Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Israel Museum, Jerusalem The Israel Museum is the largest cultural institution in the State of Israel and is ranked among the leading art and archaeology museums in the world.

Founded in 1965, the Museum houses encyclopedic collections ranging from prehistory through contemporary art and includes the most extensive holdings of Biblical and Holy Land archaeology in the world, among them the Dead Sea Scrolls. In just 50 years, the Museum has built a far-ranging collection of over 500,000 objects through an unparalleled legacy of gifts and support from its circle of patron

s worldwide. The Museum also organizes and presents programming at its off-site locations in Jerusalem at the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum, where it presents archaeological artifacts from the Land of Israel, and at its historic Ticho House in downtown Jerusalem, a venue for exhibitions of contemporary Israeli art.

“My destiny is to make art for my own requiem: art which gives meaning to death, tracing the beauty of colors and space ...
27/08/2026

“My destiny is to make art for my own requiem: art which gives meaning to death, tracing the beauty of colors and space in the silence of death’s footsteps and the ‘nothingness’ it promises.” - Yayoi Kusama, from Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama.

The museum mourns the passing of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, celebrated worldwide for her works that explore themes such as perception and infinity.

In this early Kusama sculpture from the Museum’s permanent collection, a simple ironing board becomes absurd and menacing. The iron is positioned face down, threatening to scorch the phalluses emerging from the surface. Kusama expresses her fear of male domination and attempts to symbolically possess and defy patriarchal authority.

[Yayoi Kusama, Untitled (Ironing Board), 1963. Stuffed fabric, steam iron, ironing board, paint. Purchased through the bequests of Lord Amulree, London; Gregoire Tarnopol and Alexander Tarnopol, New York; Dr. Solomon Kaufman, London; Gita Sherover, Jerusalem; and Richard S. Zeisler collection, New York; and the gifts of René Magritte, Brussels; Harry Torczyner, New York; Mr. Leo Rogers, New York; Barbara Tuchman, New York. Photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem by Elie Posner]
[Garry Knight, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons]

Now available for the first time: classes in English at the Museum! We’re thrilled to launch new English-language art co...
27/08/2026

Now available for the first time: classes in English at the Museum!
We’re thrilled to launch new English-language art courses this year, for both children and adults.

See Do Love Art (Grades 1-2)
Young artists will explore the artworks in the Museum galleries, and create their own masterpieces under the guidance of art therapist Ariela Bogner. Through painting, sculpting, building, and hands-on experimentation, children will develop creativity, confidence, and a lifelong love of art.

Draw, Scribble, and Let Go! Drawing and Painting for Beginners
Explore techniques such as drawing, painting, and collage in an encouraging environment led by instructor Hili Ben-Or, a graduate of Bezalel Academy. No prior experience necessary.

For more information about the Museum’s classes in English, or its many offerings in Hebrew, please visit the museum website.

Photo: Ariella Bogner

The Israel Museum mourns the passing of Ruth Debel (1934-2026), collector, patron of the arts, and director of Debel Gal...
26/08/2026

The Israel Museum mourns the passing of Ruth Debel (1934-2026), collector, patron of the arts, and director of Debel Gallery, which operated in Jerusalem between 1973 and 1990.

The gallery, run by Ruth and her partner Étienne, championed a modernist, avant-garde, and experimental approach, and was a cornerstone of the network of galleries and art institutions active in Israel during those years. Ruth maintained close relationships with leading curators and cultural figures in Jerusalem and nationwide, many of whom made pilgrimages to her gallery in Ein Kerem. Her ties with the Israel Museum and with prominent figures in the local art world helped establish the gallery as influential and made it a crucial destination for those interested in Israeli art.

Ruth's path was marked by a precise, personal, and sensitive eye. She followed her heart in shaping her artistic vision and making curatorial choices that were remarkably diverse, always open-minded and never rigid. She sought originality, new ideas, and exceptional artistic expression. Alongside established artists, she exhibited and represented young artists such as Yocheved Weinfeld, as well as lesser known artists whom she discovered and supported wholeheartedly, including Gabriel Cohen and Michel Haddad.

