An update to a recent Substack posting:
New photos have demonstrated conclusively that Donald Trump’s name has indeed been removed from the Kennedy Center’s facade, even though it remains covered by a tarp. Above is the photographic proof, provided by the activist group Hands off the Arts, which provided the photos to NBC News.
Hands Off the Arts is a coalition of arts, labor, queer and community activists that have come together to resist the takeover of arts and culture as a pillar of authoritarianism. The Kennedy Center’s pending closure has been a focus of its work.
Last week I suggested that Trump’s placing his name on that wall was a form of idolatry. Jews have always had a problem with idolatry. Its rejection by Abraham is at the very core of our origin story, which condemns it in all its forms, especially Trump’s specialty, the worship of oneself. The Talmud links idolatry explicitly to an overinflated ego, stating (Sotah 5a), “Any person who has arrogance within him is considered as if he were an idol worshipper.” God says of that person, “He and I cannot dwell together in this world.”
So it follows that I believe that the removal of President Trump’s name from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Arts was the fulfillment of a biblical commandment to demolish false idols. Deuteronomy 12:3 says it literally, charging that graven images shall be hewn down, altars burnt and broken, and “ye shall destroy their name out of that place.”
This translation even uses one of Trump’s favorite words: obliterate - from those heady days when the US dominated the Persian Gulf.
Onlookers at the Kennedy Center were disappointed when last week’s removal was hidden by a tarp and it now appears Trump is determined to wait it out and keep the tarp in place, either out of embarrassment or to “own the libs.”
But this hidden wall trick has backfired with the released photos. And whenever the tarp is removed - and it will be – the thrill will be even greater.
Meanwhile, this image of the JFK Center’s dishonored façade is significantly more powerful with the covering still on. The very hiddenness of what lies beneath is part of what makes this site so potent. It is, in fact, the perfect visual metaphor for the Trump Era, a reminder of all that the administration has concealed and the scaffolded mess they’ve made of our democracy; it has become a symbol of our accumulated frustration and grief.
It has become America’s Wailing Wall.
But with all that we are grieving, there’s no need for the gnashing of teeth. Who cares if we have to wait a few months or even years for the curtain to descend. Jews waited 2,000 years to return to the original Wailing Wall, the retaining wall of Herod’s magnificent temple. Even if the unveiling of this wall needs to wait until January 20, 2029, so be it.
Meanwhile, let’s transform it into a sacred gathering place.
How? By turning the plaza in front into a public square celebrating the humanities and free speech, as Kennedy would have wanted it. And being just across from the Watergate only adds to the significance of its being a place where Americans gather to celebrate our freedoms.
We should hold interfaith vigils there, praying for immigrants and others who are disenfranchised and abused. We can leave scribbled prayers and wishes for our democracy at the site, slipping them in the cracks between the sheets of the tarp or leaving them in specially designed receptacles. That would give it the feel of the original Western Wall. We could hold seminars and concerts and maybe some stand-up comedy. What used to go on inside the venerable hall, which is being closed for two years, if Trump has his way, can now be done outside, for free, minus the tuxedos. It could become the People’s Plaza, the Great Wall of Washington.
And we can keep returning to that spot and protesting, singing and praying for as long as that tarp continues to insult the memory of our martyred president.
JFK called the arts, “the great democrat calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color.” The presence of the offensive tarp might cause us to gather in outrage, perhaps, but the name that remains up there, the one that was not removed, reminds us that our objective is not to tear down, but instead to create, and to celebrate the spirit of America.
The tarp will come down when Trump’s allies see that the Kennedy Center has become a magnet for resistance, creativity and hope and not an altar to narcissistic self-worship.
And when it does come down, it will be the fulfillment of Deuteronomy’s decree.
And the celebration will be downright biblical.
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