"Jews built Hollywood. So why is their history erased from the Academy’s new museum?"

That was the headline in The Forward, last fall, quoted in "After Criticism, Film Museum Will Highlight Hollywood’s Jewish History/The new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, which tried to present an inclusive history of film, overlooked the role Jewish immigrants played in creating the industry" in the NYT. 

“We want to ensure that we are taking an honest, inclusive and diverse look at our history, that we create a safe space for complicated, hard conversations,” the museum’s director, Bill Kramer, said the day after the museum opened as he welcomed guests to a panel discussion titled “Creating a More Inclusive Museum.”

But one group was conspicuously absent in this initial celebration of diversity and inclusivity: the Jewish immigrants — white men all — who were central to founding the Hollywood studio system. Through dozens of exhibits and rooms, there is barely a mention of Harry and Jack Warner, Adolph Zukor, Samuel Goldwyn or Louis B. Mayer, to list just a few of the best-known names from Hollywood’s history....

Some historians said the omission appeared to be the latest example of Hollywood’s strained relationship with its Jewish history. “You have to understand that Hollywood in its very inception was formed out of a fear that its founders — and those who maintained the industry — would be identified as Jews,” said Neal Gabler, the author of “An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood,” a book about the Jewish studio heads. “It’s almost fitting that a museum devoted to the history of Hollywood would incorporate in its very evolution this fear and sensitivity.”

I think the omission was based on a real concern that calling attention to the participation of Jews in the industry would feed anti-Semitism and could very well be perceived as anti-Semitic. The achievement of this group is so strong and so long-standing that it is downplayed, not celebrated. The conventions of present-day inclusiveness were designed to hearten — and appease — groups that have not done well in the past. If you emphasize that Jews were the studio heads, won't you look as though you are blaming Jews for the exclusion you are dedicated to stressing? 

The NYT article doesn't address this obvious problem. I'd say it pushes the insight farther from the reader's view in the third sentence: "But one group was conspicuously absent in this initial celebration of diversity and inclusivity: the Jewish immigrants — white men all — who were central to founding the Hollywood studio system."

White men all! 

ADDED: It was only last month that Whoopi Goldberg got scathed for saying Jews are white.

ALSO: Will the museum's tribute to Jewish studio heads include Harvey Weinstein?