SINCE THE Museum of Tolerance opened in 1993, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda and Darfur have been inscribed in the book of mass extermination.
Clearly, there is no lack of work to do for an L.A. institution dedicated to documenting the human race's blood lust while fighting prejudice in hopes of remaking homo sapiens in a more humane image.
"I was not that naive to think that evil would be expunged," says Rabbi Marvin Hier, looking back on the 31 years since he founded the museum's parent human rights and Holocaust remembrance organization, the Simon Wiesenthal Center. "But I never thought that so soon after the world became aware of the ovens of Auschwitz we would have places like these . . . that people would have the chutzpah to say, 'So what? We can do what we want,' and get away with it."
He says this without gloom. At 69, Hier remains a resourceful, insistent, upbeat and well-connected partisan for his cause and his institution. As he sits talking affably in his office, he is surrounded by photographic multiples of himself in the company of presidents -- and by baseballs signed by Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra, the boyhood heroes he cheered from the cheap seats at Yankee Stadium. The Orthodox rabbi never has been afraid of controversy, and the museum's agenda never has been more ambitious, nor more controversial, than it is right now.
At home, having just finished a $13-million makeover of its auditorium and several exhibits, the Museum of Tolerance is pushing to build a new wing for conferences and large gatherings. The plan, which also seeks to extend operating hours beyond the current 5 p.m. city-imposed limit, is under review at City Hall. Some neighboring homeowners object to the 20,000-square-foot expansion. Besides complaints about traffic, parking and loss of peace and quiet, they have questioned the propriety of putting social functions in a museum dedicated to the Holocaust.
Contrary to what the opponents say on their website, Hier promises there will be no weddings or bar mitzvahs -- only functions, including performances and film premieres, that are in tune with the museum's mission.
In Jerusalem, a proposal to build a second Museum of Tolerance, designed by Frank Gehry and costing more than $200 million, is being deliberated by Israel's Supreme Court. Should it go forward, some fear, the project could further aggravate Israeli-Palestinian relations. When construction began early in 2006 on what had long been a parking lot, builders found bones from an abandoned Muslim cemetery said to date from the time of the Crusades. Israeli Arab groups sued to stop the project. Hier says he received an e-mail from the Supreme Court two months ago saying it would render a decision soon.
