The Simon Wiesenthal Center should build the so-called “Center for Human Dignity – Museum of Tolerance” in a different location. The current site, the Mamilla cemetery, holds the graves of generations of Jerusalemites.
This week sixty descendants of individuals buried in Jerusalem’s most ancient Muslim cemetery petitioned several UN bodies to halt the continued desecration of the burial site. 
 
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, with the backing of the Israeli Government and courts, are building a so-called “Center for Human Dignity – Museum of Tolerance” over part of the Mamilla cemetery, which holds the graves of generations of Jerusalemites, and dates back to at least the 12th century. Among those buried in Mamilla are revered Muslim saints, religious scholars and important political figures, as well as members of most of Jerusalem’s best known families, including my own.
 
This project has been opposed by Israeli and Palestinian NGOS, reform and orthodox rabbis, Christian and Muslim clergyman, as well as the 60 members of 15 petitioning Jerusalem families with ancestors buried in the cemetery. Notwithstanding the Wiesenthal Center’s claims, there have indeed been decades of opposition to previous desecrations of this sacred site, such as the building of a parking lot there in the early 1960’s, all of which have been ignored by the Israeli authorities. 
 
The desecration of any cemetery is unacceptable. But this is no ordinary cemetery. In it are interred notable historical figures such as al-Amir ‘Isa al-Hakkari, a distinguished religious scholar and advisor to Saladin, who died in 1190, three years after the Holy City was retaken from the Crusaders. One of al-Hakkari’s direct descendants joined the , current petition. 
 
In contrast to the massacre of Jerusalem’s Muslim, Jewish and Orthodox Christian population by the Crusaders in 1099, the city’s inhabitants were spared by Saladin in 1187 when he retook the city. Not only is the cemetery an important historical and world heritage site, but ironically enough, it is a testament to a bygone era of relative tolerance and civility in Jerusalem. 
 
The Israeli government’s decision to allow the construction of the Museum of Tolerance on this sacred site is an example of gross intolerance, and a violation of both international human rights law and Israeli law. Israel has an obligation to protect such sites, but as of the end of 2008, of the 137 designated holy sites in Israel, all are Jewish and none are Christian or Muslim. 
 
The building of a “Center for Human Dignity – Museum of Tolerance” on this site involves a disconcerting collaboration between the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Israeli authorities, consummated over the disinterred remains of generations of Jerusalem’s history makers. 
 
Rabbi Marvin Hier, Dean of the SWC, has said that remains “going back only three or four hundred years” were disinterred during the excavation for his Museum. Where they were re-buried and by whom is unknown. Readers should think how they would feel if the graves of their ancestors going back centuries were similarly desecrated, and their remains buried in unknown sites, without benefit of the appropriate religious rites? 
 
New Yorkers may recall how the remains of African Americans buried in lower Manhattan several hundred years ago were ultimately treated after they were discovered a few years ago: with the respect due to the descendants of those early New Yorkers whose lives and deaths shed light on the city’s past. We ask no more than the same treatment from those responsible in Jerusalem, just as we would ask that Jewish and Christian cemeteries around the world be accorded due reverence and protection. 
 
This is why we are asking that this ancient and noble cemetery be respected and made a world heritage site, that the hundreds of graves, human remains and artifacts dug up in the process of building the museum be reinterred in coordination with legitimate Muslim authorities. Finally, we ask that this museum -- should it truly want to live up to its name -- be built elsewhere.