World’s biggest Jewish museum: What’s in a name?

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Plans for a new Russian Jewish Museum of Tolerance, billed as the world’s largest Jewish museum, have been announced for Moscow, but don’t wish mazel tov to the folks at the original Museum of Tolerance in L.A. It’s not their baby, and they already have their hands full trying to expand in their own backyard (with some neighbors objecting) and trying to erect a $200 million-plus, Frank Gehry-designed Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem (long stalled by a lawsuit brought by Israeli Arab groups because the site was once a Muslim cemetery).

Moscow’s cultural authorities and its Jewish community are not being copycats, but carving their own niche by focusing on Russian-Jewish history, says Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the L.A. museum and its parent human rights and Holocaust remembrance organization, the Simon Wiesenthal Center. ‘We’ve spoken to them and we know about their plans. They won’t use ‘Museum of Tolerance.’ It’s a trademark.’

-- Mike Boehm