Museums In Tel Aviv

“We used to build temples, and museums are about as close as secular society dares to go in facing up to the idea that a good building can change your life (and a bad one ruin it).” Alain de Botton

Tel Aviv is an outdoor city with beautiful soft sandy beaches, flea markets, food and craft markets and alfresco dining most of the year.

This time I was there in January and February. The first ten days were particularly cold and rainy so I spent some time exploring a few museums.

I’ve written about the Tel Aviv Museum Of Art designed by Preston Scott Cohen before. If you are into architecture as I am you will love the building.

It is located in central Tel Aviv within a Cultural Complex inside a beautiful park.

My god-daughter lives nearby. In a city where everything closes on Saturday, this museum is open.

We walk passed the families in the playground and through the skateboarders to the entrance. The temporary exhibits are always interesting. The one I wanted to see was called Total Red which was photography from early twentieth century Soviet Photographers. Pastel, the museum’s restaurant i is beautiful and delicious.

Visiting Eretz Israel Museum in the rain is probably not the best way to see it. It is a collection of several pavilions and excavations spread out all over.

The focus is on culture and history. When I travel and do large museums, I usually just pick a few exhibits to see, Otherwise it is too overwhelming.

I love photography so I went to those exhibits.

There was one about life in the internment camps in Cyprus where the Holocaust survivor were kept until Israel became a nation.

And another about the Italian ship captain that brought refugees to Israel.

I also watched a film on how Baron de Rothschild helped Israel grow. The restaurant is delicious and the gift store is one of the best in Tel Aviv for art and crafts.

Exodus was one of my favorite TV movies when I was very young.  Paul Newman played Ari Ben Canaan who was the head of the Haganah. I was always interested in them. The Haganah was the military organization that protected the Jewish settlements in Palestine.

It was the predecessor to the Israeli Defense Forces.

The Haganah Museum is located on beautiful Rothschild Blvd in the house of one of the Haganah founders.

It traces the story from the earliest watchtowers to the struggle for independence to the development of the modern army.

You will see many troops of Israeli soldiers being brought there on field trips.

Fly safe,

JAZ