Anne Frank is not a metaphor

There is something uniquely cruel about taking Anne Frank, a little Jewish girl who was m*rdered in the Shoah, and hijacking her image and story, for the purpose of expressing antiZ*onism.

In recent days, an artwork exhibited in Germany has ignited outrage within Jewish communities and beyond. Created by an Italian artist, Constantino Ciervo, and displayed in a museum in Potsdam, the painting depicts Anne Frank wearing a keffiyeh, presented as part of an exhibition framed as political commentary on the Middle East.

The artist insists the work is meant as a critique of Israeli policy. The museum has defended it under the banner of artistic freedom. But Israeli officials, Jewish leaders, and Holocaust educators have responded with distress, arguing "that the piece collapses history into provocation; equating Jewish victimhood in the Shoah with contemporary political conflict, and doing so through the image of a murdered child."

I've seen too many "Anne Frank" remakes for political causes that turn out to be ant*sem*tic. It's so outrageous that it's almost insane to have to comment on it.

But I'll say it as loudly as I can, because apparently, there is a whole population in the world that thinks this is cool and makes sense.

Anne Frank is not a metaphor.

She is not a canvas for you to project your r*ge, bitterness, or h*tred.

She was a Jewish child hiding from a gen*cide, m*rdered because the N*zis decided Jews needed to go, and it took too long to stop them.

When artists dress Anne Frank in modern political symbols and call it “provocation” or “critique,” they aren’t challenging power.

They are collapsing history.

They are flattening real-life stories into slogans.

And they are doing it under the protection of “artistic freedom,” a phrase that increasingly seems to mean freedom from moral restraint, which I find revolting.

This is not about silencing criticism of Israel because Israel can be debated, criticized, argued with like any state. No one does it more than us, Israelis.

But Anne Frank is not Israel.

She is not a policy.

She is not the IDF.

She is a m*rdered child whose diary survived when she did not.

This is historical vandalism.

There is a line between political expression and moral transgression.

That line is crossed when Jewish suffering is instrumentalized, when Anne Frank is made to speak words she never lived to say.

Her story is not for redistribution.

For fanfiction.

Her memory demands to be unrepurposed for political points and fiercely protected.

Good lord, Anne Frank deserves that much.