When the idea to build a Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem was first conceived, the Simon Wiesenthal Center had no particular location in mind. We were shown various properties by representatives of the Jerusalem Municipality before we were offered the current site in the center of west Jerusalem. The site was jointly owned by the Israel Lands Administration and the Jerusalem Municipality.
Model of the Jerusalem Museum of Tolerance.
Photo: Courtesy
For almost half a century, that parcel functioned as the city's municipal car park (a portion of it included three levels of underground parking), serving the diverse communities of Jerusalem. Everyday, since the 1960s, hundreds of Jews, Christians and Muslims parked their cars there. The city of Jerusalem also laid electrical cables and sewer lines below the ground.
During the High Court hearings, lawyers representing the project's chief opponent, Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the Aksa Association, argued that everyone knew that the site had always been part of a Muslim cemetery. And yet, during the almost half-century that it served as a parking lot, no Muslim group, including today's most vociferous critics of the museum - Hamas, Hizbullah and Gershon Baskin, of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information - raised a word of protest. Where were their expressions of outrage and indignation about the graves of their ancestors then? This was not just a lapse of a few weeks or a few months - we're talking about a half a century.
When the project was in its design stage, a model of the Frank Gehry design was placed at Jerusalem's city hall for a week, followed by newspaper ads announcing the new project in Hebrew, Arabic and English. Not a word of protest was heard from any one.
They were silent because, as the High Court said, "...the area has not been classified as a cemetery for decades." The bones found during construction were between 100 and 300 years old. They were unaccompanied by a single marker or monument identifying any individual name, family or religion.
WHY IS that? Because Jerusalem is more than 3,000 years old. Because every stone and parcel of land has a history that is revered by people of many faiths. Hardly a street or neighborhood is without bones or relics. We could declare Jerusalem one large cemetery, off limits to everyone - a city of the past, with no future - or we could find a better way in which the past is revered and respected, without impeding or choking off the future.
Muslim scholars and religious leaders have dealt with such issues for centuries, and in seeking to resolve such difficulties ruled that a cemetery not in use for 37 years is considered mundras - an abandoned cemetery that has lost its sanctity. In fact, in 1946, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, a supporter of Hitler, presented plans to build a Muslim university of 15 buildings on the entire Mamilla cemetery (now Independence Park). In fact, we submitted the drawings of that proposed university to the High Court. The mufti was relying on the concept of mundras‚ which was and is invoked throughout the Muslim world. Today, it is widely sanctioned and practiced throughout the Arab world, in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian territories.
While Judaism does not have a mundras concept, Halacha also dictates a sensitive and practical way to deal with such issues. To suddenly demand that Jews be held to a higher standard than the Muslims hold for themselves is preposterous, dishonest and hypocritical.
It is important to note that the Simon Wiesenthal Center did not initiate the proceedings before the High Court; Sheikh Salah did. The court immediately ordered mediation between the parties to be conducted by former court president Meir Shamgar. Our center was very sensitive to the issue and offered numerous compromises, but they were all rejected out-of-hand by Sheikh Salah, who insisted that the court rule on the matter. Now that after two years of deliberation, the court has handed down a 119-page unanimous verdict in favor of the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem, Sheikh Salah, who sought the court's relief, is agitating against its decision because he lost.
Gershon Baskin has it totally wrong. It is not those who lie beneath the ground who threaten the stability of the Middle East. It is the blind hatred and intolerance of extremists above the ground which impede any prospects for civility and peace.
From this half-century former parking lot in the center of west Jerusalem will rise an institution that offers hope and reason to all the people of Israel and the world. We are committed to the high praise given to our project by the High Court in its decision which emphasized the great importance of the Museum of Tolerance to the development of the center of Jerusalem as well as its ethical importance in advancing the values of tolerance, human dignity, mutual trust, brotherhood and the advancement of democratic values.
LET ME end with a translation of part of that court ruling: "The importance and benefit of realizing the plan to build the Museum of Tolerance in the center of the city of Jerusalem are very great. The Museum of Tolerance embodies an ideal of establishing a spiritual center that will spread a message of human tolerance between peoples, between sectors of the population and between man and his fellow-man. The establishment of the museum is likely to make an important national contribution to the whole country, in which no center has yet been built with the purpose of addressing the issue of tolerance in all its aspects, and to bring about the assimilation of this idea among the general public.
"This center is supposed to serve as an important focus of attention both in Israel and for the countries of the world. It is supposed to attract visitors from throughout Israel and from around the world, who will visit it and encounter the conceptual, architectural and artistic experience that it is intended to express. The location of the museum in the center of Jerusalem has special significance, since it is a city that has a special ethical significance for three religions and an ancient history, which is unique to human civilization.
