Wolfson Museum of Jewish Art, Hechal Shlomo

מוזאון היכל שלמה לאמנות יהודית ע"ש וולפסון

Museum · Judaica · Ritual objects · Jewish heritage and Jewish-Israeli culture · Torah scrolls from Vilna · 10-60 ₪

58 King George Street, Jerusalem

A museum of Jewish art in the historic Hechal Shlomo building on King George Street in central Jerusalem, built on a large Judaica collection

The Wolfson Museum of Jewish Art sits in the historic Hechal Shlomo building in the heart of Jerusalem and shows permanent and changing exhibitions drawn from a collection of heritage, Judaica and Jewish-Israeli culture; its site says the collection is considered one of the important Judaica collections in the world, with items from the Second Temple period to the present from communities around the world. Its founder, Yehuda Leib Bialer, who came to Israel in 1949, set up the museum in Hechal Shlomo and was its first director, and in 1977 the generosity of Sir Isaac Wolfson, after whom it is named, let it acquire a collection gathered over 30 years, followed by further collections, one of them on long-term loan since 1979. The permanent display includes a Torah ark from Galicia that served a community in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim, a 13th-century Torah scroll written on deer hide that stayed legible after a flood and was saved from a Nazi auction, and Rabbi Herzog's original study, moved from his home. The exhibition Vilna as a Parable for Jewish Identity hangs 120 parchments, part of 345 Torah scrolls, parchments and scrolls brought from Vilna to Israel in 2002, in the numbered linen sacks they arrived in. Its ticket page also sells a guided tour of the museum and a combined tour of the museum and outside.