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Parkland Artist’s October 7 Tribute Excluded From QuiltCon, Highlighting Marginalization of Jewish Voices 4

Parkland’s AJ Grossman began work on her locally-acclaimed quilt, titled Tikkun HaLev — Hebrew for “Heal the Heart” — in the days following the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel {Courtesy AJ Grossman}.

When Parkland artist and longtime quilter AJ Grossman submitted her latest work to QuiltCon 2026, she was doing what quilters have done for generations: documenting trauma, memorializing loss, and giving form to lived experience through fabric and stitch.

Yet Grossman — a Jewish artist who served as treasurer and president of the South Florida Modern Quilt Guild and co-chaired the South Florida Quilt Expo for eight years — found her work excluded from the world’s premier modern quilting exhibition, a decision she says underscores how Jewish narratives have become uniquely unwelcome in many artistic spaces since Hamas’s October 7 massacre in Israel.

She began work on her locally-acclaimed quilt, titled Tikkun HaLev — Hebrew for “Heal the Heart” — in the days following October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists stormed Israeli communities, massacred some 1,200 people, and abducted 251 others. Grossman’s widely-lauded piece features 240 hand-cut, appliquéd six-pointed Stars of David, each representing a hostage held in Gaza when she began the project. Smaller stars denote children; larger ones, adults. They are shaped like the stars Jews were forced by the Nazis to wear on their clothing.

Tikkun HaLev measures roughly 90 by 65 inches and took months to complete.

“This was my way of processing something horrific,” said Grossman, 62, who was emotionally devastated by the October 7 attacks. “Quilting is meditative. It’s how I sit shiva.”

A prize-winning, widely-exhibited artist who grew up surrounded by Holocaust survivors in Manhattan’s garment district, Grossman said her quilt’s imagery was intentionally restrained. The piece contains no Israeli flags, no political slogans, and no references to governments or military action. Its focus, she said, is human trauma — the kidnapping of terrified civilians from their homes.

Yet when QuiltCon jurors reviewed submissions for their February 2026 show to be held in Raleigh, North Carolina, Tikkun HaLev was rejected.

According to the Modern Quilt Guild (MQG), which organizes QuiltCon, Grossman’s quilt was evaluated solely on design and aesthetics and scored below the cutoff required for acceptance. Jurors, the organization said, reviewed only digital images of each quilt, without artist statements or contextual explanations.

“Quilts are evaluated on design, visual impact, and elements of the modern aesthetic,” MQG Director of Events Elizabeth Dackson wrote in an email response. “Statements or messages have never been evaluated or weighed in the jury review process.”

But for Grossman, that explanation raises troubling questions — particularly given QuiltCon’s long history of displaying quilts with explicit political and social commentary.

Over the years, QuiltCon has featured quilts addressing Black Lives Matter, gun violence, abortion rights, Native American displacement, climate change, and Donald Trump’s presidency, including one piece that counted down the days of Trump’s first term. In 2024, a quilt in the shape of an assault rifle, titled Teacher’s Tool Chest, received Best in Show honors.

“If jurors can recognize an AK-47 as a statement about gun violence, or ‘I Can’t Breathe’ as a reference to George Floyd, then context clearly matters,” Grossman said. “So what happens when the symbols are Jewish?”

Critics of QuiltCon have noted that the jurying process for entries is opaque: jurors are anonymous, their deliberations undisclosed, and entrants given no insight into how individual reviewers interpret imagery.

“If someone sees 240 stars and doesn’t understand the Holocaust, or doesn’t recognize Jewish symbols, or only sees Jews through the lens of current anti-Israel narratives, how can that not affect the outcome?” Grossman asked.

The Modern Quilt Guild has declined to identify jurors or say whether quilts expressing Palestinian solidarity or anti-Israel themes were accepted for the 2026 show. Dackson wrote that the MQG “stands firmly by our transparent and unbiased jurying process” and called “accusations of discrimination of any sort misguided.” To support her claim, she said MQG has “Jewish families in our membership and on our staff.”

Grossman has been careful not to allege personal anti-Jewish racism targeting her. Instead, she frames the issue as structural exclusion — a system that, intentionally or not, consistently filters out Jewish narratives while welcoming others.

“The effect is the same: Jewish lived experience is treated as suspect, controversial, or unworthy of display,” she said.

Her experience contrasts sharply with the reception her quilt has received elsewhere. Tikkun HaLev was exhibited at the South Florida Quilt Expo, where it was widely praised and drew significant attention. In March, the City of Parkland issued Grossman a proclamation honoring her work during Women’s History Month.

Grossman has attended roughly half of all QuiltCons held since the event’s inception in 2013 and says she has never seen a quilt explicitly addressing Jewish history, the Holocaust, or the Jewish diaspora displayed there.

“That absence matters,” she said. “Especially now.”

Since October 7, Jewish artists, writers, musicians, and academics have increasingly reported being excluded from exhibitions, festivals, and institutions unless they disavow Israel or remain silent about Jewish suffering. While many cultural spaces have embraced activism tied to other global conflicts, Jewish expression tied to Jewish trauma has frequently been recast as political, provocative, or inappropriate.

Grossman worries that the QuiltCon rejection illustrates how selection processes that claim neutrality can still produce discriminatory outcomes — particularly when jurors lack basic knowledge of Jewish history or are influenced by a cultural climate that increasingly frames Jewish identity through hostility toward Israel.

“How can Jewish artists share work about our lived experiences when the systems deciding what gets shown don’t understand our symbols, our history, or our trauma?” she asked.

Grossman says she hopes her quilt will eventually find a permanent educational home. She also continues working on a long-term project to create six million fabric stars — one for each Jewish victim of the Holocaust — to convey the scale of loss in tangible form.

“I don’t want people to say, ‘That’s a pretty quilt,’” she said. “I want them to feel the weight of it. To understand the magnitude.”

For now, Grossman is hopeful she will find new spaces to display Tikkun HaLev — even if Jewish symbols remain absent from QuiltCon’s walls.

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Author Profile

Kevin Deutsch

Kevin Deutsch is an award-winning journalist and author of two nonfiction books. He covers general assignment news and Jewish community issues for Talk Media. He has also worked as a staff writer at The Miami Times, the Rio Grande SUN, the New York Daily News, Newsday, The Miami Herald, The Palm Beach Post, The Riverdale Press, and Bronx Justice News.