If Chicago’s Jewish community felt better respected by the administration of Mayor Brandon Johnson and more confident that its concerns about antisemitism were not being unheard, we doubt there would have been so much angst about a controversial puppet in a city-funded exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center.

But as several representatives of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) came to tell us recently, that is not in fact the case. They spoke of trying to reach out and being rebuffed, of unanswered requests for meetings, of a continued resistance to open dialogue, let alone acknowledging what they, and we, see as a serious problem.

The group came to present the AJC’s “State of Antisemitism in America Report,” as released Feb. 12. It concludes that 90% of American Jews say antisemitism has increased either a lot (61%) or somewhat (29%) since the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, with 33% of American Jews saying they have been “the personal target of antisemitism — in person or virtually — at least once over the last year.”

The report also states that nearly 73% of Jewish adults say Jews in the U.S. are less secure than a year ago. That’s a far greater number than in previous years.

In our conversations, the group said they fear that City Hall and many in its orbit (there is only one lonely Jewish alderman, Debra Silverstein, 50th) often fail to understand what is meant by antisemitism, despite the existence of internationally agreed upon definitions such as the depiction of Jews with blood on their hands or pulling the strings of control over banking, the media, government or other societal institutions.

Which brings us to the puppet that caused City Council briefly to descend into chaos late last month. The two-sided piece, which you can still go and see for yourself for free at the Chicago Cultural Center, forms part of an exhibit called “Potential Energy: Chicago Puppets Up Close.” It features bloodied, back-to-back caricatures of both “Uncle Sam” and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The wooden base of the piece features words, scrawled in drippy, blood-like red, such as “money pays for this” and “your money funds this.” It stands in sharp contrast to the rest of the exhibit, described as “an exhibition of potentialities.”

“How can puppets bring us together?” is one of the questions that text placed on the gallery walls says the exhibit strives to ask.

Not that particular puppet, it turned out.

A letter signed by 27 aldermen was sent to Johnson arguing that the puppet crossed the line into ”hate speech” and demanded its removal, sparking the administration to go into damage control after a City Hall hearing on the matter devolved into a whole variety of aldermanic chaos so immature as to be not worth repeating here.

Let’s be clear about a few things. The puppet did not initially show the name of its creators, adding to the sense that this was somehow a city-sponsored, anti-Israeli statement in a city-owned cultural space, which was probably not far from being the case.

Accepted guidelines on avoiding antisemitic tropes make room for legitimate criticism of the actions of the nation of Israel, when criticized like one might the actions of other countries. But a reasonable viewer would discern this puppet went somewhat further than that.

Artists are best judged by peer groups of artists and since we ourselves rely on free speech, we of course believe this particular artist should be free to make and exhibit whatever puppet she wishes. Abby Palen, its 26-year-old “artistic director,” finally talked to a friendly Sun-Times columnist, Rummana Hussain. In the Feb. 14 column, alas, Palen and the exhibit co-curator, Grace Needlman, doubled down, with the latter calling Silverstein’s response a “predictable and unimaginative” response that is “not about Jewish safety.”

We’d have rather they said something like this: “We defend our right to make our puppet and make our peer-reviewed statement about our opposition to the war in Gaza. But we also understand how some Jewish people feel, given the tropes we employed.”

We would add the exhibit had nothing artistic to say about the Oct. 7 attacks, and this was not a private gallery or a nonprofit museum but the city’s official cultural showcase where casual viewers, kids and all, can just walk in off the street.

There is good reason why the AJC and others tend to worry about puppets: Nazi propaganda often featured images of Jewish overlords pulling the strings of politicians and many antisemitic puppet-master cartoons followed; some, to our shame, ran in this newspaper in the first half of the 20th century.

Worth an empathetic conversation, at the very least.

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