Museum of Tolerance

Coordinates: 34°03′13″N 118°24′06″W / 34.05361°N 118.40167°W / 34.05361; -118.40167
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Museum of Tolerance
Holocaust memorials, racism and prejudice museum
Visitors350,000 annually
Websitewww.museumoftolerance.com

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.[1] The museum also deals with atrocities in Cambodia and Latin America,[2] along with issues like bullying and hate crimes.[3] The museum has an associated museum and professional development multi-media training facility in New York City.

The museum is closed on Saturdays, the

United States public holidays
.

Overview

The original museum in

Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter.[2] The museum receives 350,000 visitors annually, about a third of which are school-age children. The museum's most talked-about exhibit is "The Holocaust Section", where visitors are divided into groups to take their own place in some of the events of World War II
. The museum also features testimonies of Holocaust survivors, often from live volunteers who tell their stories and answer questions. People also get cards with pictures of Jewish children on them and at the end of the museum trip, it is revealed whether the child on the card survived or was murdered in the Holocaust.

In addition, the museum features a "Tolerancenter" that discusses issues of prejudice in everyday life, a Multimedia Learning Center, Finding Our Families – Finding Ourselves, a collection of archives and documents, various temporary exhibits such as Los Angeles visual artist Bill Cormalis Jr's "'A' Game In The B Leagues", which documents through paintings, the Civil Rights Movement during the segregation of colored people in Major League Baseball, and an Arts and Lectures Program.

A classroom visit to the museum is featured in the 2007 movie Freedom Writers, based on the real-life story of high school teacher Erin Gruwell and her students. The museum was parodied in an episode of South Park called "The Death Camp of Tolerance".

Over 350,000 people visit the museum annually, including 110,000 children.[4]

Education

The museum runs a program called The Museums Tools for Tolerance (r) for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Professional. Through its inception in 1996, it has trained over 75,000 law enforcement officers. The success of the program led to the creation of the New York Tolerance Center.[5]

Criticism

In the past, some journalists and academics have criticized the way the Museum deals with its exhibits; Oren Baruch Stier, who specializes in

stereotyping.[4]

See also

References

  1. ^ "About us". Archived from the original on 2018-06-09. Retrieved 2010-08-23.
  2. ^ a b "Los Angeles Journal; Near Riots' Ashes, a Museum Based on Tolerance". New York Times. February 10, 1993.
  3. ^ "Teen court program tackles bullying, hate crimes". Los Angeles Times. July 22, 2012.
  4. ^ .
  5. .
  6. .
  7. ^ "Armenians seek place in museum: Wiesenthal center's lack of an exhibition on the 1915 genocide is criticized. Museum says a display is in the works" (PDF).

External links

34°03′13″N 118°24′06″W / 34.05361°N 118.40167°W / 34.05361; -118.40167