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The message ‘struck many of us in the room as inappropriate,’ a former Kennedy Center curator wrote
Brendan Rascius in New York Friday 17 April 2026 21:35 BST- Bookmark
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Donald Trump’s former Kennedy Center chief once warned donors he would rename the venue’s Israeli lounge unless they forked over more funds, according to a new report.
The remarks were reportedly delivered during an event commemorating the October 7 Hamas attacks, which struck many observers as improper.
Josef Palermo, a former curator of visual arts and special programming at the center, recounted the episode, and more details about his turbulent 10-month tenure, in a column published Thursday in The Atlantic.
He was fired in late March, one month after Trump announced he would shut the cultural institution down for two years to undergo major renovations. At the time, Richard Grenell, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany, served as the center’s acting director.
One “red flag” that Palermo observed was the decision by the center’s leaders to “sell sponsorships” of the venue’s lounges. The Israeli lounge was paid for by the Israeli government in 1971 to “celebrate the connection between Judaism and music,” the former curator wrote.
open image in galleryRichard Grenell, the former head of the Kennedy Center, threatened to rename the center's Israel room unless more donors came forward at event to mark October 7, according to a new report (Getty Images)Last autumn, he organized an event marking the anniversary of the October 7 attack on southern Israel in the Israeli lounge.
At the opening reception, Grenell reportedly told the predominantly Jewish crowd that the lounge would be reassigned to a different donor if they failed to provide renovation funds.
“It certainly would be a shame if we lost this room to a corporation or an individual and it was no longer the [Israeli] lounge,” Grenell said, as previously reported by Jewish Insider.
“Such a strong-armed fundraising pitch, at an event commemorating a pogrom, struck many of us in the room as inappropriate,” Palermo wrote. “I was mortified.”
open image in galleryThe John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was renamed to include President Donald Trump’s name in December (AFP via Getty Images)The center has since moved forward in rebranding other lounges, including the Circles Lounge, which was changed to the SyberJet Lounge — after an aircraft company whose chief executive was pardoned by Trump last year after he was found guilty of defrauding investors.
Palermo also tore into Grenell for allegedly failing to host a single all‑staff meeting, for favoring Trump loyalists in hiring and for having no prior experience in the arts sector. When he departed the center — which has since been rebranded as the Trump Kennedy Center — Palermo said it “had been on fire for months.”
The Independent has attempted to contact Grenell, who stepped down from the Kennedy Center last month and is currently serving as the special presidential envoy for special missions. The Atlantic said Grenell did not respond to repeated requests to speak to its fact-checkers.
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