U.S. Muslims, Jews Ask Wiesenthal Center Not to Build on Muslim Cemetery
The Greater Los Angeles Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) and three Jewish groups are calling on the Simon Wiesenthal Center to change the location of a museum it plans to build in Jerusalem because the current site is a Muslim cemetery.
According to historians, the planned museum site was once the largest Muslim cemetery in Palestine. Companions of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and Islamic jurists and scholars are said to be buried there. The Israeli government go-ahead for construction of the museum came only after a lengthy court battle.
An article in yesterday’s Haaretz newspaper states “The Simon Wiesenthal Center has won its day in court. But in doing so, it defeated the very tolerance, human dignity, mutual trust, and brotherhood for which the center stands. What is compassion, what is tolerance, if not the ability to reconsider one’s own actions in the light of the ways in which they may injure others?”
A letter to the Wiesenthal Center, signed by CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush, Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs (Progressive Faith Foundation), Sydney Levy (Jewish Voice for Peace), and Rabbi Haim Beliak (Jews on First) stated in part “Building a ‘Museum of Tolerance’ atop the cemetery, unlike the admirable goal of furthering tolerance and understanding, will only add to the existing pain and suffering of Palestinians and Israelis, irreversibly damage relations between Muslims and Jews worldwide and sow new feelings of animosity and division for generations to come…”
Ayloush urged that burial sites of all faiths be respected “Does Jerusalem not belong to all faiths? We all have a responsibility to promote tolerance through our actions and not just with empty slogans or names on buildings.”
