Aliyah Blog 43: ANU Jewish Museum in Tel Aviv

by tostien · April 3, 2025

Article Outline:

The Diaspora Museum –> Anu Museum of 2021-
Themes of the New Anu Museum in Tel Aviv
Kosher Cafe – Going to a Museum Without Having to Plan Food!
The Gift Shop.
October 7th Massacre
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Government and Bureaucracy
10. Oct 8, 2024: Driver’s License
11. Oct 13, 2024: Packages. (חבילות.)
13. Oct 30, 2024: Bureaucracies and Stories
19. Nov 28, 2024: Taxation for Americans
22. Dec 23, 2024: Doctors & “Choleh Chadash”
27. Jan 23, 2025: Healthcare in Israel
32. Feb 5, 2025: How To Hire the Wrong Person
33. Feb 10, 2025: Quest to Pay My Taxes

Politics & Thought
12. Oct 25, 2024: October Sun and the Jew
16. Nov 17, 2024: Where People Look Like Me
17. Nov 19, 2024: Jewish Identity and Outlook
21. Dec 11, 2024: Let Freedom Ring
38. Mar 6, 2025: Talking in Quiet Peace

Travel and Trips
08. Sept 25, 2024: Jerusalem Concert
14. Nov 2, 2024: The Kindness of Strangers
20. Dec 5, 2024: Tel Aviv Art Museum
23. Dec 29, 2024: The West Bank. (Shomron)
26. Jan 18, 2025: Dead Sea Beer and Ice Cream
28. Jan 26, 2025: Yarkon River Judaism, Tel Aviv
30. Jan 31, 2025: My Son Visits and we Travel
35. Feb 20, 2025: Mitzpe Ramon Stars, Ein Avdat
42. Mar 28, 2025: Hike Nahal Tavor, Mt. Tabor

The Diaspora Museum –> Anu Museum of 2021-

The “Anu” museum – formerly the “Diaspora Museum” . . . is a completely redone museum in 2021. When I was first there, there was the “old” Diaspora Museum, showing culture and history of the Jews around the world, a museum focused on tradition and history surrounded by what became a very liberal university. There were “telephones” where could listen to information about Benjamin of Tudela, the Ramban’s disputation, and other historical events. Lest ye laugh at this, my children, know that this was far more comfortable than holding a flat, warm, brick to the side of your head. At least irons have handles.

The Rabbi from my haredi yeshiva loved to take us on tours here though took issue with a Torah scroll rolled out on display which should have been in geniza [buried]. I loved the reproduction of the Arch of Titus and Emperor Hadrian standing there – when you see how short he is, he’s not so intimidating – especially when made out of plaster.

Also included were synagogue models from around the world, such as the famous Newport Synagogue, etc, and documentaries in cathode ray tube screens, such as one showing yeshiva bochurim learning Torah in shiur and giving tzedekah to a collector, unaware they were being filmed.

Mikve Yisrael / Touro Synagogue Model (degem) – these models survived the change to the new museum

Then there was an intermediate phrase where the museum dissuaded visitors to the “old” museum which out of date and said go to the “new” section extolling the virtues of Karl Marx and Donna Karen as role models. It was kind of a “mommy and me” sort of place and … a bit horrifyingly ignorant to be honoring, at a Jewish museum in Tel Aviv, those such as Marx who were against Judaism from both a religious and nationalistic sense. (What are DK’s views, anyway?)

The “Anu” museum, explained the English tour guide who gives tours Mondays and Thursdays at 1pm, changed its name because of the change in political view … that the “Diaspora” museum was telling the story of all the Jews returning from the Diaspora, whereas the “Anu” museum is for “Us” (Anu = Us in Hebrew) wherever we are. <shrug>

The new museum has elements of each of the prior incarnations, though it is almost completely redone. The models of the synagogues from around the world remain, including this one from China, made by my uncle many years ago for the museum.

