"Chosen" Danielle Durchslag

11th October - 15th October 2022

For centuries, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have centered on themes of extraordinary, disproportionate amounts of Jewish influence and affluence. These tropes often prevent honest, open discourse about the Jewish relationship to financial security and ascendence. Even acknowledging that such a thing as Jewish wealth exists can, for many Jews, feel like playing into the hands of the enemy. But now, in this fraught political moment, I feel it’s more important than ever to re-claim this discourse. 

I grew up in the Jewish 1%, the lucky beneficiary of my great grandfather, Nathan, who started out his life as an immigrant peddler, and ended it as a business and philanthropic giant. My work explores the political and psychological complexities of dynastic families like mine; clans simultaneously afraid of the very real, and currently growing, threat of anti-Semitism and its long rhetorical connection to Jewish money, and enamored with their recent positions as centers of political and philanthropic influence.
 
What does it mean to be powerful victims? Jewish women in these moneyed broods fully embody this specific contradiction, being defined by both the privileges and confusions of their wealth, and the severe limitations of the patriarchy. CHOSEN explores their reality, and their choices, today.