Museum of Tolerance
Location	9786 W. Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, California
Type	Holocaust memorials
Website	http://www.museumoftolerance.com

The Museum of Tolerance (MOT), a multimedia museum in Los Angeles, California, USA, with an associated museum and professional development multi-media training facility in New York City, is designed to examine racism and prejudice in the United States and the world with a strong focus on the history of the Holocaust. The MOT has expanded to Jerusalem, where a "Museum of Tolerance and Human Dignity" is currently under construction. It is sponsored by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Contents 1 Los Angeles 1.1 Criticism 2 Jerusalem 2.1 Criticism 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Los Angeles

The original museum in Los Angeles, California opened in 1993. The museum receives 350,000 visitors annually, about a third of which are school-age children. The museum's most talked-about exhibit is "The Holocaust Section," where visitors are divided into groups to take their own place in some of the events of World War II. These experiences are then discussed afterwards. The museum also features testimonies of Holocaust survivors, often from live volunteers who tell their stories and answer questions. People also get cards with pictures of Jewish children on them and at the end of the museum trip, it is revealed whether the child on the card survived or died in the Holocaust.

In addition, the museum features a "Tolerancenter" that discusses issues of prejudice in everyday life, a Multimedia Learning Center, Finding Our Families-Finding Ourselves, a collection of archives and documents, various temporary exhibits, and an Arts and Lectures Program.

A classroom visit to the museum is featured in the 2007 movie Freedom Writers, based on the real-life story of high school teacher Erin Gruwell and her students. The museum was parodied in an episode of South Park called "The Death Camp of Tolerance".

[edit] Criticism

One of the primary criticisms of the Museum of Tolerance is that its exhibits use excessive multimedia technology to appeal to and manipulate the emotions of children. The museum uses fast-paced skits, dioramas, films, and interactive computer-controlled exhibits in an effort to make an emotional impact on visitors. For most of the tour, actual historical artifacts are absent, and a select few are shown at the end. Some critics have suggested that this is hypocritical, likening the use of emotionally-charged media to the propaganda used by the Nazi Party during the Holocaust. The South Park episode The Death Camp of Tolerance features the museum and implicitly makes the same criticism, implying that attempts to force tolerance on people are just as oppressive as the discriminatory forces they are fighting against. However, others have responded that this use of media is an effective way to get the museum's message through to children and foster understanding of prejudice.^[1][2]

[edit] Jerusalem

In 2005, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's (SWC) Rabbi Marvin Hier announced plans to construct a "Museum of Tolerance and Human Dignity" in place of a four-story underground parking structure adjacent to Jerusalem's Independence Park. The park is on the grounds of Mamilla Cemetery. The project aims to promote tolerance amongst Jewish populations within Israel, including Ashkenazim, Mizrahim, Ethiopians, Russians, and others. The new museum complex has been designed by Frank Gehry for downtown Jerusalem, to resemble a fruit bowl.

[edit] Criticism

The MOT-Jerusalem has been criticized for its location adjacent to a Muslim cemetery, one of the most important Muslim cemeteries in the region. The Mamilla cemetery contains the graves of many important Islamic saints and scholars, as well as several Mamluk tombs.^[3][4] The SWC counters that the cemetery was long ago deconsecrated by Islamic leaders, and that secular Arab leaders prior to the creation of the State of Israel had planned various development projects there.^[5] During Turkish rule, graves were moved from the cemetery to build a hotel. The hotel still stands, and is being renovated by Waldorf-Astoria. This argument has in turn been challenged in the Israeli legal system, but the argument was rejected by Israel's high court.

While the location of the MOT-Jerusalem adjacent to a Muslim graveyard has elicited the most media attention, architectural, archaeological and social critiques have accompanied the project throughout its course. Haaretz architecture critic Esther Zandberg has critiqued the location of an ostentatious Gehry design at the heart of Jerusalem, arguing that Jerusalem is not Bilbao.^[6] Others have expressed concern over the focus of the museum on tolerance amongst Jews, rather than tolerance between Jews and Arabs.^[7] The plan has been severely criticized by both Israelis and Palestinians. Construction had been stayed several times by the courts before allowing it to continue.^[8][9]

A museum dedicated to fostering tolerance between Jews and Arabs, the "Museum on the Seam," is located less than one mile north-east of the proposed site of the Museum of Tolerance. It sits on the "Green Line" that divided Israel and Jordan from 1948-1967. Similarly, there are many organizations in Israel dedicated to religious co-existence between Jews, Muslims, and Christians.

In fall, 2008, the Israeli Supreme Court cleared "the way for L.A.'s Simon Wiesenthal Center to build a Holy Land counterpart to its Museum of Tolerance on Pico Boulevard."^[10]

On November 19, 2008 a group of US Jewish and Muslim leaders sent a letter to the Wiesenthal Center to halt the construction of the Museum of Tolerance on a historic Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem.^[11]

[edit] See also

• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Experiencing the Jewish Holocaust in Los Angeles: The Beit Hashoah—Museum of Tolerance, review essay by Harold Marcuse, Other Voices, v2.1, Feb. 2000.

Coordinates: 34°03′13.09″N 118°24′06.05″W / 34.0536361°N 118.4016806°W / 34.0536361; -118.4016806