Contesting Symbolic Landscape in Jerusalem

Jewish/Islamic Conflict over the Museum of Tolerance at Mamilla Cemetery

In 2006, a dispute broke out regarding an initiative by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles (backed by Israeli authorities) to construct a Museum of Tolerance (MoT) in West Jerusalem. The museum was to be built on a plot of land that in the past had been part of the historic Muslim Mamilla Cemetery. Debate centered on whether construction of a museum dedicated to human dignity on Muslim cemeterial land was justified. Yitzhak Reiter presents the public and legal dilemmas at the individual level, the political level, and at the universal level, integrating a multidisciplinary approach involving history, identity politics, and conflict resolution. The Mamilla dispute reflects a microcosm of conflicts over religious and national symbols of cultural heritage as well as Jewish majority–Arab minority tensions within Israel.