This is Outrageous.
The Associated Press reports:
The Supreme Court on Wednesday gave a final go ahead to the creation of a Jerusalem museum dedicated to tolerance and coexistence, rejecting appeals by Muslims who object to construction because the site covers part of an ancient Muslim cemetery.
A court statement said judges ruled that since no objections had been lodged in 1960 when the city put a parking lot over a small section of the graveyard they would not block construction of the museum on that same site now.
The Museum of Tolerance aims to bridge this contentious city’s warring tribes together. But its planning alone has sparked a fight with political, religious and historical dimensions between Muslims and Jews.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Los Angeles-based Jewish organization behind the project, welcomed the court ruling and said work on the $250 million museum would resume immediately after a two-year delay caused by the legal proceedings.
“All citizens of Israel, Jews and non-Jews, are the real beneficiaries of this decision,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Wiesenthal Center, in a statement.
Israeli Islamic movement spokesman Zahi Nujidat, however, condemned the court for what he called “clear religious and ethnic oppression”.
The court sought to reconcile religious attitudes for respecting the dead with the legal requirements and gave project managers 60 days to agree with the state-run Antiquities Authority on a method of either removing any human remains for reburial or installing a barrier between the building’s foundations and the ground below which would prevent graves from being disturbed.
The cemetery, with graves the court said dated back 300-400 years, fell out of use after the creation of Israel in 1948. But many of its headstones are still visible, crumbling among trees in what has become the heart of the Jewish side of the city. Part of the cemetery is now known as Independence Park.
Another section was sold in the 1930s, at the initiative of the top Muslim clergyman of Jerusalem, to become a hotel.
The museum’s Muslim opponents found unexpected allies in their struggle: Ultra-Orthodox Jews, who aren’t known for their sympathy for Arab causes but who care about preserving graves.
Few things bring tears to my eyes anymore. This does.
Welcome back!
I missed you guys. I was afraid the website was down forever.
It kinda makes me wonder what the Museum of Tolerance is about. Tolerance of what? Jewish power?
This is sick! How hypocritical. Is there a petition, or anywhere we can write letters voicing our disapproval?
Welcome back, Jewschool.
But what happened to all the posts between July 14 and October 29? And where were you for the last few weeks?
Sorry for the absence — we didn’t want anyone to accidentally desecrate Shemini Atzeret, that most sacred and of obscure of holidays, and things rapidly got out of hand.
That, and technical difficulties, of course.
We’re not out of the technical woods yet, and rest assured that finding the missing posts is a high priority of the Jewschool team.
Noga Tarnopolsky wrote about this last year for Guilt & Pleasure Quarterly, in a detailed and insightful article entitle “DEATH IN JERUSALEM: What happens when a Muslim cemetery meets the Holocaust? Hint: it’s not a Hollywood movie.” Definitely worth reading if you find this issue interesting (or disturbing).
Click here for that article:
http://www.guiltandpleasure.com/index.php?site=rebootgp&page=gp_article&id=52
Things are not always as simple as they appear.
Yes-this is bad. But…
The majority of the cemetery was sold to wealthy Palestinians before 1948 and the Palace Hotel (on Agron Street) was built on the site. It went under after the King David became the top hotel and is now becoming a Hilton. The OK was given, back then, to build by Muslim religious authorities who wrote that the spot no longer held the sanctity of a cemetery (I do not know the details of the opinion nor much about Islamic law and cemeteries).
Most of the rest of what was the cemetery is today covered by a parking lot (also built with the OK of the Muslim religious authorities back then).
So, very little is left. There have been offers to build above (and leave the graveyard in place) or relocate.
The Muslim religious officials today disagree with the previous ruling.
Of all people, we Jews, know that burial places are sacred. But there is a lot of politics on this specific case on both sides and it is being milked by those who wish to promote unrelated interests.
Well, Yad Vashem was built on top of a cleansed Palestinian village and the Kotel plaza was built on top bulldozed houses of the residents who were forcibly relocated to what is now the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem.
So continues a long history of ugly irony in Israeli symbolism…
Interesting. What happens when liberal sentiment and traditional beliefs collide?
What if instead, a gay pride parade was planned, whose route would be over the same graveyard. Imagine the ambivalent feelings it must engender in liberals.
If I’m not mistaken, this IS liberal sentiment colliding with religious tradition. You know, Museum of TOLERANCE and whatnot.
And your hypothesis has no basis. Many marchers in Pride are Cohanim, and that wouldn’t go well with them.
Going off on a tangent. What’s with the symbol politics in Israel these days anyway? Is it because they accomplish so little in the real world they need to distract themselves with gesture politics?
The museum of “tolerance” is not the only example. A couple of years back it was decided that Israel’s basic law should include the right to … a lot of stuff people need to live comfortably. Anyway, what’s the purpose of writing this into law? If you can’t provide it, it’s just a useless piece of paper.
B.BarNavi: Sorry, but just to clarify for you. Despite (or perhaps clearly BECAUSE of the name), the “Museum of Tolerance” is NOT a “liberal” organization. The organization behind it, the Simon Wiesenthal Center based in the U.S., was founded by Rabbi Marvin Hier (not exactly a liberal), who still runs the place. The board chair and one of the key players in the organization’s founding is Larry Mizel, a major Republican donor based in Colorado. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has done some great work and has even allied itself with some other organizations one might term “liberal,” but it remains a decidedly mainstream, if not right-of-center, institution.
Here are all the addresses to protest:
I received them from IPCRI – Israeli/Palestinian Center for Research and Information in Jerusalem (where I live) and they call for action:
“..raise your voices – write to your own governments urging them to pressure the Israeli government to cease the construction of the Museum in that location.”
Useful addresses and contacts:
President Marvin Hier, Dean, Wiesenthal Center
Fax: ++1-310-553-4521
email: [email protected]
President Shimon Peres
Fax: ++972-2-567-1314
email: [email protected]
Prime Minister Olmert
Fax: +972-2-670-5475
email: [email protected]
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni
Fax: ++972-2-530-3367
email: [email protected]
Mayor of Jerusalem
Fax: ++972-2-629-6014
email: [email protected]
Sfardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Shlomo Amar
Fax: ++972-2-537-1305
email: [email protected]
Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi
Fax: ++972-2-537-7872
email: [email protected]
President Mahmoud Abbas
Fax: ++972-2-240-9648
Prime Minister Salam Fayyad
Fax: ++972-2- 295-0970
Foreign Minister Riad Malki
Fax: ++970-2-240-3372 or ++972-2-240-3372
email: [email protected]
I personally know the author of the message and know that (if not by typing mistake) the addresses and numbers are correct!