Can “Tolerance” Be Transfered?

A new $200 million Museum of Tolerance in Israel designed b y Frank Gehry, is drawing skepticism. “In the culminating segment of a film made for the Center’s facilities in Los Angeles and New York, for example, a middle-aged man says: ‘Tolerance is based on a conviction there’s room here for everybody.’ That definition is a profoundly American one, reflecting the reality of a nation with vast space and no existential threats. It sounds irrelevant, even ludicrous, in an Israeli-Palestinian context. In this country, almost no one believes that there is enough land or political power for everybody to share equitably. Which may be why the proposed museum is already drawing withering and widespread criticism, years before its opening.”