Israel Museum

The Israel Museum was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.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 on 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.HistoryJerusalem 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 1965, the Museum has built up a collection of nearly 500,000 objects, representing a broad sample of world material culture. James S. Snyder, former Deputy Director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, was appointed director of the museum in 1997.