L.A. Woman

Email | Print | Text - Text +

May 15, 2008

Tolerance Museum director doesn’t tolerate status quo

By Elyse Glickman

(Page 2 - Previous Page)

According to Geft, the city is an ideal locale for the Museum of Tolerance since it represents a "veritable microcosm of a macrocosmic global world," where residents trace their roots to 140 different nationalities and the city is home to the largest Armenian, Korean, Filipino, Salvadoran and Guatemalan populations outside their respective capital cities.

"This city is a true social laboratory, and it's a perfect fit for an institution designed to be on the cutting edge of social change," she said. "I recall when there was a scare of poisonous strawberries in the Los Angeles Unified School District, letters were sent home to parents in more than 100 different languages. There is no better place to be when you're looking to build bridges of mutual understanding and cooperation between different groups."

Los Angeles is also a great home for the museum, not surprisingly, because of its proximity to major players in the entertainment industry at both the celebrity and corporate levels. Although Geft is adamant in pointing out that every visitor to the museum and participant in its social programs are VIPs, she observes her institution gets a major boost through the support of public figures.

"There are many important [Hollywood] players closely associated with Simon Wiesenthal Center, especially because our work is congruent with their causes and the charities that they embrace," she said. "They have the power to influence, and we are fortunate to have many of them coming to the museum."

Prior to a Museum of Tolerance preview of the 2007 film, "A Mighty Heart," an adaptation of Mariane Pearl's memoir on the search for her husband, kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, star Angelina Jolie toured the museum and watched a short documentary titled, "In Our Time," which covered terrorism and Pearl's death.

"After that, she recalled that her first visit to the museum in middle school made a profound impression on her," Geft said of Jolie.

In the Hilary Swank film, "Freedom Writers," teacher Erin Gruwell takes her students to the museum to get them thinking about tolerance.

"When celebrities make these kinds of statements, direct or otherwise, it really piques the interest of people," she said.

According to Geft, the principles the museum was built on will continue to be reflected in upcoming visiting exhibitions, which will cover such diverse topics as the Jews of modern China, Mexican diplomat Gilberto Bosques' efforts to rescue Jews from Vichy France during World War II and the struggle toward desegregation and equity in schools -- from Brown v. The Board of Education to the present.

Not surprisingly, bringing these exhibits to light will involve many hours and a lot of patience. Thankfully, Geft notes the support of her family enables her to do good and do well. And she says her patience and support pays off with every person impacted by the thought put into the permanent and temporary exhibits and the messages they convey.

"My professional life is not, 'I used to do this, but now I do that,'" she said. "It is a continuation of everything I have done my whole life, exploring new frontiers and finding new challenges to take on."



For more information on upcoming exhibitions and the museum, visit www.museumoftolerance.com.





On a single page

1 | 2

Tags and Sharing

Tags

, , , , , ,

Share This Story

del.icio.us Favicondel.icio.us Digg FaviconDigg Facebook FaviconFacebook Google Bookmarks FaviconGoogle Bookmarks Reddit FaviconReddit StumbleUpon FaviconStumbleUpon Technorati FaviconTechnorati YahooMyWeb FaviconYahooMyWeb

Email
Tell a friend about this story by email

Discussion

We welcome your feedback. Please share your views and insight in The Jewish Journal Reader Forums.

Privacy Policy

Your information will not be shared or sold without your consent. Get all the details.

Related


Featured Stories

Tommywood
Wild about Diamond

David Wild wants you to know that he is an unabashed Neil Diamond fan. So much so that he has written a book titled, "He Is ... I Say: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neil Diamond"

Bar & Bat Mitzvahs
Centenarian celebrates fourth bar mitzvah

"If my mother was here, she'd probably be saying, 'Dayenu, enough already,'" said Dr. Eugene Gettelman, who turned 100 in June. "She'd think I was meshugge for having a fourth bar mitzvah."

Israel
Discovery of King David-era fort stirs debate on size of kingdom

Some scholars argue that David's Jerusalem was merely a backwater village glorified into a mythical place by those they say penned the Bible centuries later. Others suggest that true to its biblical description, it was a genuine power overseeing a strong and united kingdom. The discovery of what is being called the Elah Fortress has quickly been used to reinforce the latter argument.

Cartoons
Yes, we can! No, you can't!

Television
Doing Jews right on TV—for better or worse

The Jewish character has become the American Jewish character, disassociated from an ethnic history and assimilated into American culture. And the assimilation hasn't only been for Jews.

U.S.
Shoah group halts talks with Mormons on posthumous baptism of Jews

At a news conference Monday, leaders of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, seated in front of panels listing names of Holocaust victims they say were baptized by the Mormons, said that 14 years of quiet negotiations have proven fruitless.

Religion
Agriprocessors closed—now where’s the beef?

The kosher meat market is in a tailspin as production at the Agriprocessors' meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, which had been operating at a fraction of its normal capacity since May, finally ground to a halt this week. The company, whose meat was sold under the labels

Los Angeles
Perfect storm for charities— contributions go down and requests go up

No one has gone unscathed by the convulsions of the global economy. Even the wealthy are losing money -- and if they cut their charitable giving, it is likely to ripple across the Jewish nonprofit sector

Torah Portion
Marriage is a Jewish issue

Parshat Chayei Sarah (Genesis 23:1-25:18) God is present when two people commit their lives to each other and become one family.

Calendar
Annie Leibovitz, Ed Asner, Shelly Berman, Lainie Kazan and Elliot Gould

Singles
True confessions of an online dating addict #16: Marathon date with Jeremy

Opinion
A Moderate Proposal

The start of the event was running late -- did I mention it was a Jewish event? -- and midway through our green room conversation, Hitchens pulled out a small bottle of Johnnie Walker Black. He emptied it into a 16-ounce clear-plastic cup and drizzled in some Crystal Geyser

Films
Survey Says:  Fewer Americans think Jews control Hollywood

The majority of Americans no longer believe that Jews control Hollywood. This is the news from a new poll released by the Anti-Defamation League that also suggests there remains a widespread conviction that there is an organized campaign by Hollywood and the national media to undermine religious values.

Music
Up-and-comer Dudamel takes on the Israel Philharmonic

Dudamel, who will be 28 when he replaces Esa-Pekka Salonen as music director of the L.A. Philharmonic next year, considers Leonard Bernstein a role model.