Saturday, September 27, 2008

MUSEUM OF TOLERANCE UPDATE: In an LA Times article on the Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance there's this:
In Jerusalem, a proposal to build a second Museum of Tolerance, designed by Frank Gehry and costing more than $200 million, is being deliberated by Israel's Supreme Court. Should it go forward, some fear, the project could further aggravate Israeli-Palestinian relations. When construction began early in 2006 on what had long been a parking lot, builders found bones from an abandoned Muslim cemetery said to date from the time of the Crusades. Israeli Arab groups sued to stop the project. [Founder Rabbi Marvin] Hier says he received an e-mail from the Supreme Court two months ago saying it would render a decision soon.

"We expect to win handily," he says, and with $115 million already raised, construction would resume immediately upon a favorable ruling. "You'll have protests for two or three days," then things will go back to normal, he predicted.

Ran Boytner, director of international research at UCLA's Cotsen Institute for Archaeology, is not so sure. As head of the Israeli-Palestinian Archaeology Working Group, the Israeli-born scholar is trying to write ground rules for cooperation between the sides to protect ancient sites. Building on a former Muslim graveyard could be "a galvanizing event," says Boytner, who thinks protests could be vehement "because of the symbolic importance of who is building the building. This is the Museum of Tolerance."
Background here.