The
Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv was first founded as the Haaretz Museum in 1958 in the northern part of the city, according to the museum’s website.
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The facility sits on 20 acres of land and has 15 buildings surrounded by gardens that contain such things as ancient relics, oil presses, flour mills, and an ancient wine press.
One important tip to know when visiting the Eretz museum is to pay attention to the hours of operation. Except for Thursdays when the museum is open until 8 p.m., most days the facility closes midafternoon. However, the museum’s cafĂ©, Anina, is open until midnight seven days a week.
A popular destination at the Eretz museum is the planetarium where visitors sit on a revolving stage and watch one of two films – “Stars” and “Astronaut” — produced by the National Space Centre of Leicester, England. According to the museum’s website, visitors pay half the regular price on the second ticket if they buy tickets to both films on the same day.
“Stars” is described as a flight to the furthermost place in the galaxy and explores the huge universe with its infinite galaxies, each one containing billions of stars, very different from one another. While there is no formal description of the film, “Astronaut,” the museum provides a
53-second YouTube video on its website about the film.
Sales for both films at the Eretz’s planetarium end 10 minutes before they start, and children under the age of 6 cannot enter the planetarium. Both films also have a Hebrew version.
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The Eretz museum’s gift shop is at the entrance to the facility and features works from Israeli artists.
Visitors to the museum will find “an extensive assortment of replicas, Judaica, jewelry, ceramics, glass, textile and metal, unique items based on the museum's exhibits as well as original and innovative designs.” The facility also has several auditoriums and spaces for conferences and special events where curators and scholars make presentations year-round.
About 20 temporary exhibits are part of the Eretz museum annually. However, the Tell Qasile is a permanent fixture in the center of the museum’s complex, described as “an ancient archeological mound dating from the 12th century BCE.”
According to the Eretz’s website, excavations on the Tell Qasile began in the late 1940s and continued until the 1990s. The excavations uncovered what is believed to be an ancient Palestinian port city that was destroyed by fire in the 10th century BCE but was rebuilt and later thrived.
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