The Israel Museum - the main national museum of the country. This is underlined his status even location: on the hill of Givat Ram near the Knesset and the Supreme Court. Museum of the rich, many of the exhibits are unique.

The idea of ​​the museum began in the mid-fifties of the last century, soon after the state of Israel. Money for the building came from the US government and from many private donors. The project created by Israeli architect Alfred Mansfeld and Dora Gad. On the Jerusalem hills to climb buildings cubes of gray sandstone, connected by transitions, next - Sculpture Garden (it was designed by an American Isamu Noguchi). In 2010, it completed the reconstruction of the complex, which increased the exhibition area doubled.

Now the museum exhibits more than half a million, divided into seven thematic sections. Archaeological devoted to the ancient land of Israel, is the world's largest collection of local finds. Discovered in the Golan female figure sculpted almost a quarter of a million years ago and is considered one of the oldest in the world of art. Well-preserved stone masks age of about 9000 years - the earliest in the world of human portraits. Hananeyansky stone relief depicting a lion and lioness playing (XIV century BC. E.) - Evidence of the emergence of the genre "a story in pictures."

With the archaeological section adjoins the white dome of the Temple of books stored priceless Qumran scrolls. In 1947, Bedouin accidentally discovered in a cave on the shores of the Dead Sea several pitchers with ancient scrolls. Studies have shown that they were created since the III century, some of which contain the world's most ancient fragments of the Old Testament. The scrolls are displayed in turn, as "tired" of the light, but the museum in collaboration with Google has digitized them, and they are available on the Web (including a unique large scroll of the prophet Isaiah).

Extremely interesting volumetric model of Jerusalem's Second Temple period - located under the open sky, it is in every detail plays a flourishing Jerusalem 66 years since its destruction by the Romans. To create a model in the early sixties businessman Hans Kroh - in memory of his son Jacob who fell in the battles for independence. The tiny houses are made of local limestone, the same one from which built the real Jerusalem.

Wide and representatives of the fine arts section. There are exhibited masterpieces by Rembrandt, Chagall, Pissarro, the creation of the largest Jewish artists, works of art in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Oceania. Particular attention is given to the Jewish art treasures saved during the Holocaust. This Torah scrolls, the whole interior of the synagogue, rare manuscripts, clothes, jewelry.

The museum's garden sculptures, which are exhibited creations of Henry Moore, Jacques Lipchitz, Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin, many contemporary artists. The garden is located on a hillside in ancient Jerusalem, it is considered one of the best exposures of this kind.