Wiesenthal Center aiming for Jerusalem

LOS ANGELES -- The Simon Wiesenthal Center is fully committed to building a $50 million museum in Jerusalem, despite skepticism expressed by some Holocaust scholars.

"We are close to acquiring a property and are putting together an advisory board in Israel whose members will range from the far left to fervently Orthodox haredim," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center's associate dean.

He said the new project will draw on the practical experience derived from running the center's popular Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, which deals with the Holocaust and other outgrowths of racism and ethnic hatred.

However, the Jerusalem museum will not duplicate these themes, Cooper said.

"It would be ludicrous to try and build a second Yad Vashem in Jerusalem," said Cooper, referring to the famed Holocaust memorial in Israel's capital.

No permanent name has been selected for the museum, but Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Wiesenthal Center, used the talmudic phrase Kavod HaBriot, or Respect for Mankind, to indicate the thrust of its mission.

Among other areas, the museum will deal with the last 100 years of Jewish history in Israel and the diaspora, and focus on contemporary issues that represent "flash points" of tension and strife among different segments of the Jewish world.