When I read that famed architect Frank Gehry was pulling out as designer of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s planned Museum of Tolerance in downtown Jerusalem, my thoughts immediately took me back to the site.
Almost a year ago, I stood there with a group of rabbinical students and other young Jewish leaders to voice our dissent. We felt that the Wiesenthal Center’s insistence on building its planned Museum of Tolerance on top of a centuries-old Muslim cemetery betrayed the concept of tolerance at the heart of the museum’s purported mission.
Of course, desecrating a centuries-old cemetery was not the Wiesenthal Center’s intention when it first set its sights on the prime parcel of West Jerusalem real estate. But digging at the site resulted in the discovery of human skeletons and accidentally unearthed a disturbing chapter in Jerusalem’s history: Decades ago, the Jerusalem municipality had built a parking lot on top of a portion of the famed Mamilla cemetery, land that had now been given to the Wiesenthal Center.
The discovery of the human remains gave the center and the city a chance to make amends for a wrong committed long ago — a wrong that I doubt the center’s head, Rabbi Marvin Hier, would ever allow to happen to the Jewish people. Instead, Rabbi Hier dug his heels into that sacred plot of land so deep he could no longer see.
The Wiesenthal Center likes to note that the cemetery had long ago fallen into disuse, and it argues that it had been regarded as deconsecrated by Muslim religious authorities. And it is true that Israel’s Supreme Court has given the Wiesenthal Center the go-ahead to proceed with construction of its museum.
But just because a cemetery has fallen into disuse, does not give the Wiesenthal Center the right to build on centuries-old graves. Nor do religious opinions proffered many decades ago trump the feelings of Palestinians today, who see the construction on this cemetery as an affront to their heritage. And, needless to say, just because something has legal sanction, does not make it right. The Wiesenthal Center is an institution that purports to operate based upon values, but when it comes to this issue, it has refused to operate on that level.
Watching this shande unfold, my peers and I felt let down by the leaders of the American Jewish community. Where were the community relations organizations that have historically fought for equality and tolerance, and who would never countenance the desecration of a Jewish graveyard, anywhere in the world? They were silent.
One striking exception was Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, who wrote a powerful op-ed for the JTA asserting that “there is something perverse and ironic about building a monument to tolerance that will be a permanent source of tension in the region and that undermines the mutual respect and trust that tolerance requires.”
Since few of Yoffie’s colleagues were willing to demonstrate similar courage, our group of rabbinical students and Jewish educators decided that if the mainstream American Jewish organizations would not take a stand for their own principles, then we would add our voices to the chorus of Israelis and Palestinians speaking out against the museum. Like the Mishna says, “In a place where there is no human, strive to be human.”
I was blown away by the support we received — 70 future rabbis, educators and Jewish leaders came to the demonstration from a dozen institutions. People who disagree on many issues were able to put aside their differences for this cause. Many had never been to a demonstration of any kind, let alone one that could be seen as supportive of Palestinians, their supposed sworn enemy. The indubitable justice of our cause created unprecedented unity. Moreover, this case cut at the heart of the myth that any affront to Palestinian dignity is necessarily done in the interest of security.
Frank Gehry has insisted that he withdrew from the museum project not because of “perceived political sensitivities,” but rather because his firm was unable to commit its resources to a cost-cutting “redesign” of the museum. He said that he continues to “admire” Hier’s “determination to establish a Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem that will serve as the embodiment of human respect and compassion.”
Hier, for his part, has said that the project will go forward on the site with a new design at half the size and half the cost. But the new plan will neither halve nor diminish in any way the profound damage of this project. Building on this cemetery denies Palestinian history and humanity — it will leave an irreversible scar on Jerusalem. The museum will never be an “embodiment of human respect and compassion” at this location.
While Rabbi Hier is concerned with cutting costs, he fails to realize that he has much bigger problems. Those 70 rabbinical students and Jewish educators are the next generation of American Jewish leadership, and they will be building new institutions that do more than pay lip service to the ideals of tolerance.
Alana Alpert is a community organizer and rabbinical student at Hebrew College.
The Forward welcomes reader comments in order to promote thoughtful discussion on issues of importance to the Jewish community. In the interest of maintaining a civil forum, the Forward requires that all commenters be appropriately respectful toward our writers, other commenters and the subjects of the articles. Vigorous debate and reasoned critique are welcome; name-calling and personal invective are not. While we generally do not seek to edit or actively moderate comments, the Forward reserves the right to remove comments for any reason.
Copyright © 2013, Forward Association, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Tracing the Jewish Origins of the Holy Ghost
Forced Out by Nazis, Grandmother Returns With Family to Germany
Mother of Jewish Teen Killed on Brooklyn Bridge Speaks Out
Remembering French-Jewish Writer Viviane Forrester
Google Earth for the 16th Century Mapmaking Set
You've successfully signed up!
alana, thank you for writing this, and more importantly, thank you for your hard work for peace, justice, and respect.
Thank you for this piece, and for helping us see this as an issue that goes deeper than a gravesite. We should care about this because it shows where we stand on such an unequivocal question of respect for people besides Jews.
