The Wiesenthal Center Digs Itself Deeper

Forward
....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.

........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... “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...

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......   Full story