In his Sept. 16 op-ed in J., Ori Nir wrote that he told his 16-year-old daughter that “an American Jewish organization, the Wiesenthal Center, is building a museum, in the name of tolerance, smack on Jerusalem’s historic Muslim cemetery. Yes, I’m serious. Bones had been dug up and moved to allow for this monstrosity to rise, over the protest of Israel’s Muslim community and of many Israeli Jews.”
For the record, the Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance is being built on the site of a parking lot, not a cemetery.
Surely Mr. Nir, director of communications and public engagement for Americans for Peace Now, knows that fact, but instead chose to repeat the mantra of notorious Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the extremists’ northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel and a Hamas operative. (To read Nir’s piece, “American Jewish progressives must act to defend their values in Israel,” see www.tinyurl.com/jweekly-nir).
Mr. Nir surely knows that the Israeli Supreme Court deliberated for almost three years before unanimously rejecting all of Sheikh Salah’s claims and authorizing the Wiesenthal Center to build.
Still, Sheikh Salah, never deterred by the truth, continues to allege that in the name of tolerance, our bulldozers actually invaded the adjacent Mamilla Cemetery, desecrating ancient Muslim tombstones and historic markers. But the Supreme Court found that the museum is not being built on what can rightfully be called the Mamilla Cemetery, but on a three-acre site in West Jerusalem that, for more than half a century, served as the city’s municipal car park. Each day, hundreds of Jews, Muslims and Christians parked in the three-level structure without any protests. In the 1960s, telephone, electrical cables and sewer lines were laid deep below the structure, eliciting zero protest.
The Supreme Court noted in its ruling, “for almost 50 years the compound has not been a part of the cemetery, both in the normative sense and in the practical sense, and it was used for various public purposes.” It also noted: “During all those years no one raised any claim, on even one occasion, that the planning procedures violated the sanctity of the site, or that they were contrary to the law as a result of the historical and religious uniqueness of the site … For decades this area was not regarded as a cemetery by the general public or by the Muslim community … No one denied this position.”
In fact, the entire area of the Mamilla Cemetery had long been regarded by Muslim religious leaders as mundras, an abandoned cemetery. A cemetery not in use for 37 years is mundras and without sanctity. That explains why in 1946 the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem presented plans to build a Muslim university on the actual Mamilla Cemetery.
Though Judaism does not have a mundras concept, the Supreme Court noted in its decision that “despite the Jewish religious law prohibitions … to prevent the removal of graves or building on top of them, in practice, in cases where public needs required this, an agreed Jewish law solution has usually been found, and this allowed the building to be carried out in a way that minimized … the violation of the graves. … Jewish religious law also allows, as we have said, the removal of graves in a dignified manner. Solutions of this kind were also proposed by the respondents [Simon Wiesenthal Center], and they even agreed to pay all the expenses involved in them.”
Critics such as the Council on American Islamic Relations, Americans for Peace Now and the Center for Constitutional Rights argue that the Museum of Tolerance should abide by a higher standard. We do, as the above quote from the court confirms. When we first heard of protests against our plan, 10 years ago, our lawyers attempted to meet with Salah but were rebuffed. The Supreme Court’s mediator tried, but fared no better. We offered solutions to build without disturbing the bones — also rejected. We offered to restore the neglected and virtually abandoned nearby Mamilla Cemetery — not interested.
For years, Simon Wiesenthal Center officials attended planning and Jerusalem City Council meetings, and placed ads announcing the project in Arabic and Hebrew newspapers. During all the years, while millions were spent, not a single protest alleged that the parking lot was part of the Mamilla Cemetery.
During excavations on our site, the Israel Antiquities Authority found artifacts including a wine press dating back to Solomon’s Temple, and bones that are 300 to 400 years old. Those remains were respectfully reinterred in a Muslim cemetery.
Jerusalem is an ancient city. Its neighborhoods sit atop history’s remnants. We could declare Jerusalem off-limits, a city of the past with no future, or we could find a better way to honor the past. The Museum of Tolerance in the heart of Jerusalem will honor that past and safeguard the future of all our children, Ori Nir’s daughter included.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper is associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which is headquartered in Los Angeles.