In recent years, Ruth donated the Debel Gallery archives to the Israel Museum's Information Center for Israeli Art. The archive includes correspondence, exhibition documentation, invitations, articles, and photographs. Recorded conversations with artists and their transcripts formed the basis of the book "I did not have a line, I had space": Debel Gallery: dialogues with artists, edited by Dalia Manor and published by Pardes in 2025.

Ruth's vision, her love for and devotion to the world of art and artists, will be sorely missed.

Ruth Debel at the gallery, 1989. Photograph: Yosefa Meir
Debel Gallery Archive, Information Center for Israeli Art, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Happy birthday to Giovanni Battista Salvi (known as Sassoferrato), born on August 25, 1609! In seventeenth-century Italy...
25/08/2026

Happy birthday to Giovanni Battista Salvi (known as Sassoferrato), born on August 25, 1609!

In seventeenth-century Italy, artists such as Sassoferrato often revisited celebrated masterpieces as a way to showcase their own talent. In this painting of the Virgin and Child, he interpreted a composition by Renaissance master Raphael. Every detail tells a story. The light illuminating the pair comes from an ambiguous source, somewhere beyond the earthly world. The carnations foreshadow the tears that were said to have blossomed wherever Mary’s tears fell after her son’s death.

Sassoferrato’s painting is now on view in our exhibition Light, in the European Art Galleries.

[Giovanni Battista Salvi (Il Sassoferrato), Italian, 1609-1685. The Madonna of the Pinks, undated. Oil on canvas. Gift of Sam Weisbord, Los Angeles, to American Friends of the Israel Museum, in loving memory of his mother, Goldie Weisbord. Photo ©️ The Israel Museum, Jerusalem by Zohar Shemesh]

Happy birthday to sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, born on August 22, 1891!Lipchitz had a special relationship with the Israel...
22/08/2026

Happy birthday to sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, born on August 22, 1891!

Lipchitz had a special relationship with the Israel Museum, and took part in its groundbreaking ceremony. In 1971 we honored his 80th birthday with a solo exhibition, and after his death his remarkable personal art collection was gifted to the Museum. It remains on permanent display.

One of Lipchitz’s early Cubist sculptures, Detachable Figure, translates Cubist principles into three dimensions. It constructs a figure from multiple planes, using stippled black dots as a form of shading. Its distinctive combination of a frontal body and a profile head reflects the artist’s interest in Egyptian art, while the use of wood and elongated forms show the influence of African artistic traditions.

Detachable Figure is on view in our modern art galleries.

[Jacques Lipchitz, Detachable Figure (Dancer), 1915. Natural and painted wood. Gift of Yulla Lipchitz, New York, to American Friends of the Israel Museum, in honor of Teddy Kollek.]

New acquisition | Metamorphosis Through Light Between 1935 and 1936, modernist photographer Helmar Lerski transformed a ...
18/08/2026

New acquisition | Metamorphosis Through Light

Between 1935 and 1936, modernist photographer Helmar Lerski transformed a single subject into 175 different portraits, using variations of light, shadow, and perspective. Created on a Tel Aviv rooftop over the course of two years, Metamorphosis Through Light used a masterful manipulation of tools such as reflective mirrors to present the many faces of Leo Uschatz, a construction engineer. Regarded as a landmark of 20th century photography, the series challenged the notion of photography as an objective record.

We are pleased to announce that the Museum recently acquired 24 vintage prints from this significant series, which is also represented within the institutional collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and Museum Folkwang, Essen.

As the Museum's curator of photography, Gilad Reich, notes: "This was a groundbreaking series in the history of photography, and a call for universal humanism at a historic moment marked by the rise of fascist forces in Europe.”

Helmar Lerski, Swiss, born Germany, 1871-1956. Twenty-four vintage prints from the series “Metamorphosis through Light”, 1935-36. Gelatin silver prints, 23 x 29 cm (each).

