancellers, who claim to represent the angry feelings of an imagined homogenous British Jewish community, have a shred of humanity left among them.
This is so very shocking and upsetting. There is no evidence to back up the charges against the exhibition; instead it is yet another attempt to shut down information about the awful suffering that has taken and is still taking place in Gaza. This is a sad decision in a country which has previously prided itself on freedom of speech.
Smear works. Why believe a single word they say?
In an age where it is hard to be more outraged this is a standout issue here in the UK. How can the church, a powerful institution, give into such thuggery! Well done you guys for not giving up.
“…..but following intolerable pressure and clear instructions from the Diocesan Bishop has had to close the exhibition.”
I think the headline is incorrect – the exhibition was not ‘forced to close’ it was the decision of the Diocesan Bishop.
I am assuming the Bishop in question is one Toby Howarth who is ‘Acting Bishop’. His ‘Wikipedia’ entry shows he has done considerable work on ‘interfaith relations’, including studying at the ‘Henry Martyn Centre for Reconciliation and Interfaith Relations’. I shall refrain from commenting further, other than say how this shameful decision shows how deeply Netanyahu’s Israel lobby is now embedded in the UK establishment.
I am so sorry this very poignant exhibition Stitch their Names was forced to closed. It was a beautiful exhibition in a wonderful, peaceful and appropriate location. The volunteers at the exhibition were welcoming and informative. It was very a moving experience for me and a privilege to be able to view such lovingly stitched panels before it was closed down. Thank you to all the embroiderers whose work was on display in the Church. It was very unfortunate that the Church hierarchy succumbed to the pressure of such bad faith actors, which has caused so much damage to the wider community.
It is shameful and telling that an institution as powerful as the Church has succumbed to vexatious, dishonest Zionist pressure. Where is its backbone? I am Jewish so wouldn’t presume to comment on Christian teachings but aren’t all humans God’s children, according to Christianity?
This is from a dear comrade Frances Bernstein, one of those who got the exhibition displayed in Leeds:
Paul Maybury (rector of Leeds Minster) has been a wonderful ally in this, and has been over-ruled by those above him.
Everybody is very angry and very upset.
No other church has previously been brave enough to host this exhibition – but he was. In fact when he was first contacted about it, he responded positively the same day.
He held out against the initial threat by LJRC and the decision to close was actually made higher up the hierarchy by the Diocesan Bishop. He had no choice in the matter.
He is being horribly reviled online by the zionist lobby for daring to have the exhibition in Leeds Minster and by pro-Palestinian activists for being complicit in Genocide.
Without Paul Maybury we certainly wouldn’t have had this beautiful memorial in Leeds Minster for 7 days.
We are doing our best to ask people to direct their anger
– principally to LJRC for their silencing of Palestinian grief;
– their disappointment/ anger to the Diocesan Bishop;
– and anger to Leeds City Council for recently awarding £48,000 to LJRC to “build intercommunity relations across the city”