Culture Of Jerusalem- Israel
by: Jack Devlin
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Word Count: 538
Although Jerusalem is known around the world for its religious significance, the city is also home to many artistic and cultural venues. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem's premier art museum, annually attracts nearly one million visitors, approximately one-third of them international tourists. The twenty-acre museum complex comprises several buildings featuring special exhibits and extensive collections of Judaica, archeological findings, and Israeli and European art. The Dead Sea scrolls, discovered in the mid-twentieth century in the Qumran caves near the Dead Sea, are housed in the Museum's Shrine of the Book. The Youth Wing, which mounts changing exhibits and runs an extensive art education program, is visited by 100,000 children a year. The museum has a large outdoor sculpture garden, and a scale-model of the Second Temple was recently moved from the Holyland Hotel to a new location on the museum grounds. Other museums affiliated with the Israel Museum are the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum, Ticho House, and the Paley Center of Art. The Rockefeller Museum, located in East Jerusalem, was the first archeological museum in the Middle East. It was built in 1938 during the British Mandate. Ticho House, in downtown Jerusalem, houses the paintings of Anna Ticho and the Judaica collections of her husband, an ophthalmologist who opened Jerusalem's first eye clinic in this building in 1912.
Another prominent cultural institution in Jerusalem is Yad Vashem, Israel's national memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. Yad Vashem houses the world's largest library of Holocaust-related information, with an estimated 100,000 books and articles. The complex contains a state-of-the-art museum that explores the genocide of the Jews through exhibits that focus on the personal stories of individuals and families whose lives were torn asunder, and a gallery displaying permanent and changing exhibits of work by artists who died in the Holocaust.[ Another memorial at Yad Vashem commemorates the 1.5 million Jewish children who perished at the hands of the Nazis. Yad Vashem operates as both a research and educational institution.
One of the city's foremost orchestras is the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, which has been operating since the 1940s. The Orchestra has held performances in cities around the world, including Vienna, Frankfurt, and New York City. Within walking distance of the Old City is a cultural district which includes the Khan Theatre, the only repertoire theater in the city, and the Jerusalem Cinematheque. The Jerusalem Theater, located in the Talbiya neighborhood, hosts over 150 concerts a year, as well as theater and dance companies and performing artists from overseas. Other prominent facilities for the performing arts include the International Convention Center (Binyanei HaUma) near the entrance to city, where the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra plays, the Gerard Behar Center in downtown Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Music Center in Yemin Moshe, and the Targ Music Center in Ein Kerem. The Palestinian National Theatre, founded in 1984 and once the only center for art and culture in East Jerusalem, today presents art from the Palestinian perspective. The Israel Festival, featuring local and international vocal artists, concerts, plays and street theater, has been held annually since 1961. For the past 25 years, Jerusalem has been the major organizer of this event, which takes place in May-June, and most of the performances take place at venues around the city.
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