SINCE THE Museum of Tolerance opened in 1993, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda and Darfur have been inscribed in the book of mass extermination.Clearly, there is no lack of work to do for an L.A. institution dedicated to documenting the human race's blood lust while fighting prejudice in hopes of remaking homo sapiens in a more humane image.
"I was not that naive to think that evil would be expunged," says Rabbi Marvin Hier, looking back on the 31 years since he founded the museum's parent human rights and Holocaust remembrance organization, the Simon Wiesenthal Center. "But I never thought that so soon after the world became aware of the ovens of Auschwitz we would have places like these . . . that people would have the chutzpah to say, 'So what? We can do what we want,' and get away with it."
Images of the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Einstein are among the attractions at the Museum of Tolerance's Youth Action Lab, a high-tech classroom and exhibition space for teaching elementary through high school kids about prejudice. The Los Angeles museum has just finished a $13-million makeover of its auditorium and several exhibits.
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ReplyDeleteI did want to comment on Rabbi Marvin Hier's statement: "But I never thought that so soon after the world became aware of the ovens of Auschwitz we would have places like these . . . that people would have the chutzpah to say, 'So what? We can do what we want,' and get away with it."
If Rabbi Hier wants an answer to the implied question he poses--how is this still possible--then he need only look under his nose. Or perhaps in the mirror. The current treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli (and US) government, settlers, and indirectly the entire population of Israel (since it's a democracy, therefore responsible for the gov't's policies) gives a good answer. Humans can rationalize anything--genocide, ethnic cleansing, repression. Usually the rationalization is self-defense or some similar righteousness, as Rabbi Hier is demonstrating in this quote. Usually, there's a grain of truth to the rationalization, and a bucketful of uglier reasons--greed, power, racism... People like Rabbi Hier and the Anti-Defamation League's Abraham Foxman are examples of this, unfortunately. (People who work under Foxman at the ADL can't stand his reactionary politics, racism, and authoritarian nature, but he raises and controls the $$$.)
For people like the Rabbi, I recommend a dose of Matthew 7:5. Or Albert Einstein, who pointed out the injustice of ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their homes in 1948 in order to create a "Jewish state". Or MLK, who spoke eloquently in his NYC Riverside Church address of 4/4/1967 of the US gov't being "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." US backing is the essential ingredient for continued Israeli repression of the Palestinians. Reverend King would certainly recognize this, as yet another example of a bad example, just as he saw the US government as a bad example to African-American youth of resolving conflict through violence.
However, I suspect none of what I just mentioned is in the curriculum taught at the Museum of Tolerance's Youth Action Lab. Hopefully, the young people who go through the Lab will at least be able to ask questions about places like Palestine and apply the lessons, when their teachers fail to do so. If youth can apply the lessons despite their teachers' failures, we have hope that the future will be free from these injustices. If their teachers' double-standards serve as the operative example, then we have little reason to hope for a better future.
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