The Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv ("Haaretz Museum"), is a multidisciplinary museum which exhibits opulent collections in the fields of Archaeology, Judaica, Ethnography, Material Culture and the Applied Arts of the Land of Israel.

The Museum is unique in both character and structure: it might be called a "Museum Park" comprising many exhibition pavilions within a huge campus. Every pavilion is dedicated to a different cultural subject. In the center of the park is an ancient Tel - a mound built up by thousands of years of continuous occupation - where ongoing archaeological excavations have been conducted for decades. The Museum also has the "Man and His Work" Center, which includes working reconstructions of various ancient and traditional production installations; a "Craftsmen's Bazaar" demonstrating traditional vocations of the Land of Israel; an advanced Planetarium; a comprehensive library covering all aspects of the Land of Israel and its people; a large, complete Gift Shop, and a 524-seat auditorium.

Eretz Israel Museum,
Tel Aviv
2, Haim Levanon Street,
Tel Aviv 69975
Tel: (972) 3 641 5244
Fax: (972) 3 641 2408

 


Greek silver coin from Syracus, Sicily, signed by Euainetos, 400 BCE
view enlarged

 

The Leo Kadman Numismatics Pavilion was opened in 1962, and contains a large, significant and still developing collection of coins. In the permanent exhibition, the exhibit chronicles of "means of payment" from the very beginning when there were no coins, to the present day. It emphasizes the history of the Land of Israel through currency. The historical picture is rounded out with the aid of reliefs, portraiture, maps and illustrations, which manifest the historical-cultural background of coins. Sections of the exhibit relate to the coins of Greece, Rome, Byzantium, the Crusader kingdoms, Muslim countries and Israel.

In addition to the permanent exhibition and the constantly-changing temporary presentations, the Kadman Pavilion offers the visitor a professional numismatics library, as well as lectures and seminars on the subject. The new Exhibition at the Kadman Numismatics Pavilion: "Christianity on the Coins of Eretz Israel," is featured this month (April 2001) in the Jewish Heritage Online Magazine.