HAARETZ REPORT: Jerusalem Museum of Tolerance controversy explored [links]

Haaretz released a series of articles Tuesday exploring the controversy surrounding the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem.  The following are links to the stories. We also include below a video in which Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles discusses in depth the Jerusalem Museum of Tolerance project.

Check back for updates and further development.

Part 1

Holes, Holiness and Hollywood

Sometimes a lack of sensitivity or even an innocent mistake exposes a major truth. On the Web site of Moriah, a public company for infrastructure work that belongs to the Jerusalem municipality, one can find descriptions of various projects in which the company is involved. Among them is the Museum of Tolerance: “The Simon Wiesenthal Center, the entrepreneur for the construction of the Museum of Tolerance in central Jerusalem, asked Moriah to carry out preparatory and infrastructure work for the project,” says the site. Immediately afterward, under the heading “Objective,” it says: “Carrying out infrastructure work, removal of nuisances in the area of the project …” What the site calls “nuisances” are in fact skeletons, bones and skulls. Hundreds of skeletons that were buried in Jerusalem’s central Muslim cemetery over a period of some 1,000 years.

Read the full story at ” title=”HAARETZ.com” target=”_blank”>HAARETZ.com.

Part 3

Unearthing a legal morass

The prolonged and tangled court proceedings began at the beginning of 2006, when the Al-Aqsa Corporation, founded by the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, filed a petition seeking to stop work at the site.

Read the full story at ” title=”Time to bury the project with the bones” target=”_blank”>Time to bury the project with the bones
” title=”Emotional games” target=”_blank”>Emotional games