Museum Grant

For the second time, I find it necessary to correct false statements by the editorial staff of The Times. The Times claims that the $5-million state grant to the Simon Wiesenthal Center for the construction of a Museum of Tolerance would be unconstitutional. That is absolutely not true. There is a long precedent of public grants to such institutions as New York’s Fordham, Indiana’s Notre Dame, and California’s Loyola. Public policy has long endorsed such grants, even though those august institutions are administered by “clergymen.”

The Times editorial (July 21) makes it sound as if the state’s grant to the Wiesenthal Center would be precedent-setting, when in actual fact such grants are commonplace to similar private institutions. For example, the New York Legislature has, for the past 10 years, given operating funds to the Center for Holocaust Studies, an affiliate of the Yeshiva of Flatbush, without any challenge to church/state from non-Jewish or Jewish organizations.

Further, even prior to the separate incorporation of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, when the legal opinion of the state legislative counsel was drafted, it stated that SB 337 probably “would survive any challenge” in the courts on the basis of church/state. The Times suggests that the bill overwhelmingly passed both houses of the Legislature because legislators were afraid to oppose SB 337. But the truth is the bill had eight public hearings during which the pros and cons were raised--especially the church/state issue--a fact conveniently omitted by The Times.

MARVIN HIER

Los Angeles

Rabbi Hier is dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.