The Art Museums of Israel

Abstract

From the publicity attending the opening of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem last May—a full-page ad in the New York Times brashly affirmed that it was “born great”—people abroad might well have inferred that this was the country's first museum. Yet, though it is the largest and most beautiful, it is, by Israel Century Saving Time, a latecomer. Before it there was a museum in Dan, two in Beersheba, and, beyond that ancient limit, two more in Eilat, which was only a pair of mud huts for United Nations observers when the state of Israel was established 17 years ago. There are today some one hundred museums in art, archeology, science and technology, natural and political history, ethnology, medicine, music. Most of them were built during the past 17 years. Though it ranks lowest in many natural resources, Israel must stand highest of any country in the world in the ratio of museums to population (1: 25,000).