STATEMENT BY THE SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER ON THE ISRAELI SUPREME COURT RULING ON MUSEUM OF TOLERANCE JERUSALEM (See photo)

February 22, 2006

STATEMENT BY THE SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER  ON THE ISRAELI SUPREME COURT RULING ON MUSEUM OF TOLERANCE JERUSALEM

“The Simon Wiesenthal Center welcomes the decision of the Supreme Court of Israel to appoint former Chief Justice Meir Shamgar as the mediator for a 30-day period to help facilitate a resolution regarding the remains found on the construction site of the Center For Human Dignity - Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem.  This is in keeping with the spirit of our initial presentation to the Court where we offered three separate remedies.  We hope that this mediation period will produce a solution equitable to all parties.”

Support From Key Israeli Leaders

This week, top Israeli leaders reiterated their support for the project.

Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: “This is an essential project for Jerusalem, a landmark that will change the face of Jerusalem forever.  I stand behind it 100% with all my power.”

Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski: “I applaud the creation of the Museum of Tolerance… For the past three decades this land has been utilized as a public car park and it is commendable that it will now serve as the site for this important Museum…I have received your proposal to renovate the old Muslim cemetery adjacent to the Museum’s site and I congratulate you on your initiative.  The cemetery has been neglected for many years.  Your support in renovating it…is a first example of the role of the Museum that is to be established…I have no doubt that the construction of the Museum is vital for the City of Jerusalem and that it will be built rapidly at this site which has been designated for it.”

Background

•The Center For Human Dignity is being built in the heart of West Jerusalem, on land granted to the Simon Wiesenthal Center by the Government of Israel and the City of Jerusalem.  At no time did the Government of Israel or the City of Jerusalem designate the site as a Moslem cemetery.  Rather, it had a legal status as a ‘public open space.’  In fact, for decades, it has served as a paved public municipal parking lot, including an underground four-level parking garage.
                                                            
•On June 7, 1964, the issue of this land was brought before the Sha’aria (Moslem religious law) Court of Appeals.  The Chief Judge ruled that the area including this site was “a Mundras (abandoned burial site)…  that its sanctity has ceased to exist in it... and it is permitted to do whatever is permitted to do in any other land which was never a cemetery…”  This is not only a Judicial ruling, it is a spiritual and moral ruling as well.

•From 1923 to 1931, the Supreme Moslem Council developed a plan to establish a pan-Islamic University on 70 dunam that would have included all of Independence Park and our current site.  The planned campus would have included many large buildings that would have required extensive excavation.  The project was never realized because of lack of funds. (see photo below). It is worth noting that in 1929, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el Husseini, initiated the building of the Palace Hotel in another part of the same cemetery and re-interred dozens of remains found there. 
                                                             
•Over the course of the last five years, throughout the public planning process, the Center For Human Dignity was the subject of hearings at open City Council meetings, through notices published in both Hebrew and Arabic newspapers, and the architectural model was on public display at City Hall.  Throughout those years not a single person or organization came forward to object to the development of site on the grounds that it was a Moslem cemetery.

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