Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Most cities would be happy to get a new building by Frank Gehry, whose eye-bending design for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao put that Spanish city on the map.

Jerusalem, though, is not most cities.

On a former parking lot in downtown Jerusalem some two dozen workers are now clearing the grounds for a planned museum/educational center designed by Gehry and dedicated to the theme of tolerance.

In a city that serves as a flashpoint for competing political claims and conflicting religious sensibilities between Jews and Muslims, such an institution designed by the world's top ``starchitect'' should be a welcome addition.

Instead, the project is already inflaming some of the very passions it is dedicated to quelling, spurring protests from Islamic groups and the condemnation of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The museum is being built by the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, named after the late Austrian Nazi-hunter and dedicated to combating anti-Semitism and other prejudices.

When initial construction two years ago on the museum site uncovered human remains dating back several hundred years, and which reputedly once belonged to an adjacent Muslim cemetery, an Islamic organization called the Al-Aksa Foundation filed a suit in the Israeli Supreme Court to halt the building.

`Dangerous Issue'

After mediation efforts between the Wiesenthal Center and Al-Aksa Foundation failed, the court ruled on Oct. 29 that because the specific area where the bones were found had not been used as a cemetery for decades, they should be re-interred elsewhere, and construction on the museum resumed.

This sparked a protest by hundreds of members of Israel's Northern Islamic Movement on Nov. 6 at the site. The following day, Palestinian Authority President Abbas told reporters that ``this is a very dangerous issue, and I do not believe the Israelis would accept having their own graveyards disturbed.''

The museum's initiator, Wiesenthal founder/director Rabbi Marvin Hier, rejects the notion that the controversy his project has stoked is defeating its stated purpose of promoting tolerance in a region not known for it.

``The reason we don't have peace in the Middle East is because of what is happening above the ground, not beneath it,'' said Hier in a phone interview from Los Angeles.

``Almost every place you dig in Jerusalem you're going to come into contact with ancient civilizations,'' he said. ``Is it better to let this site remain a parking lot, or build there a center for human dignity which would teach young people mutual respect and social responsibility?''

Rabbi in Hollywood

Hier, 68, has been dubbed ``the Hollywood rabbi'' for his connections to the entertainment industry -- he served as an adviser on ``Schindler's List'' and ``Prince of Egypt'' -- and the two Academy Awards for best documentary feature won by movies produced by the Wiesenthal Center's film division, the Holocaust- themed ``Genocide'' and ``The Long Way Home.''

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger flew to Israel four years ago for the initial groundbreaking ceremony of the Jerusalem project, which Hier views as a logical extension of the center's Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance. That space opened in 1993.

Some critics initially dubbed that institution a ``Holocaust Disneyland'' for its extensive use of eye-catching hi-tech displays to illustrate the history of the Nazi extermination of European Jewry and to educate visitors about contemporary manifestations of anti-Semitism and other prejudice.

Hier notes that it attracts some 350,000 visitors a year, the majority of them student groups from the California school system, and says the Jerusalem version will serve a similar function.

Budget Pledges

The Los Angeles museum cost $70 million to build; the Jerusalem project, scheduled for completion in 2012, is budgeted at $200 million for construction, and another $50 million for operating costs. Hier says he has so far collected committed pledges for $115 million. He admits that it will be a challenge, given the financial crisis, to make up the difference but that he thinks the project has sufficient attraction to reach its target budget by the scheduled completion date of 2012.

Part of that appeal, as well as the cost, is its Gehry design. The museum's perimeter is a wall covered with the pale Jerusalem stone that is mandated by municipal regulations for local building exteriors. Within is a campus-like arrangement of structures with the dramatic curves and shiny titanium covering that characterize such Gehry buildings as his acclaimed Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

Name Change

When the design was first unveiled in Jerusalem in 2002, Gehry said the project held deep personal meaning for him. Born in Canada in 1929 as Goldberg, Gehry said he changed his name in the 1950s to make it more acceptable for blue-chip architectural firms that still discriminated against Jews.

Gehry's California office declined to respond to phone and e-mail inquires about the controversy over the Jerusalem museum.

Having a Gehry design, says Hier, makes it easier to market the project to prospective donors. Not everyone is thrilled with Gehry's plan. Esther Zandberg, architecture critic for the Haaretz newspaper wrote on Nov. 4 that ``Gehry's style has undergone a rapid process of McDonaldization, becoming as unique as fast food in a global restaurant chain. Seeing a Gehry creation does not require a trip to Jerusalem, which has a uniqueness of its own.''

David Kroyanker, an architectural historian of Jerusalem, is less critical.

``There's nothing wrong with Jerusalem having a few ultra- modern buildings characteristic of this period as long as they are not situated right next to the historic Old City,'' he says, adding ``while I'm not crazy about the design, the museum may help revitalize the city's neglected downtown.''

Kroyanker is more skeptical about the museum's purpose.

``It's designed to be 30,000 square meters,'' he says. ``But how are they going to fill that space when there is barely one meter of tolerance in this whole city?''

To contact the reporter on the story: Calev Ben-David in Jerusalem at cbendavid@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 20, 2008 19:00 EST