The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

| The Israel Museum Ben-Yitzhak Award for the Illustration of a Children's Book, 2008

Original works from books that earned their
illustrators an award: David Polonsky (Gold
Medal); Batia Kolton (Silver Medal); Lena
Guberman, Yana Bukler, Ofra Amit, and Yaniv
Shimony (honorable mentions) read more > > >

Place: Ruth Youth Wing Library

| Signs of Life: Animating Ticho House
A selection of works in sculpture, video, and animation
displayed in the gallery and in homey spaces on the
upper level "animate" Ticho House. Most of the works
exhibit movement, whether abrupt and arbitrary, or
regular as a heartbeat. The choice of pieces and their placement throughout
the house revive its forgotten corners and enliven its rooms, so that
wandering in this historic place becomes an experience filled with surprises
and discoveries.

Participating artists include Romy Achituv, Osnat Avital, Dror
Daum, Talia Keinan, Raia Keres, Roy Menahem Markovitch, Rivka Press and
Moran Somer, Ariel Schlesinger, Miri Segal, Sasha Serber, and Gal Weinstein. read more > > >

Place: Ticho House

| Swords into Plowshares: The Isaiah Scroll and Its Message of Peace
Israel’s Declaration of Independence proclaims
that the State of Israel “will be based on
freedom, justice, and peace, as envisaged by
the prophets of Israel.” Sixty years after the
issuing of this declaration, the Museum is
displaying the Isaiah Scroll found in Qumran,
which preserves the visions of peace of this
famous prophet, and has not been exhibited for forty years owing to
conservation requirements. The scroll is displayed along with a selection
of artifacts from Isaiah’s time, illustrating some of the imagery employed
by the prophet. On view is a scimitar that was intentionally bent in
antiquity to symbolize the death of the warrior who had used it. During
the historic visit of the former President of Egypt Anwar Saadat to Israel
in 1977, he was presented with a replica of this sword as a token of
peace in the region. read more > > >

Place: The Shrine of the Book

| Real Time: Art in Israel 1998–2008
read more > > >

Place: Weisbord Exhibition Pavilion

| Orphaned Art: Looted Art from the Holocaust in the Israel Museum
Showcasing some fifty paintings, drawings, prints,
and books, together with two dozen examples
of recovered Jewish ceremonial objects, this exhibition tells the story of
art that was looted by the Nazis during World War II, discovered by the
Allies in hiding places throughout Germany after the war, and brought
to Israel during the early 1950s by the Jewish Restitution Successor
Organization (JRSO). The works – including paintings by Jan Both,
Marc Chagall, Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Egon Schiele, and Alfred
Sisley – arrived with little if any documentation of prior ownership and
have been held in custody by the Israel Museum since it inherited the
holdings of the Bezalel National Museum in 1965. read more > > >

Place: Beningson Gallery, Ruth Youth Wing

| Matters of Eternity
An intimate display of highlights from the Museum’s Archaeology Wing evokes subjects that lay at the heart of the ancient world: religious faith and ritual, divine law, gods and earthly rulers, the powerful cycle of
nature and concern for the world to come – all regarded as matters of
eternity. These important objects include: the fragment from a 9th century BCE Aramean monument that mentions the House of David; a
Roman sculpture of the goddess Kore, whose annual return from the
underworld heralded the coming of spring and the rebirth of nature;
and a 5th-century CE mosaic floor adorned with Jewish symbols of
redemption.

Place: Ruth Youth Wing

| Beliefs and Believers: Ancient Art from the Israel Museum
Some thirty objects of critical and artistic merit, drawn from the permanent collection of the Israel Museum, shed light on the religion and rituals of the Land of Israel's early inhabitants. Featured among the works in the exhibition is a thirteenth-century BCE statue of the storm god, a prehistoric statue dated at approximately 10,000 years, ritual objects of the faithful, and breathtaking stone sculptures portraying Dionysus and Artemis. These works are shown in the Rockefeller Museum following the closure of the Israel Museum's archaeology galleries as part of the Museum's campus renewal program.
---------------------------------------------
Special Guided Tour!
Every Monday in the month of November, a special shuttlebus will take visitors from the main Israel Museum campus to the Rockefeller Museum for a guided tour of the beautiful building and the new exhibition, Beliefs and Believers: Ancient Art from the Israel Museum.
November 5, 12, 19, and 26
Transportation provided.
Parallel tours in English and Hebrew.
Leaves Israel Museum parking lot at 11:00 am; returns at 1:30 pm. Tour from 11:30-1:00.
Space is limited.
Included with the price of admission to the Museum.

Place: Rockefeller Archaeological Museum

| Model of Jerusalem in the Late Second Temple Period
In the year 66 CE, the Great Revolt against the Romans erupted, resulting in the destruction of the city and the Temple. The ancient city was then at its largest, covering an area of approximately 445 acres. The model thus reflects ancient Jerusalem at its peak. Built at the initiative of Hans Kroch, owner of the Holyland Hotel, in memory of his son Jacob, who fell in Israel's War of Independence, the model opened to the public in the early 1960s on the premises of the hotel, and has now been relocated to the Israel Museum.
Three main sources were used to reconstruct the appearance of the city: writings from the Roman period, ancient cities similar to Jerusalem, and archaeological discoveries from Jerusalem itself. Extensive excavations in Jerusalem have greatly enhanced our understanding of the ancient city and enabled us to update the model, and it is expected that such work will continue in the future.

Place: Shrine of the Book campus

| A Wandering Bible: The Aleppo Codex
The amazing story of the Aleppo Codex, the most authoritative manuscript of the Masoretic text of the Bible, which was written in Tiberias in the 10th century, preserved by the Jewish community of Aleppo from the 14th century on, and brought to Israel in the 1950s. The Codex is accompanied by rare biblical manuscripts from the Late Second Temple Period and the Middle Ages and by related Jewish and Muslim objects. Shrine of the Book, Lower Level

Place: The Shrine of the Book

Special Exhibits

| Song of the Sea: An Unknown Scroll Fragment from the 8th Century
On view for the first time!

A rare Torah manuscript from "the silent period" – some 500 years, between the 3rd and 8th centuries, from which almost no Hebrew biblical manuscripts have been found. Apparently written in Egypt, this fragment of a Torah scroll contains a section of the book of Exodus, including one of the earliest and most beautiful examples of biblical poetry, the Song of the Sea. The text of the manuscript is strikingly similar to the traditional Masoretic version familiar from later Bible codices (dating from the 9th century on). It constitutes a link between these medieval manuscripts and more ancient texts from the late Second Temple period, found in the Judean Desert. This special exhibit is on loan courtesy of the Rare Book Department at Duke University, North Carolina. read more > > >

Place: The Shrine of the Book