Latest News

July in Tel Aviv has a shape to it. You go to the beach early, you come back, and then there is a stretch between about midday and four when going outside is a poor idea. This is the list for that stretch.

The short version

• Tel Aviv Museum of Art is the big one, and its newer wing is worth the visit on its own.
• ANU tells the story of the Jewish people and is on the university campus, north of the centre.
• Eretz Israel Museum is several museums on one site, and the least crowded of the three.
• Everything below is air-conditioned. In July that is the first criterion, not the last.

Tel Aviv Museum of Art

The city's principal art museum, with a substantial collection of Israeli art alongside European and American work. The Herta and Paul Amir building, the newer wing, is an angular concrete piece of architecture that people come to see for itself.

It will fill an afternoon, and it is the easiest of the three to reach from here.

ANU - Museum of the Jewish People

On the Tel Aviv University campus at the northern end of the city. It was completely rebuilt and reopened a few years ago, and the current version is a modern, heavily interactive museum covering Jewish life and culture across the world rather than a single narrative.

It is a proper half-day, and the campus setting means the walk in from the gate is green and shaded.

Eretz Israel Museum

A cluster of pavilions on one site in Ramat Aviv - archaeology, glass, ceramics, coins, and an excavation you can walk around, plus a planetarium. Being several small museums on one site, it suits a group that cannot agree on a single exhibition. It is also the quietest of the three in high season.

Smaller, and closer

• The Bauhaus Center on Dizengoff, for anyone who has read the White City post and wants more. Small, and mostly a shop and exhibition space.
• Beit Ha'ir, the old city hall on Bialik Square, covering the history of Tel Aviv itself.
• The galleries of Neve Tzedek, which are small, numerous, free to walk into and all within a few streets of each other.
• Ilana Goor Museum in Jaffa, a sculptor's house above the harbour - combine it with an afternoon in Jaffa, in the late afternoon.

Practical notes

Opening hours in this city are not uniform and they change. Fridays close early almost everywhere, Saturdays vary by institution, and some museums shut one weekday. Check the day before rather than turning up.

Most of the larger museums are a bus or a short taxi ride rather than a walk from here - they are spread across the city rather than clustered in one quarter.

And the obvious alternative: your own apartment has air conditioning in every room. A long lunch at home through the worst of the heat is what most people in this city do with a July afternoon.