Palestinian group praises Nakba exhibit coming to Canadian Human Rights while Jewish organization pans move

A new exhibit recounting personal experiences of Palestinian Canadians who fled or were forced from their homes in 1948 is coming to Winnipeg next year, but one Jewish organization is pulling out of its partnerships with the museum over concerns the programming might not reflect important context.

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) announced a series of upcoming exhibits this week, including "Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present," which will open to visitors in June 2026. 

“Kudos to the museum for having the courage to tell the story and not because they're favouring the Palestinians or the Israelis," said Ramsey Zeid, president of the Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba.

"This is a human rights story that really needs to be shared."

The exhibit will focus on those who have lived through the Nakba, an Arabic term that translates to "catastrophe" that is used by Palestinians to describe a defining moment of their history.

Hundreds of thousands were forced out or left their homes during the 1948 Arab-Israel war. Israel disputes some of the circumstances and perspectives surrounding those events.

"This exhibit isn't a historical retrospective," Isha Khan, CEO of CMHR, told CBC News.

"This exhibit is about the experiences of Palestinian Canadians who have lived through forced displacement, and their families, so it's told from their perspective."

Belle Jarniewski, executive director of the Jewish Heritage Centre, suggested there should have been meaningful consultation with the Jewish community.

She worries the exhibit might not reflect historical and present-day geopolitical realities on the ground in Israel through "balanced scholarly research" amid an "unprecedented surge in antisemitism."

"This exhibit will likely exacerbate our situation," Jarniewski said in a statement.

The centre is also concerned the exhibit might not present information about one-fifth of the population in Israel comprising non-Jewish minorities, including Christian and Muslim Arabs, Druze, Circassians and Samaritans, according to Jarniewski.

"Their presence in Israel demonstrates their continued existence as Palestinian Arabs in Israel, which complicates the totalizing notion of the 'Nakba' as it is most widely understood around the world, mostly by enemies of Israel and the Jewish People," Jarniewski said in a statement.

"This context is crucial to include. However, all this could have been understood, if the organized Jewish community had been consulted meaningfully from the beginning and not excluded from discussions."