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Antique manuscripts; robots pulling books off shelves; an exciting, interactive display on a giant 65-ft. screen; ancient incantation bowls; enchanted items; rare recordings of cultural ceremonies. Would you have ever believed you could find all this and much more at a library?
You read that right! It’s all here at the National Library of Israel!
Inside an impressive new building, you can find the greatest, most important cultural treasures of Israeli society and the Jewish People. Soon, you – curious people of all ages seeking a quality, content-rich, meaningful experience – will be able to see all these treasures up close.
You are invited to the National Library’s brand-new home in Jerusalem, where you can enjoy thought-provoking tours, exhibitions, and activities that will inspire your imagination and warm your heart.
It's a learning experience that’s both fun and inspiring – and it can only happen here.
Visit us soon!
The Library building is open to everyone, free of charge!
When visiting for free, you can wander the unique building, observe the robots locating books in the automated storeroom, view the impressive reading halls, visit the enormous “Letters of Light” sculpture, and chill out in the pleasant garden with a cup of coffee.
With your ticket to "The Treasures", you can experience the National Library’s enormous interactive display, go on a trip through space and time with "A Treasury of Words" - our permanent exhibition - and continue on to the rotating exhibits.
The entry ticket includes a personal audio guide headset (Hebrew, Arabic, or English), which will take you on an independent tour of the display and the permanent exhibition. The audio guide will identify where you are and explain what you are seeing before you. Magical!
IMPORTANT: Entry tickets should be ordered in advance. Otherwise, entry is based on availability. To order tickets >
When?
Sunday-Wednesday – 9am-6pm
Thursday – 2pm-10pm
Fridays and Holiday eve – 10am-1pm
More on the Visit
Age: Visits and tours of the Library are suitable for children, adults, and everyone in between, particularly from reading age (7) and up.
Visit duration: The tour itself lasts about an hour and a half. You are invited to stay as long as you’d like when your tour is over :)
How to Get Here
The address of the Library’s new building is Eliezer Kaplan St 1, Jerusalem. It is centrally located between the Knesset and the Israel Museum.
Arrival by public transportation is recommended.
Meet the Words That Made History
In our innovative exhibition hall, filled with a sense of mystery and under gentle lights necessary to preserve ancient ink, some of our most precious and important artifacts are displayed to the visiting public.
In the “A Treasury of Words” exhibition, you are invited to embark on a journey through time, and through words.
You will see age-old holy scriptures up close. You will draw inspiration from the handwriting of Nobel laureate S.Y. Agnon, Israeli songwriter Naomi Shemer, and other well-known cultural icons. You will discover what magical words were once inscribed on mysterious incantation bowls, and gain a deeper understanding of how words shaped our history and culture here, in this place.
In this exhibition, you will see with your own eyes the original writings that shaped our reality. Hear the stories behind them and understand why they are so important to us.
This exhibition will leave you with a sense of discovery and inspiration that will stay with you long after you have left the building.
*Entry to the exhibition is included in the price of a paid ticket for "The Treasures"
"Encounters of Beauty"
Do you look at the illustrations in the Passover Haggadah before you read the text?
You’re not the only one: Since the beginning of time, writing and illustration have been intertwined, each of them strengthening the other, and leaving us with a legacy of rich, colorful, beautiful works of art.
In the “Encounters of Beauty” exhibit, selected articles of Judaica from the Braginsky Collection - the largest private collection of Jewish manuscripts in the world(!) – are displayed alongside items from the National Library of Israel’s collections. In this exhibit, you can admire richly illustrated scrolls of the Book of Esther, Jewish marriage contracts – ketubot - decorated with touching delicacy, and other rare manuscripts of exceptional beauty.
*Entry to the exhibition is included in the price of a paid ticket for "The Treasures"
An entire world and all it contains can be created with just 22 letters.
According to the Sefer Yetzirah ("the Book of Creation"), an ancient Jewish mystical text, that is exactly how the world was created: from 22 letters.
In the “Letters of Light” sculpture that was specially created for the National Library by Israel Prize winning artist Micha Ullman, you can observe how light and shadow play off of each other, resulting in the formation of Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin letters. You can walk amongst giant rock letters that are over six feet high and imagine the world you’d like to write into existence.
Access to the sculpture is free of charge, through the Library Garden.
Observing Our Hardworking Robots
In an enormous hall, full of endless shelves, sit countless crates overflowing with books.
4 million books. This is the hidden treasure of the National Library – our automated storeroom.
How can librarians possibly find any books here? That’s an excellent question. To help make that possible, we have four sophisticated robots who can find any book in the storeroom and retrieve it. Through this window, you can watch our robots in action!
You can’t enter the hall itself because the oxygen levels there are close to zero, which helps us protect the books from catching fire. Come observe our automated storeroom through the large window and hear the whole story for yourselves.
The storeroom can only be accessed with a tour guide. More details at the information desk.
Across an enormous 65-ft. wide screen, delve into an interactive experience dedicated to the love of books, the joy of reading, and the impact of books on our lives.
*Entry to the exhibition is included in the price of a paid ticket for "The Treasures"
The National Library invites you to hold family or business events in a unique space: The Conference and Event Center at the New National Library. World-class facilities at a central location (adjacent to the Knesset) including: An auditorium, an assembly hall, meeting rooms, a restaurant, an event courtyard, green gardens and additional spectacularly designed spaces.
The NLI contains 13 study rooms which can be used by the public. These are located in the Reading Rooms on floors -1 and -2.
Each room contains an erasable writing board and television screen that can be hooked up to a computer.
Operating hours are in accordance with the operating hours of the Reading Rooms.
It will soon be possible to reserve rooms.
Enjoy our restaurant and café, in which you can also explore a unique work of art by Gali Cnaani.
Our restaurant and café will be opening soon.
At the Library gift shop on the ground floor, you can find creative and original souvenirs which will continue to tell our story, long after you’ve come back home.
Books, design products, original games, and Judaica items – these are just some of the things waiting for you here. Don’t forget to drop by before your visit ends.
The Library gift shop will be opening soon.