Museum of the Museum of Tolerance to be constructed next to same Museum

The new Museum of the Museum of Tolerance has been constructed near the construction site for the Museum of Tolerance so that visitors can learn about the history of the site.

By CHETH KRANTZMAN
Updated: FEBRUARY 22, 2018 16:39
While the projected date for the opening of the Museum of Tolerance has long passed, the Museum of the Museum of Tolerance is now open to visitors (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
While the projected date for the opening of the Museum of Tolerance has long passed, the Museum of the Museum of Tolerance is now open to visitors
(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
A new museum devoted to documenting the history of the Museum of Tolerance has opened in the capital, even before the original Museum of Tolerance that it documents will be open.
“We’re very proud of this new small museum and the history it will examine,” Mayor Meer Nircat said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony on Hillel Street. The new Museum of the Museum of Tolerance has been constructed near the construction site for the Museum of Tolerance so that visitors can learn about the history of the site. The original Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem broke ground in 2004 when Arnold Schwarzenegger declared “Am Yisrael Hai” at an event that year. It was supposed to be designed by Frank Gehry. Over the years it ran into red tape and hurdles and even a court challenge in 2008. As of 2018 it was still under construction.
However, people can now visit the Museum of the Museum of Tolerance to learn about the history of the project. “The construction of the Museum of Tolerance has been going on for so long that some of the construction materials used in 2005 are now so outdated that we’ve included them in our displays,” said tour guide Moshe Dov- Bear. “So, for instance, here you can see a ladder used in 2006. Ladders like this no longer exist.”
Walking through the hallways of the new edifice, which is located next to the Friends of Zion Museum, one can see some of the ancient computers also used in 2006: “Look at this ancient thing, it still has MySpace, Friendster and AOL, which no one uses anymore.” In the interactive display people can see a CD and DVD player that were used in the original planning phase of the Museum of Tolerance.
“Basically we felt it was very important to document the construction of this museum, through having another museum devoted to the museum,” says Museum of the Museum of Tolerance Director Bob Kob. The museum hopes to have other exhibits soon showing other museums around the world and their processes of construction. It is expected that Paris’s Louvre and its hundreds of years of construction history will have an exhibit, as will the Pantheon of Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwiches in Youngstown, Ohio, which took 45 years to build.