Museum on wheels coming to Harwood Heights July 18-22

With the high cost of gas it’s not always possible to visit a cultural center that might be located in a distant locale.

Fortunately, a museum exhibit instead will be coming to Harwood Heights for an entire week.

The Eisenhower Public Library will host the Mobile Museum of Tolerance from Monday, July 18, through Friday, July 22.

In bookmobile style, the traveling classroom and education facility will be available for anyone to come visit. Admission is free and no library card is required.

Part of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Midwest Office, based in Chicago, the Mobile Museum of Tolerance travels throughout Illinois, along with a certified educator, and presents short informational programs to guests seated comfortably inside the tour bus.

“This is not just for young people, but adults, senior citizens –everyone,” Eisenhower Programming Librarian Penny Blubaugh said. “We’re lucky to have it in the summer because a lot of kids who aren’t in school right now will be able to come visit.”

According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Midwest Region Director, Alison Pure-Slovin, the museum on wheels can seat up to 32 visitors at a time.

“People can just drop in whenever they’re available,” she said. “If they only have 10 minutes free, we have a short 10-minute program. If they have more time, there’s a 30-minute presentation.”

The educator-host answers questions and provides information on a wide range of related topics.

“Tolerance is meant to inspire people of all ages and backgrounds,” Pure-Slovin said. “We want to empower them to promote human dignity and to raise their voices against bullying, racism, hate, intolerance and anti-Semitism.”

The executive director of the nearby Temple Har Zion, of River Forest, Charles Shapera, agreed with the effort.

“People should know about the Mobile Museum — it’s a very wonderful thing,” Shapera said. “We are absolutely behind every effort to promote tolerance and understanding between groups and generations, and to foster as much community connection as possible. We will likely organize a field trip for some members of the congregation to go there that week.”

Blubaugh said the mobile museum’s educational programs “address oppression in Nazi Germany, but it’s certainly applicable to division and a lot of things that are going on in the world right now.”

The museum on wheels was funded and began operation beginning in February of last year. Pure-Slovin said the tour bus is extremely busy and has destination stops booked well into next year.

“Not everybody has the ability to visit a Holocaust museum or an African American or Native American educational facility,” she said. “We worked hard to find the funding and make the mobile museum a reality.

“We realize that even though Illinois is a very diverse state, we’re also a very segregated state. We thought it was time to bring these uncomfortable conversations that we need to have to schools, libraries and to the community.”

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The mobile museum will be at the Eisenhower Public Library, 4613 North Oketo Avenue, Harwood Heights, from July 18-22 from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. See the calendar of events at www.eisenhowerlibrary.org.

For more information on the Mobile Museum of Tolerance, visit www.mmot.com or www.wiesenthal.com.