Works begins on Jerusalem Museum of Tolerance, despite protests
Petition to the United Nations to stop construction claims the site was once a medieval Muslim cemetery.
By The Associated Press Tags: Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem Israel newsThe Simon Wiesenthal Center said Monday it hopes to start building its Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem in the coming months despite a petition to the United Nations to stop construction because the site was once a medieval Muslim cemetery.
Since the Supreme Court's unanimous green light in late December for the project to go ahead, preparatory work has started and we are now down to bedrock, said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Los Angeles-based international Jewish human rights organization named for the late Nazi hunter.
In addition to 300- to 400-year-old human remains found earlier that have already been reburied in a Muslim cemetery, Cooper said workers discovered a wine press, part of the Herodian aqueduct that ran from Hebron to Jerusalem at the time of Jesus, and ancient coins from the Macabbean and Hashemite period.
The site had been a busy underground parking lot since 1960 and Cooper said 40,000 live telephone lines were also discovered, so new cables are needed as well as slight movements of streets before construction starts, he said.
"But we're hoping in the next couple of months to begin construction," Cooper said.
After the Supreme Court rejected their 2008 appeal to stop construction of the museum, Palestinian and international human rights activists petitioned the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva last month to try to block the museum.
But any response from the UN's top rights official would carry only moral weight and is not legally binding.
Rania Madi of the Palestinian rights group BADIL, said construction of the museum would violate Muslim religious and cultural rights, and such a project would never have been undertaken if the site was home to Jewish graves.
The petition is signed by about 60 people who say their relatives are buried in the Mamilla cemetery. Palestinians say people were laid to rest there as early as the 14th century and until the 1930s.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center contends that the museum is being constructed on a parking lot that no Muslims objected to building in 1960.
Cooper said that three days after the petition to the UN was filed, a blogger unearthed a Nov. 22, 1945 article in the Palestine Post related to the Mamilla cemetery.
Much to our utter amazement it talked about an announcement by the Supreme Muslim Council of Palestine to dig up a good part of the cemetery and build factories, a hotel and university, not on what would be our piece but on the actual cemetery, he said.
Cooper said the article referred to the Muslim concept of Mundras which says that if a cemetery isn't use for 33 to 37 years it loses its sanctity and therefore the space can be used for other activities.
This adds to the Wiesenthal Center's contention that opponents of the museum are trying to run the clock, he said.
The museum will be modeled on an existing one in Los Angeles that opened in 1993 and receives over 250,000 visits a year.
Cooper said the museum will use interactive technology to present scenarios on social issues of the day including hate crimes and terrorism, he said.
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KS, The Simon Wiesenthal Center needs a lesson in tolerance. They're trying to build this on top of a thousand year old Muslim cemetery. To say that's "tolerance" is a complete joke. If the Arabs did this to a Jewish cemetery it would be "anti-Semitic." Why the double standard??
The Wiesenthal Center's decision to continue Israel's desecration of a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem should come as no surprise to anyone who has watched Zionist efforts to deny the existence of the Palestinian people ("a land without people for a people without land"), denigrate the Palestinians as sub-human (Golda Meir, Moyse Dyan), justify the continued theft of Palestinian land and imprison 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. For Israel the "Peace Process" is an ethnic cleansing process. Netanyahu made this clear with the announcement of 1600 more Jewish dwellings in east Jerusalem. As did Ron Nachman, mayor of Ariel, the Zionist settlement in the West Bank, when he said to Roger Cohen (New York Times, March 16, 2009) "there ?can be no Palestinian state,? and that ?Israel and Jordan should divide the land.? Wiesenthal's Museum of Ethnic Cleansing is a piece with Israel's strategies to rid themselves of the people whose land they declared their own in 1948.
it to Jerusalem. The Arabs need to see it
Why so many museums around the world..are you all afraid of being forgotten...believe me...you never will... TATA
When an insurance company (Czech Insurance - Česká pojišťovna) in Prague was building its new house in the centre of Prague, was found remnants of old jewish cemetery, which was abolished in 16. century. Albeit, cemetery was abolished in 16. century, came group of ultraorthodox jesw and started massive hysterical yowling and ranting about desecration of jewish graves. Insurance company was very tolerant and built concrete sarcophagus, which sterilized remnants of jewish graves. But in Jerusalem will be destroyed non-jewish graves, because jews want to build jewish institution. So, who is tolerant??? I think, that jews aren't it.
The article clearly states that the museum is being built on what have been an underground car park 1960. Unlike the US, Israel is a tiny country and Jerusalem is just a town by US standards. Anywhere you dig in Jerusalem you will find some ancient artifacts or remains. We have to go on living here. Remains that are found will be removed for reburial (which is more than would happen in most other countries). The Supream court has the final word and it has made its decision, so it's about time that Haaretz respect that decision and drop it already.
How can the Israelis expect the Palestinians to repect their holy sites when they don't respect theirs? Nothing is ever one sided... Dutch
Will you walk in this museum and see in a big glass display case, Tolerance stuffed, but in a very lifelike pose? There'll probably be a little sign under it which says 'Tolerance, tracked down and shot decades ago. There are rumours of some examples of Tolerance still living wild in Israel and the Territories, but there have been no confirmed sightings since the early 1990s and the natural habitat of Tolerance is increasingly being destroyed by settlement expansion, rising religious extremism on all sides, and construction of this museum.'
Construction should cease immediately on this cemetery of historical and archaeological importance. Human decency alone demands respect for the deceased. Building a "Museum of Tolerance" is an insult to people of all faiths whether Muslim, Jewish or Christian and clearly demonstrates that The Simon Wiesenthal Center is in fact a most IN-tolerant and bullying organization that is not willing to build its museum on other sites which have been offered.
Why would anyone in the right mind try to build a cynically named "Museum of Tolerance" of top of an ancient cemetery? This seems to be a frontal assault to respect the dead, indepedent of what religious faiths we are talking about. I just found out that the Council of Reform Rabbis in US are dead against this also. Sounds crazy to me.