New Yorkers protest Islamophobia (Photo: Bud Korotzer)
A coalition of four Jewish groups, backed by a wide array of peace and justice organizations, held a demonstration Sept. 16 outside the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance in New York, denouncing the organization’s opposition to the Islamic community center in lower Manhattan.
Organized by Jews Say No!, American Jews for a Just Peace, Jewish Voice for Peace and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, about 100 demonstrators walked in front of the museum on East 42nd Street in midtown Manhattan, chanting “Islamophobia isn’t pretty, it has no place in New York City” and “Islamophobia is a shame, New Yorkers say not in our name.”
“If you’re going to put tolerance in your name, you got to put it in your game, and the Museum of Tolerance has not done that,” Jon Moscow, an activist with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, told members of the press. “Statements that its leaders have been making have been feeding this frenzy of Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism.”
As the Cordoba House controversy, manufactured and fueled by far-right blogs and the right-wing press, heated up, Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, appeared on Fox News in early August and criticized the proposed Muslim community center.
“Having a 15-story mosque within 1600 feet of the site is at the very least insensitive,” Hier said.
The Park 51 Muslim community center, of which the Cordoba House interfaith center will be a part, has sparked an acrimonious national debate over Islam and religious freedom, setting the stage for an upsurge in anti-Muslim sentiment across the United States.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center describes itself as an “international Jewish human rights organization” that promotes “human rights and dignity.”
The Wiesenthal Center’s executive director, Rabbi Meyer May, told Crain’s New York that “religious freedom does not mean being insensitive … or an idiot.”
“The museum says its aim is ‘to challenge people of all backgrounds to confront their most closely held assumptions and assume responsibility for change.’ That’s a beautiful vision. But it’s one that is wholly inconsistent with the actions of the museum’s leadership,” said Hannah Schwarzschild of American Jews for a Just Peace.
Demonstrators also harshly criticized the center’s decision to build a Jerusalem branch of the Museum of Tolerance on top of a centuries-old Muslim cemetery, known as the Mamilla cemetery. They said that the center’s project, which has resulted in the “disinterment of hundreds of graves,” according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, is another example of the center disregarding the rights of Muslims.
“I’m just going to take a minute to tell you a new definition of a Yiddish word called ‘chutzpah.’ … It refers to brazen nerve,” said Richard Levy, a lawyer working with the Center for Constitutional Rights on a petition filed with several international bodies to halt the construction of the museum in Jerusalem. “This cemetery, which stands in West Jerusalem for a thousand years, is now subject to the bulldozer of this organization. So that’s the meaning of the word chutzpah: to say you stand for tolerance, and perform that kind of an act, is the most despicable kind of hypocrisy.”
Also speaking at the demonstration was Debbie Almontaser, herself the victim of a anti-Muslim, anti-Arab smear campaign reminiscent of the controversy over the Park 51 project that ultimately forced her to resign as the founding principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, a dual-language Arabic public school in Brooklyn.
“Why are the museum and Simon Wiesenthal leaders not taking a principled stand against the hatred of Islam and Muslims?” Almontaser asked. “I say to them: Be just. Speak to your mission.”
This report originally appeared in the Indypendent.
Marvin Hier (about Ground Zero): It’s a cemetery!
Apart from the fact that it’s not, and Cordoba House was never meant to be built on top of it, he’s absolutely right. Cemeteries should not be desecrated – even in the name of tolerance and understanding.
A bigot who presumes to speak for Jews goes and builds a Museum of Tolerance on Muslim graves (literally). He receives popular support in Israel and the funding from US Zionists pours in.
Thugs who presumed to speak for Muslims flew planes into the WTC towers and brought them down. So now, when a reputable Imam (Trusted by Bush himself as an envoy to the Muslim world) seeks to build a Muslim Community Center on legally purchased private property, the masses whine in unison and the bigots burn books.
Tell me again why Geller and Pipe haven’t spoken against the Museum of ‘Tolerance’? I think I know the answer to this one.
>> “This cemetery, which stands in West Jerusalem for a thousand years, is now subject to the bulldozer of this organization. So that’s the meaning of the word chutzpah: to say you stand for tolerance, and perform that kind of an act, is the most despicable kind of hypocrisy.”
The only reason any of this is an issue is because Hamas planted that cemetery right in the path of Israel’s attempts to “win hearts and minds”.
Israel has every right to bulldoze the cemetery and, once desecration is “currently not necessary” and the Museum of “Tolerance” is finally a reality, “justice” will have been served.
That makes perfect “humanist” sense.
Ah, oh ah, well, ah, I mean, how “insensitive” of them “insensitive” moslems!
I mean don’t they know that the ‘Weasel” and his prissy campers can’t stomach such an “insensitive” proposition on holy USA ground?!
The hypocrisy of ‘them’ invaders is just unbearable! Oh ah oh how dare them moslems?!
At the rate by which the settler-state Israel’s crimes are becoming widely known, Jews supporting justice for Palestine will soon be speaking for most Jewish-Americans. Then when the settler-state’s supporters try to intimidate people (Jews and non-Jews alike) with taunts of either self-hating Jew or antisemite, who’ll pay attention to them?
” who’ll pay attention to them? “
Bible believin’ Gentiles, who will support Israel with a fervor completely unemcumbered by any memories of their own persecution. Except of course, the liberal-Muslim plot to institute “Sharia” Law in the US.
(Sharia law means nobody can eat lamp chops, of course.)
If you were Israel, who would you rather be supported by?
from: link to original.antiwar.com
good news. People of integrity and intellect. Wonder what kind of response they received
“Demonstrators also harshly criticized the center’s decision to build a Jerusalem branch of the Museum of Tolerance on top of a centuries-old Muslim cemetery, known as the Mamilla cemetery. They said that the center’s project, which has resulted in the “disinterment of hundreds of graves,” according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, is another example of the center disregarding the rights of Muslims.
“I’m just going to take a minute to tell you a new definition of a Yiddish word called ‘chutzpah.’ … It refers to brazen nerve,” said Richard Levy, a lawyer working with the Center for Constitutional Rights on a petition filed with several international bodies to halt the construction of the museum in Jerusalem. “This cemetery, which stands in West Jerusalem for a thousand years, is now subject to the bulldozer of this organization. So that’s the meaning of the word chutzpah: to say you stand for tolerance, and perform that kind of an act, is the most despicable kind of hypocrisy.”
Go Richard Levy! Do you think Rachel Maddow will cover this story? Tee hee
“Comrades of Muhammad are buried ” Our MSM would be all over this story if Palestinians were trying to build on a ancient Jewish cemetery. Hey Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow broadcast out of New York. Where were their cameras their coverage.
Do you have to be gay or carrying a gun for them to cover a protest?
Most of you lot don’t seem to understand that “Tolerance” means “tolerating whatever Israel does”.
You nailed that
Should we commence a project to put up another Holocaust Museum? The cemetery at Arlington looks like a choice spot.