There is a serious disconnect between the Wiesenthal Center's Mission and what they are actually doing or trying to do in Jerusalem. I think it is amazing how blind many of American (and Diaspora) Jews become when it comes to Israel. The fact that so many seminary students, were able to see the obvious hypocrisy of a 'Museum of Tolerance' being built on a Muslim Cemetery in a city, where every square foot has significance, should not be a great shock. Not just tolerance, but welcoming of the stranger (those different from yourself) are principle tenets in the Jewish pursuit of justice. I am inspired to know that the rising generation of Jewish Leadership does not stand for these kinds of actions. I just wish they were going to inherit something a bit better.
We should thank the Wiesenthal Center for giving us this lesson in tolerance, albeit unintentionally.
Now we know which Jewish leaders will stand up for what is right, and which Jewish leaders just want to build monuments.
"dimwit" "disgusting people". When the trolls come out with ad hominim attacks, you know reasoned debate is impossible
Nobody disputes the facts of the case, what is in dispute is the moral weight of those facts. I think most would agree that cultural sensitivity is a touchstone to any robust notion of tolerance. That the SWC is so tone def so as not to see how offensive their project is makes it clear that their rhetoric of tolerance doesn't go very deep. If the SWC's tolerance is for Jews only, they have no right to claim that mantel, and I'm glad other Jewish leaders are standing up to take it back.
Why not build it on the Mount of Olives? In that way, only Jewish bones will be unearthed. It would raise less hackles that way
It looks like the Forward editors deleted some of the more offensive, racist comments.
It's their judgment and they may be right.
However, there's also a lesson there. You have to stand up for what's right. People will attack you and insult you, call you "dimwit" and "disgusting people". What is right is often unpopular. When you stand up for what's right, you have to stand up to abuse and unpopularity too.
You still have to stand up for what's right. As Bob Dylan said, "Everybody must get stoned."
So I commend Alana and the people who commented here for standing up for what is right, rather than just following authority, even though it is unpopular.
I am troubled to see the inflexibility and lack of sensitivity displayed by Hier and the Wiesenthal Center. It is a sad day when my co-religionists honestly believe that desecrating a cemetery can further the cause of tolerance. Hier & Co should ask themselves if the principles of fair play are less important than whatever money has been sunk into this project - and we all know from Finance 101 that sunk costs should be ignored when evaluating ANY project.
I call on Hier & the Wiesenthal Center to re-think their decision, write off the sunk costs and find a more suitable site - that would further the cause of Tolerance more than any brick and mortar they put on the current site.
What will be displayed in the proposed Museum of Tolerance? A Museum of Art shows art, a Museum of Natural History shows nature in its various forms, a Museum of Science shows science. What will the Museum of Tolerance show? Tolerance as now practiced in Jerusalem?
A non-Jew, I admire the sentiments expressed here and I hope that your efforts win the day.
But isn't there a deeper and wider issue involved here?
The proposed museum will be in West Jerusalem. Doesn't International Law have something to say about an Occupying Power's obligations not to change the territory it occupies? Or are we saying that International Law has been so often flouted and trampled upon by the great powers since 1945 that International Law has to be written off as a tired dream that never came true? And if the great powers can do it, why should Israel feel bound by International Law?
If this is how you feel about International Law, then I have to agree with your general line of thinking, because the very notion of law includes the notion of sanctions and accountability, and the United Kingdom and the United States, for example, have never been brought to account for the ghastly crimes they have committed since they signed up to the UN Charter.
But if International Law does not exist any more, then don't let us assume that the atrocities that immediately get branded as "terrorism" are not the sub-standard forms of justice and redress that International Law was meant to render obsolete. By ditching International Law we abandon what I dare to call the greatest moral advance in international and intra-national relations that mankind has ever achieved. What does this fact say about our standards of morality?
I think it's telling that no one has been able to come up with a comment in support of Wiesenthal, (unless those were some of the deleted?) It is pretty indefensible. Let us hope people are increasingly able to make the same leap when it comes to living Palestinians.
The proposed museum will be in West Jerusalem. Doesn't International Law have something to say about an Occupying Power's obligations not to change the territory it occupies... the museum is in pre1967 Israel. Apparently Mr OBrien feels that this is occupied too. In fact, anywhere where Jews live is occupied (stolen) territory.
Nowhere in this article is measured that the Islamic Waqf decertified this cemetary in order to build a hotel during the Palestine Mandate. Now, all of a sudden, it becomes holy again when Jews want to build there. Anywhere you dig in Jerusalem, you will find bones. In answer to Mr Altman, I think that the museum will demonstrate that Jews can be tolerated in Jerusalem. Because, this issue is not about a Muslim cemetary, it is (as demonstrated by Mr OBrien) whether Jewish sovereignty is ever legitimate
i echo the author's sentiments that this planned project is ironically off-base in such a setting.
...just wondering, though - do rabbinical students at HUC these days really think "hishtadel l'hiyot ISH" means, be human? do they know Hebrew? Ish does not mean human. it can be translated so well as strive be a "mensch"; be a leader. be upright. being human, by contrast,means...well, making mistakes. :)
Let's see, when the arabs controlled East Jerusalem between 48-67 they systematically destroyed every Jewish synagogue and plowed over every Jewish cemetary, using the larger stones from both as street paving. And of course, they continue their random acts of desecration to this very day. So Wiesenthal wants to build a Jewish center on a piece of land which was legally obtained and the usual suspects, that peculiar brand of Jew who is horrified most by any act of 'insensitivity' displayed by Israeli jews, have got their panties in a knot. What else is new!