This Week

Wiesenthal Center plans for a costly
Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem
vexes small, older museum.

over T01

Israeli women soldiers stand outside
the Museum on the Seam for
Dialogue, Tolerance and
derstanding in Jerusalem.

SHOSHANA LONDON SAPPIR
Jewish Renaissance Media

T

orn as it is by any number of political, religious
and cultural conflicts, Jerusalem would seem a
pretty good place for an institution whose goal
is to convey the messages of tolerance and civil-

ity.
Yet, a plan by the Simon Wiesenthal Center to build a
Museum of Tolerance in the holy city has so far been the
focus of a new set of conflicts and controversies.
The $120 million center for the promotion of peace and
tolerance, although still in the planning stages, has already
drawn fire from existing cultural institutions as well as city
planners, who question whether it is quite what Jerusalem
needs at this moment.
The Los Angeles-based SWC founder and dean, Rabbi
Marvin Hier, describes the project as a museum and train-
ing center dealing with issues of prejudice, race and ethnic
relations, with a focus on relations between Jews, modeled
on his organization's Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.
A major difference between the two museums, said Hier,
would be that the Israeli one would pointedly avoid the
subject of the Holocaust, out of respect for the special sta-
tus of Yad Vashem as Israel's official Holocaust memorial.

Gehry Design

The center is being designed by world-renowned architect
Frank Gehry and preliminary renderings have gone to
Jerusalem's municipal planning committees. In recognition
of a $40 million gift from fiber-optics magnate Gary
Winnick, the center is to be named the Winnick Institute
Jerusalem.
The building would go up on a lot on Hillel Street, in
the center of Jerusalem, that currently functions as an
informal city plaza with regular artisan fairs on summer
nights.
In the coming months, the plan for the museum will be
open to public objection at City Hall, and the various par-
ties that have been grumbling since it was announced in
1998 will have their last opportunity to try to block it. _
One of those parties is the Museum on the Seam for
Dialogue, Tolerance and Understanding.
Situated in a war-scarred mansion on the line that from
1948 to 1967 separated Israeli west Jerusalem from the
Jordanian east, the $3 million museum is geared towards
high school students. It teaches conflict resolution through
multi-media presentations and activities such as simula-
tions and discussions, much like Los Angeles's Museum of

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7/13
2001

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Photos by Debbie Hill

