Israel Museum
The Israel Museum is an art and archaeology museum in Jerusalem. It was established in 1965 as Israel's largest and foremost cultural institution, and an encyclopedic museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, adjacent to the Bible Lands Museum, the National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The Israel Museum houses a collection of approximately 500,000 items. Its holdings include the world's most comprehensive collections of the archaeology of the Holy Land, and Jewish art and life, as well as significant and extensive holdings in the fine arts, the latter encompassing eleven separate departments: Israeli Art, European Art, Modern Art, Contemporary Art, Prints and Drawings, Photography, Design and Architecture, Asian Art, African Art, Oceanian Art, and Arts of the Americas.
Among the unique objects on display are the Venus of Berekhat Ram, the interior of a 1736 Zedek ve Shalom synagogue from Suriname, necklaces worn by Jewish brides in Yemen, a mosaic Islamic prayer niche from 17th-century Persia, and a nail attesting to the practice of crucifixion in Jesus' time. An urn-shaped building in the grounds of the museum, the Shrine of the Book, houses the Dead Sea Scrolls and artifacts discovered at Masada. It is one of the largest museums in the region.
History
Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek was the driving spirit behind the establishment of the Israel Museum, one of the leading art and archaeology museums in the world. The museum houses works dating from prehistory to the present day in its Archaeology, Fine Arts, and Jewish Art and Life Wings and features extensive holdings of biblical and Land of Israel archaeology. Since its establishment in May 1965, the museum has built up a collection of nearly 500,000 objects, representing a broad sample of world material culture. In 1968, the museum bought 1,000 items from the collection created by the late Moshe Dayan, including pieces which were acquired illegally. The museum paid US$1 million which was funded through donations.From 1965, the museum was housed in a series of masonry buildings designed by the Russian-born Israeli architect Alfred Mansfeld. A $100-million campaign to renovate the museum and double its gallery space was completed by Israeli architects Efrat-Kowalsky Architects who renovated the existing buildings in July 2010. The wings for archaeology, the fine arts, and Jewish art and life were completely rebuilt and the original buildings were linked through a new entrance pavilion. The passageways that connect between the buildings and five new pavilions were designed by James Carpenter.
Archaeology Wing
The Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Archaeology Wing tells the story of the ancient Land of Israel, home to peoples of different cultures and faiths, using unique examples from the museum's collection of Holy Land archaeology, the foremost holding in the world. Organized chronologically, from prehistory through the Ottoman Empire, the transformed wing presents seven "chapters" of this archaeological narrative, weaving together momentous historical events, cultural achievements, and technological advances, while providing a glimpse into the everyday lives of the peoples of the region. This narrative is supplemented by thematic groupings highlighting aspects of ancient Israeli archaeology that are unique to the region's history, among them Hebrew writing, glass, and coins. Treasures from neighboring cultures that have had a decisive impact on the Land of Israel – such as Egypt, the Near East, Greece and Italy, and the Islamic world – are on view in adjacent and connecting galleries. A special gallery at the entrance to the wing showcases new findings and other temporary exhibition displays.Highlights on view include Pilate Stone, "House of David" inscription, a comparative display of two shrines ; the Heliodorus Stele, royal Herodian bathhouse ; the Uzziah tablet and the Ossuary of Jesus son of Joseph ; Hadrian's Triumph: inscription from a triumphal arch, the Mosaic of Rehob and gold-glass bases from the Roman catacombs.
Administration
Karl Katz, the founding curator of the Israel Museum, took over as director when Mordechai Narkiss died of cancer in 1957.James Snyder was appointed museum director in 1997, serving in this position for twenty years. During this period, the museum recorded dramatic grown, including a $100 million expansion and renewal of the institution. Annual attendance doubled to over 800,000 visitors a year during his tenure.On October 25, 2017, Ido Bruno, a professor in the Industrial Design Department of the Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design, took over from Synder. He brought to the position decades of experience as a curator and designer of exhibitions presented in Israel and across the world with a focus on art, archeology, science, and history. He was unanimously elected by the museum's board of directors, chaired by Isaac Molho, following an extensive search and review process of candidates from Israel and abroad. Bruno assumed his position at the museum in November 2017.
