Wish you weren’t here: In Toronto, a group takes a stand against a Pink Floyd exhibit

TORONTO — “Hey, Roger, leave us Jews alone!” reads a sign standing opposite Toronto’s Better Living Centre where “The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains” opened Friday to throngs of fans.

The startling sign, found directly across from the new Pink Floyd exhibit’s entrance, features a picture of band co-founder and bassist Roger Waters at one of his recent concerts in Germany — clad in a Nazi-like costume and firing a fake machine gun at the crowd. Underneath the image is a call to sign a global petition demanding that Waters be stopped from publicly promoting antisemitism and anti-Israel vitriol.

Created by the Abraham Global Peace Initiative (AGPI), a Toronto-based international NGO, the appeal has already garnered thousands of signatures worldwide from people of all faiths.

The initiative’s stated remit is to educate and produce exhibits, symposiums and media content to counter antisemitism, combat Holocaust denial, advance the Abraham Accords, defend Israel and Canada, and advance freedom, democracy and universal human rights.

“In democracies, where we respect diversity and combat racism and antisemitism, [Waters’s] behavior should be held to account, not rewarded,” wrote AGPI’s founding chairman and CEO Avi Abraham Benlolo, in an open letter to organizers ahead of the exhibit in which he appealed for its cancellation.

The call to action comes in the wake of a firestorm surrounding Waters’s May performances in Berlin and Frankfurt — where he also flew a pig-shaped balloon featuring a Star of David and equated Anne Frank with Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a victim of a stray IDF bullet.

The sign is an off-shoot of AGPI’s “Power of One,” an educational exhibit the NGO is hosting on Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) grounds to counter Waters’s discriminatory and hateful narrative.

Inside the center, “The Pink Floyd Exhibition” captures the band’s career over five decades from 1967 to the 2000s. A traveling show, it has drawn hundreds of thousands of visitors since 2017 with stops in London, Rome, Dortmund, Germany, Madrid, Los Angeles and Montreal. Memorabilia include over 350 artifacts that highlight the band’s evolution and impact on the music industry, with instruments, personal letters and items, hand-written lyrics and stage props. An audio guide features the voices of current and former Pink Floyd members, including Waters.

AGPI founding chairman and CEO Avi Abraham Benlolo. (Courtesy)

In the open letter, Benlolo reminded S2BN Entertainment president Michael Kohl, “The Pink Floyd Exhibition” co-curator and creative director Aubrey “Po” Powell, and CNE CEO Darrell Brown that the city of Munich attempted to cancel Waters’s March concert due to his persistent anti-Israel and antisemitic conduct. He further stated that Berlin police have opened an investigation around Waters’s costume for potentially glorifying Nazism and disturbing the peace.

“While we understand that your exhibit will not draw on any such imagery,” wrote Benlolo, “we are concerned that given the rising tide of antisemitism, your exhibit will not hold Mr. Waters to account. Instead, it will do just the opposite.”

In a June 2 op-ed in Canada’s National Post, where Benlolo is a regular contributor, he further emphasized, “Over these years, [Waters’s] music has been intimately connected with his political interests, and he has integrated both himself and his art into the Palestinian cause… in Waters’s case, Marshall McLuhan was completely right. The medium is the message, and that is why you cannot separate this artist from his art.”

What is the ‘Power of One’?

While organizers of “The Pink Floyd Exhibition” refused to scrap it, the CNE agreed to AGPI’s request to display its “Power of One” presentation as a counter-voice on its site.

Featured at the United Nations and Winnipeg’s Canadian Museum of Human Rights, “Power of One” aims to educate and empower participants to make a positive mark on the world by highlighting inspiring heroes including Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Helen Keller, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara, Anne Frank and cancer research activist Terry Fox, among others, who modeled kindness, inclusion and compassion that impacted generations.

“These are people who rather than sow hate against another group, had worked and dreamed about an inclusive society, utilizing their strength and influence in a positive way,” said Benlolo. “The exhibit reflects visitors and their values, and features people from all walks of life. The idea is for people to find their role model.”

The ‘Power of One’ exhibit. (Courtesy)

Benlolo is grateful for its inclusion as a counter-weight.

“They have expended their own staff, resources and space to accommodate us literally across the street from ‘The Pink Floyd Exhibition,’ so it’s a positive goodwill gesture on their part, which certainly should be recognized,” said Benlolo, creator of “Power of One.”

“The CNE galleria curator loves the exhibit and is volunteering some of her own time to be present when people come in,” he said.

The “Power of One” exhibit prompts visitors to consider how they might react in situations similar to those experienced by the notable figures, the kind of choices they might make, and whether they would risk their lives to save others.

Each week, hundreds of schools and police departments across Canada view the exhibit and take part in AGPI’s “tolerance training” workshops that encourage participants to speak out against injustice.

Police cadets in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, pose in front of the ‘Power of One’ exhibit in an undated photo. (Courtesy)

“Our educational program is unique in that it focuses on the idea of speaking out and not being a bystander,” said Benlolo. “We learned from the Holocaust that simply being silent was not enough… many people were complicit in the Nazis’ crimes in so many ways. We talk about this quite extensively at our organization to bring awareness about the complicity of those who are silent today, even while antisemitism and anti-Israel defamation has increased spectacularly.”

AGPI’s director of education, Dr. Neil Orlowsky, leads the workshops.

“We are honored to be hosting ‘Power of One’ across the street to bring attention to the fact that humanitarianism is inclusive, that safe and inclusive spaces should be meant for everyone, and that we can use music to heal and not divide,” Orlowsky said.

A screenshot of Roger Waters wearing what appears to be an SS uniform during a concert in Berlin, May 2023. (Twitter/ i24news screenshot, used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

While no set end date has been announced for Toronto’s “The Pink Floyd Exhibition,” it will likely be extended, just as it was in Montreal this past April.

And as long as Waters is celebrated, AGPI will continue taking a stand, Benlolo said.

“We will feature ‘Power of One’ for the duration of the ‘Pink Floyd Exhibition’ and probably even beyond,” said Benlolo. “The CNE attracts millions of people to its grounds every summer; we hope to be part of that.”