At the Jewish Museum of Chicago, anti-Zionist Jewish artists explore identity and dissent

Returning to Chicago from an artist residency in Maine, Gabriel Chalfin-Piney-González surveyed the local Jewish museum scene and found it wanting.

“When I came back to Chicago, I wanted to get involved with the ‘Jewish Museum of Chicago,’ and, you know, lo and behold, it doesn’t exist,” said Chalfin-Piney-González, who uses they/them pronouns. “I found that kind of strange.”

So Chalfin-Piney-González set about creating the museum they dreamed of — a cultural center without walls that would offer a hub for Jewish artists in Chicago to connect and showcase their work.

The Jewish Museum was founded during Passover in 2023 and described itself in its first Instagram post that August as a “community-run museum crafting accessible multi-faith and multigenerational entry points to diasporic