LOS ANGELES — Last Thursday, September 4, the Holocaust Museum LA posted a message on Instagram that was widely interpreted as a denunciation of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, which has been characterized as such by human rights organizations around the world. The first slide featured a drawing of a hexagon formed by six linked arms — various shades of brown and tan, the lightest one bearing a holocaust prisoner number tattoo — with the words “‘Never Again’ Can’t Only Mean Never Again For Jews.” Two days later, the museum deleted the post and replaced it with an apology. Unlike in the first post, for this one, the museum blocked commenters from weighing in. The Holocaust Museum LA, founded in 1961 by Holocaust survivors, is the oldest museum of its kind in the country. Its “Never Again” post — the first such statement from the institution — garnered more than 2,700 likes and 3,300 comments. The text continued on four slides: “Jews Must Not Let the Trauma of our Past Silence our Conscience. Standing with Humanity does Not Betray Our People. It Honors Them. To Be Jewish is to Remember And to Act.”Holocaust Museum LA’s since-deleted statement posted on Thursday, September 4, 2025 (screenshot Matt Stromberg/Hyperallergic via Instagram)Although the post didn’t mention Gaza, Israel, or Palestine, most commenters understood it as a rebuke of Israel’s military assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 64,000 Palestinians. Reactions were mixed, with some commenters expressing appreciation for the museum’s recognition of “our shared humanity.” Others decried the post as “antisemitic” for drawing parallels between the Holocaust and the devastating, systematic slaughter of civilians in Gaza.”This post is beyond disgraceful,” wrote one commenter. “Whoever created, approved, and posted this should be ashamed of themselves. Our ancestors are rolling in their graves.”In response to such perspectives, another commenter observed, “If a post encouraging our shared humanity causes you to bristle with indignation … you might want to be curious about why that is.”Still others found the original post to be a toothless declaration that did not go far enough. “Statements like these are in fact extensions of the subversive violence that attempts to erase the genocide,” a representative for Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG), a group of media and academic professionals that mobilize protests and campaigns in support of Palestine, told Hyperallergic via email. “Gaza is being starved and annihilated by Israel, and it should be called what it is,” they continued. “Anything else is hollow prevarication.”The Holocaust Museum LA deleted its original post and issued an apology on September 6, 2025. (screenshot Matt Stromberg/Hyperallergic via Instagram)The Holocaust Museum LA deleted the post on Saturday and issued an apology, stating that it “will ensure that posts in the future are more thoughtfully designed and thoroughly vetted.” “We recently posted an item on social media that was part of a pre-planned social media campaign intended to promote inclusivity and community that was easily open to misinterpretation by some to be a political statement reflecting the ongoing situation in the Middle East,” the museum’s post said. “That was not our intent. It has been removed to avoid further confusion.”A representative for the museum reached by Hyperallergic declined to comment on the motivation behind the original post and its deletion, telling Hyperallergic that the new statement “reflects the thought and purpose behind the original post.”The museum’s decision to remove a post that many saw as a vague show of solidarity with the mass killings of Palestinians from an institution representing Holocaust survivors has sent ripples of outrage across the arts and culture world. Although comments were turned off on the museum’s apology post, observers from the realms of art, politics, and activism took to various platforms to express their dismay with the institution’s turnaround. The phrase “Never Again” has a complex and contested history. It is thought to have originated from a line in Yitzhak Lamdan’s 1927 epic poem “Masada” (“Never again shall Masada fall!”), and was adopted by Holocaust survivors after World War II. The slogan later became associated with militant Israeli ultra-nationalist Meir Kahane, creator of the right-wing Jewish Defense League, who popularized it in the US and used it as a title of his 1972 book. But there are many progressive, anti-Zionist Jews who see the phrase as an opportunity to link their own historical trauma to present-day genocides and to show solidarity with Palestinians. The phrase is frequently used by protesters with the group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and Berlin-based Jewish artist Candice Breitz launched a “Never Again Means Never Again” clothing line, with proceeds from sales going to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.