Themes of the New Anu Museum in Tel Aviv

Otherwise, ideas from the old museum remain … there’s still a thing on the wall about Benjamin of Tudela (traveled around the known world about 1000 years ago and wrote about the Jewish communities in his diary), and the Ramban’s disputation (forced argument about the truth of Judaism vs. Christianity in Spain) … though I miss being able to pick up the phone and hear the disputation.

Today, the don’t say “Karl Marx is a Jewish hero” – he’s just one guy on a wall with a hundred other Jewish men and women with short bios. Now they have Jews living today … full size people talking to you about their Jewish identity including a Litvish Jew who became Chassidish and a lesbian becoming a man (not the same person).

There’s a similar exhibit in The Bible Museum in Washington D.C. – which is the best Jewish museum I’ve ever been to, by far. At that museum the people are talking to you about what the Sabbath means to them.

The new museum is more centered on “culture” and “inclusivity” of what it means to be a Jew … in addition to the Sasson codex (1000 year old copy of the Torah purchased for $33 million), music (including a guitar from Gene Simmons), art . . .

I had no idea Jerome Roberts was Jewish … or that his real name was Jerome Rabinowitz. Sigh.

. . . and this is what my neighbor’s family looked like – walking through the desert to get to Israel in the early 1950s. They have no shoes, the Arabs didn’t let them ride horses, and they could only take what they could carry.

They get in their dose of hysterical feminism – such as with this closeup near information about Gloria Steinem:

My first thought was – ha – they’re shooting themselves in the foot. XX does not equal XY at all! See they’re different!

Then I thought, oh wait … let X=Y … then XX=XY! Then my daughter reminded me that X and Y are not equal. They’re very different size chromosomes. Girl power for the win.

Side story: in yeshiva there was a guy whose mother was heavily involved with the National Organization of Women … he said Gloria Steinem once came to his house and he held the door open for her. She went into a rant about how she didn’t need a man to do anything for her. So …. I should only hold the door open for men? Wouldn’t that be misogynistic? Thankfully my daughter’s girl power comes from somewhere else.

Kosher Cafe – Going to a Museum Without Having to Plan Food!

After being here a while, combinations of Hebrew letters without vowels start making sense when you see context and realize it’s all English anyway. It says “Aroma Expresso Bar”. Sigh.

The Aroma cafe has not changed – and this is something “only in Israel” … no need to plan or pack food for trips to the museum. No need to pre-search for restaurants in the area. There’s a kosher sandwhich and salad place right in the museum . . . and I’ve said this so many times . . . the food in this country is soooo much better than the United States which has the highest percentage of processed foods in the world at 58%. A number like that should not even be possible. Everything is made cookie cutter and shipped across the country whereas in Israel the farms are literally within view of high-rise buildings quite regularly.

The Gift Shop.

Plus, where else can you find a gift shop with books about hummus, miniature Israeli trash cans, and a Tanach? (Maybe the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. 🙂 ).

October 7th Massacre

There’s an ultra-new exhibit about September 7, 2023 and the Simchas Torah massacre. The art is from those who survived, or in some cases, died during the massacre. As those who lived through the holocaust are almost gone, I feel like it’s a fresh reminder of those feelings which were almost lost, in a weird sort of way in which even the most disconnected Jew feel “connected” to something larger than yourself – to your people. The massacre was, in fact, a large driving force for my wife insisting that we move to Israel. There’s sometimes a feeling of aloneness as a Jew in the diaspora. In Israel, you feel at home and don’t need walls and fences – sometimes to protect and sometimes to hide – to be Jewish as in a non-Jewish country.

This work of art is particularly appealing to me for some reason. It’s painted by Shai Azoulay – there’s a tornado engulfing the world and some people are flying away, yet others are sitting in simple chairs around a circle. Are those sitting unaffected or unaware of the Tornado? Are they so grounded that the whirlwinds coming to destroy do not blow them away?

Across the street is a natural history museum … looked nice … for another visit. There’s also a botanical garden … with locked gate. Perhaps it’s for a visit with the natural history museum in the future.

Now for some Jewish humor in the museum: