Israel Museum is the national museum of Israel. It was founded in 1965 through the efforts of Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek. The museum is located on a hill in Givat Ram, Jerusalem. Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek was the driving spirit behind its establishment. The museum complex was designed by Alfred Mansfeld and Dora Gad as an example of Modernist architecture.
The Israel Museum is presently (24 June 2008) undergoing major renovations to be completed only by the end of 2009. The renovations will make the Israel Museum ten times larger than when it opened, with new buildings added and distance from the entrance shortened.
The collection of the Israel Museum includes artifacts of Judaica as well as those of Africa, North and South America, Oceania and the Far East.
Covering an area of 47,000 square meters on a 20-acre site, the museum is ten times larger than it was when it opened. Under the current plan, new buildings will be added and the long walk up to the entrance will be shortened. Perhaps the most important artifact of the museum is the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were transferred from the Rockefeller Museum and now housed in a special building called the Shrine of the Book.
Israel Museum, Photo: DVD RW, GNU Free Documentation License
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