The Museum of Tolerance (MOT), also known as Beit HaShoah ("House of the Holocaust"), is a multimedia museum in Los Angeles, California, United States, designed to examine racism and prejudice around the world with a strong focus on the history of the Holocaust. The museum was established in 1993, as the educational arm of human rights organization, the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The museum also deals with atrocities in Cambodia and Latin America, along with issues like bullying and hate crimes. The museum has an associated museum and professional development multi-media training facility in New York City.

The museum is closed on Saturdays, the Jewish day of rest

Criticism

In the past, some journalists and academics have criticized the way the Museum deals with its exhibits; Oren Baruch Stier, who specializes in Holocaust research and Jewish studies, criticized the museum in 1996 for not contextualizing the Holocaust. He argued against the separation of the museum's "tolerance" section and its area dedicated to the Holocaust. In 2003, Christopher Reynolds wrote, for the Los Angeles Times, that the museum lacked any exhibit about the Armenian genocide. Political theorist Wendy Brown critiqued the museum in a chapter of her 2009 book Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire; in the book, Brown analyzed "tolerance as a museum object", and made connections between the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and genocide directed at non-Jewish groups. She thought that the experience of the museum could make its visitors more vigilant against social prejudice and stereotyping.

See also

  • Museum of Tolerance and Human Dignity in Jerusalem
  • United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  • Simon Wiesenthal Center

References

  • "Experiencing the Jewish Holocaust in Los Angeles: The Beit Hashoah – Museum of Tolerance", review essay by Harold Marcuse, Other Voices, v2.1, Feb. 2000.
  • "Museum of Tolerance: The Story of a Hate Crime", TIME