“Bread” | Performance Artist Hadas Ophrat at the Israel MuseumEvery day, for an entire year, performance artist Hadas Op...
17/08/2026

“Bread” | Performance Artist Hadas Ophrat at the Israel Museum

Every day, for an entire year, performance artist Hadas Ophrat has selected a root from the Hebrew language, studied its meanings, inflections, and associations, and formulated a new physical action from them.

Today, Ophrat performed an action at the Museum derived from the Hebrew root l-h-m (ל-ח-מ), present in the words “bread” (leḥem) and “war” (milḥamah). The artist stood barefoot and motionless, gazing directly at Yitzhak Danziger’s iconic sculpture, Ni**od, which represents the warrior, the hunter, the native son of the land. The performance’s duration was determined by the rate at which the battery of the GoPro camera mounted on his shoulder was depleted. The camera both recorded the event and mirrored the falcon perched on Ni**od’s shoulder. Behind his back, instead of the bow held by Ni**od, Ophrat held a loaf of bread. His fingers slowly pierced it and tore it apart.

The prolonged, silent stance of an older artist opposite an image of an eternally young warrior evokes contemplation of masculinity, power, and the passage of time. The connection between the words “bread” and “war” takes tangible form here, linking basic human needs with violence and struggle, alluding to fundamental human instincts.

Hadas Ophrat, Israeli, born 1950. Bread, 2026. Site-specific performance. Video documentation: Yuval Yairi.

Bread was created in coordination with the Israel Museum and with the permission of the Yitzhak Danziger Estate.

13/08/2026

Shoes, a kettle, and an avocado 👠🫖🥑 What could emerge from such a combination? Ask Dudi Ben Simon.

We admire the ability to look at everyday objects with an entirely fresh perspective, and when Dudi is concerned, it’s a real specialty.

That’s exactly why Shoofra partnered with the Israel Museum on a special project as part of the Shoe Stories exhibition. Dudi took everyday objects and transformed them into surprising, clever, and original sculptural works.

The collaborative project is now on view in the Shoe Stories exhibition.

The Israel Museum mourns the passing of Professor Yuval Goren, a pioneering researcher and valued partner in the Museum’...
12/08/2026

The Israel Museum mourns the passing of Professor Yuval Goren, a pioneering researcher and valued partner in the Museum’s scholarly work for many years.

Yuval was a pioneer of archaeometric and microarchaeological research in Israel. His work combined archaeology, materials science, and microscopic analytical methods, in an effort to understand ancient objects through their materials, the technologies used to create them, and their places of origin.

Over the years, Yuval collaborated on research involving several objects in the Museum’s collections, including Neolithic masks, Achaemenid throne legs, and an Egyptian coffin lid. He was also involved in the scientific study of artifacts that held complex questions of provenance and authenticity, including the Ivory Pomegranate. In recent years, he resumed studying the mystery of the Nahal Mishmar hoard, and a groundbreaking study led by him was published in 2025, proposing a new dating for the hoard. His collaborators continue this study.

Beyond his scientific accomplishments, we will remember Yuval as a beloved, curious, and generous person, who loved objects and materials, the questions that they raise, and the ability to share research and the joy of discovery with the broader public.

May his memory be a blessing.

In God We Trust: Coins and Medals with the Divine Name 🪙🪙🪙This exhibition brings together coins and medals, from antiqui...
06/08/2026

In God We Trust: Coins and Medals with the Divine Name 🪙🪙🪙

This exhibition brings together coins and medals, from antiquity through the early 20th century. For centuries, rulers used divine authority to legitimize their reign but this practice took on a new twist in the late 16th century: European rulers and cities began minting coins and medals bearing the Tetragrammaton (the sacred Hebrew name of God).

Step into this compelling story of power, faith, and symbolism, and see how some of history’s most enduring messages were struck in metal and then circulated worldwide.

[Medal commemorating the coronation of Frederick III as King in Prussia. Prussia, 1701 CE, silver]

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