Wiesenthal Center Grant

Your story concerning a California state grant to the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance (July 18) raises a question that taxpayers would do well to consider: Is a child’s education strictly the purview of a school system or can unique community facilities contribute to the educational, moral and ethical development of our children?

I’m biased, of course, for as a volunteer guide (a Gentile, by the way) at the Museum of Tolerance I see many of the 70,000 schoolchildren who visit the center and depart with an educational experience they describe as: “Moving,” “a story that needs to be told” and “a visit I will never forget.” The exhibits and presentations at this institution are impossible to construct within the traditional framework of education facilities, and furthermore, why should public education end at graduation or be restricted to formal classrooms?

Teachers tell me that the museum is wonderful and unique, an accessible and emotional demonstration of the connection between how we think about others and ultimately how we treat them. Many educators have brought classes for several years in a row, some traveling two to three hours by bus from outlying areas.

DENNIS NENDZA

Santa Monica

* Missing from the story on the proposed $5-million grant to the Wiesenthal Center are these facts:

The “out-of-court” settlement agreement of the ACLU suit over the original grant has been violated. But the Registry of Charitable Trusts refuses to investigate the charges by anyone who is “not a party to the suit.” The agreement limits use of religious symbols in the facility to exhibits on display, but a Judaica gift shop is in place; a Citizen Advisory Board has seldom met to advise, and the Armenian genocide is but a clip in a 10-minute film titled “Genocide.” Nepotism runs rampant throughout the system.

Many within the Jewish community feel this game shames the Jewish people and the memory of the 6 million Jewish Holocaust victims. There are may sectarian programs that serve the public well, as does the museum, but should they all line up now and seek government grants?

HYMAN H. HAVES

Pacific Palisades

* Giving the Wiesenthal Center another $5 million in state tax dollars when clinics and hospitals are closing, local schools’ teaching budgets are being cut and public libraries fight to keep open on even a limited basis is difficult to justify.

What distinguishes the Wiesenthal Center from the other struggling public and private nonprofit agencies in need of funds is its near-total local ownership of so important and emotional an issue as the Holocaust. A museum with billionaire board members, a durable issue, a $56-million budget and needing Ticketmaster to control access to the popular facility should have a difficult time justifying massive public funding.

RICHARD M. WALDEN

Los Angeles

* We are both Holocaust survivors and know that that the Museum of Tolerance is a very good idea, but do not believe that they should receive $5 million from the school budget. The Wiesenthal Center is a private, nonprofit institution and should only be supported by donations and admission fees.

URSULA MASCHKOUSKI

GERHARD MASCHKOUSKI

Los Angeles