The Israel Museum (Hebrew: מוזיאון ישראל, Muze'on Yisrael, Arabic: متحف إسرائيل) is an art and archaeological museum in Jerusalem. It was established in 1965 as Israel's largest and foremost cultural institution, and one of the world's leading encyclopaedic museums. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, adjacent to the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Its holdings include the world's most comprehensive collections of the archaeology of the Holy Land, and Jewish art and life, as well as significant and extensive holdings in the fine arts, the latter encompassing eleven separate departments: Israeli Art, European Art, Modern Art, Contemporary Art, Prints and Drawings, Photography, Design and Architecture, Asian Art, African Art, Oceanian Art, and Arts of the Americas.
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.[2] An urn-shaped building in 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.
Jerusalem 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.[2] 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.[3]
On October 25, 2017, Ido Bruno was appointed Director of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem as the Anne and Jerome Fisher Director. Bruno served as a professor in the Industrial Design Department of the Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design, Jerusalem. He brings to the position decades of experience as a curator and designer of exhibitions presented in Israel and across the world with a focus on art, archeology, science, and history. He was unanimously elected by the museum's board of directors, chaired by Isaac Molho, following an extensive search and review process of candidates from Israel and abroad. Bruno assumed his position at the museum in November 2017.[4]
Denis Weil, formerly Dean of the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology, became Museum Director in March 2020.[5]