Bar-David Museum of Art and Judaica, Museum in Israel
The Bar-David Museum of Art and Judaica is a museum located in Kibbutz Bar'am in Upper Galilee that focuses on Jewish artworks and ritual objects. The museum displays archaeological finds, ancient manuscripts, and contemporary Israeli art in separate gallery sections, and also features a sculpture garden with works by artist Yigal Tomarkin.
Moshe Bar-David, born in Brzeżany in Galicia, immigrated to Haifa in 1934 and collected Jewish and Israeli art for decades. After his wife Tova died in 1974, he donated the collection to Kibbutz Bar'am, where their daughter Rivka had been among the founders. Architect Menachem Katz, a relative and fellow Brzeżany native, adapted the building, and the museum opened during Hanukkah 1982. Bar-David died in 1989 and is buried beside Tova at the kibbutz.
The museum displays objects from Jewish communities across different regions and periods, explaining how people practiced their traditions. The exhibited pieces tell stories of holidays, rituals, and everyday life, helping visitors understand these ways of living.
The museum occupies a building the kibbutz set aside, adapted voluntarily by architect Menachem Katz, a relative of Moshe Bar-David and himself a native of Brzeżany. The entrance level holds the Judaica display and the upper floor the archaeology wing, while guided activity for school and group programmes takes place on the lower floor. The sculpture garden lies in the courtyard.
The entrance displays a replica of the lintel from the ancient synagogue of Bar'am, bearing the inscription "May there be peace in this place and in all places of Israel. Yose HaLevi ben Levi made this lintel; may blessing come upon his deeds, peace." The original stone is in the Louvre.
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