Frommer's Review
This extraordinary museum in Ramat Aviv was the brainchild of Dr. Nahum Goldmann, founder and first president of the World Jewish Congress. There's no other exhibit about Jewish communities throughout the world quite like this. In the huge, strikingly modern building are countless artful exhibits that chronicle the 2,500-year history of the Jewish Diaspora. The collection contains no objects from the past, but is rather a multimedia history lesson: Here is what happened to the Jewish people, and what they accomplished, between the time when they were driven from Israel and the time when they returned. Photographs, documents, replicas of artifacts, films, music, maps, and scale models vividly bring to life the communities, synagogues, households, and workshops of Jews living in dozens of countries. There is an introductory Chronosphere (slide projection lecture) about the Diaspora for an extra fee (if you already know the basics of Jewish history, skip it). Among the highlights are a model of a 13th-century Jewish community with more than 100 tiny figurines clad in period dress and engaged in various occupations and fascinating scale models of famous synagogues, including one in China built in 1653. The ground floor hosts special, well-chosen visiting exhibitions.
Most rewarding, especially for those who have time for a return visit, is the archival film collection of dozens of Jewish communities throughout the world, and the extraordinary collection of Jewish music. If you're ancestor hunting, for a small fee you can get a computer printout on any of 3,000 Jewish communities, and look for information on record in the museum's genealogy research center. Jewish visitors can also record information about their families. (The research center can be time-consuming, as the office is understaffed, and the archives, which depend totally on material given to them by visitors, are by no means complete.) There's a dairy cafeteria on the premises, or you can lunch at any of the many university campus cafeterias. The small museum bookshop is a worthwhile stop. Note: When this guide was published, the museum was operating on curtailed hours, but this may change as tourism returns.
Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without
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