How the war in Gaza sparked a year of division, bitterness and acrimony in the Canadian cultural community

It all started when Wanda Nanibush, the Indigenous curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario, left her job without explanation.Nanibush’s outspoken views, including public support for Palestinian causes, had rankled some staff and gallery supporters. She left only weeks after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel – during which 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 taken hostage – and Israel’s retaliatory invasion of Gaza, a war that has now killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities. Internally, the gallery represented Nanibush’s departure to staff as a mutual decision that would allow her the freedom to express herself. Nanibush made no comment and now only posts to a private social-media account.