Denis Weil, formerly Dean of the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology, served as director in 2020-2023.
Shrine of the Book
The Shrine of the Book houses the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest biblical manuscripts in the world, as well as rare early medieval biblical manuscripts. The scrolls were discovered in 1947–56 in 11 caves in and around the site of Qumran. An elaborate planning process of seven years led to the building's eventual construction in 1965. This was funded by the family of David Samuel Gottesman, a Hungarian émigré, the philanthropist who had purchased the scrolls as a gift to the State of Israel.The building consists of a white dome over a building located two-thirds below the ground. The dome is reflected in a pool of water that surrounds it. Across from the white dome is a black basalt wall. The colors and shapes of the building are based on the imagery of the scroll of the War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness; the white dome symbolizes the Sons of Light and the black wall symbolizes the Sons of Darkness. The interior of the shrine was designed to depict the environment in which the scrolls were found. There is also a permanent display on life in the Qumran, where the scrolls were written. The entire structure was designed to resemble a pot in which the scrolls were found. The shrine was designed by Armand Bartos and Frederick Kiesler, and was opened in 1965.
As the fragility of the scrolls makes it impossible to display them all on a continuous basis, a system of rotation is used. After a scroll has been exhibited for 3–6 months, it is removed from its showcase and placed temporarily in a special storeroom, where it "rests" from exposure. The museum also holds other rare ancient manuscripts and displays the Aleppo Codex, which is from the 10th century and is believed to be the oldest Bible codex in Hebrew.
Second Temple model
Adjacent to the Shrine of the Book is the Model of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period, which reconstructs the topography and architectural character of the city as it was prior to its destruction by the Romans in 70 CE and provides historical context to the Shrine's presentation of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Originally constructed on the grounds of Jerusalem's Holyland Hotel, the model, which includes a replica of Herod's Temple, is now a permanent feature of the museum's campus.Fine Arts Wing
The Edmond and Lily Safra Fine Arts Wing reflects the wide-ranging, interdisciplinary nature of the museum's collections, encompassing works of art from across the ages in Western and non-Western cultures. The wing has been reorganized to highlight connections among works from its diverse curatorial collections, which include European Art, Modern Art, Contemporary Art, Israeli Art, the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, Asian Art, Photography, Design and Architecture and Prints and Drawings. Installations are organized to underscore visual affinities and shared themes and to inspire new insight into the arts of different times and places, as well as an appreciation of the common threads of human culture. The reconfigured wing includes the museum's first permanent galleries for Israeli art, more than doubled gallery space for the museum's extensive collections in modern art, providing meaningful connecting points between Western and non-Western holdings, and a full 2,200-square-meter gallery floor devoted to changing displays from the museum's collection of contemporary art.Highlights newly on view include The Noel and Harriette Levine Photography Collection, The Jacques Lipchitz Collection, Gustave Courbet, Jura Landscape with Shepherd and Donkey, Alberto Giacometti, Alfred Barye, Diego in the Studio, Ohad Meromi, and The Boy from South Tel Aviv.
European, Modern, and Israeli art
The Israel Museum holds a large collection of paintings representing a wide range of periods, styles, subjects, and regions of origin. Painters in the collection include such international figures as Rembrandt and Camille Pissarro as well as such Israeli and Jewish artists as Marc Chagall, Abel Pann, and Reuven Rubin.The Israel Museum's commitment to Israeli art is central to its mission. As the country's national museum, it plays a major role in preserving Israel's artistic heritage by collecting works by Israeli artists – in Israel and abroad – and by encouraging Israel's artists to develop in their careers. The museum's Israeli Art collection spans the late 19th century through today, and it reflects the evolution of Israel's cultural history in the visual arts. The Information Center for Israeli Art provides scholars and the public with comprehensive archival information on several thousand Israeli artists, including biographical notes, press materials, videos, photographs, and other forms of documentation.