The Boston skyline. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Jewish philanthropists Jody Kipnis and Todd Ruderman of Massachusetts bought a 15,000-square-foot building in Boston to create a Holocaust museum.

“Look what’s going on in Europe again,” she said, referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, reported the AP. “And we’ve seen a rise in hate crimes and swastika graffiti in schools in Massachusetts. We’re looking to build a museum that will be an interactive, cautionary experience.”

They purchased the building on Tremont Street for $11.5 million. A New England Holocaust Memorial stands in the city; however, this would be the first indoor museum.

Kipnis and Ruderman also started the Holocaust Legacy Foundation and the Holocaust Legacy Fellows, a program for Jewish teenagers to visit Germany and Poland to learn about the Holocaust, and then to return and educate others, according to the report.

Professor Michael Berenbaum, director of the Sigi Ziering Institute: Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust at the American Jewish University, who was the project director for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, is leading the design for the Boston museum.