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The documentary Teddy’s Museum, created by Gilad Tocatly and Nurit Shilo-Cohen and produced by the Israel Museum to mark its 50th anniversary, is a compelling historical record of the museum’s establishment. Through interviews with key figures behind the initiative, including art collectors, curators, directors, and advisors, the film follows the complex process that led to the establishment of one of Israel’s most important cultural institutions.
The initiative for the film was led by Martin Weyl at the close of his tenure as Director of the Israel Museum, shortly before handing the position to James S. Snyder in 1996. Aware that the generation of the museum’s founders was disappearing and that its story had never been fully documented, Weyl began personally recording interviews with the surviving central figures, using a simple tape recorder.
Nurit Shilo-Cohen, who would later become Curator of the Youth Wing, joined Weyl in this endeavor. Together, they approached director Gilad Tocatly and invited him to take part in the project. At first, the interviews were intended solely as filmed documentation, with no plan to shape them into a documentary. That changed quickly. As Tocatly recalls: “From the very beginning of filming, we realized we had a treasure, and it would be a great loss not to turn it into a film.” With determination and creativity, Nurit Shilo-Cohen secured a dedicated donation that in 2010 made it possible to expand the project into a full documentary for future generations.
The film’s interviewees recount the museum’s establishment from a personal perspective, sharing extraordinary and sometimes amusing anecdotes about how funds were raised and artworks secured for the initial collection. Rare archival footage and period imagery offer a vivid portrait of the individuals who brought the vision to life, the driving forces behind one of Israel’s most ambitious cultural projects of its era. Teddy Kollek, repeatedly highlighted in the film as a pivotal figure in the process, played a central role in turning that vision into reality. In the 1950s and 1960s, before he was elected Mayor of Jerusalem, Kollek served as Director-General of the Prime Minister’s Office under David Ben-Gurion and later Levi Eshkol. In 1965, the year the museum opened to the public, he became Mayor of Jerusalem, a role he held for nearly three decades.
According to Tocatly, what impressed him most about the story of the museum’s establishment was the founders’ awareness that they were acting in a pioneering historical moment, entrusted with the opportunity to create an unprecedented cultural institution that would bring together archaeology, anthropology, and art under one roof in Jerusalem. “It was an ambitious project on a vast site, and yet they were allowed to build it,” he recalls. Tocatly notes that he himself grew up in the museum’s Youth Wing, where he received his first cultural education. In his view, the success of the Youth Wing stemmed not only from the artistic content on display but also from the vision behind it: the founders sought to connect Jerusalem’s children from all sectors, religious and secular, Jewish and Arab, through shared cultural experiences. For Tokatly, the profound bond between the filmmaker and the museum that influenced his formative years turned the project into a moving culmination of his personal journey.
Among the interviewees in Teddy’s Museum are Ed Marin, Yona Fischer, James S. Snyder, Karl Katz, and others, each of whom played an active role in different chapters of the museum’s history. Ralph I. Goldman, one of the museum’s founders, is portrayed as recognizing the enormous potential of creating a national museum in Jerusalem and persuading David Ben-Gurion to lend his support. Following these discussions, Ben-Gurion entrusted the mission to Teddy Kollek, then serving as Director-General of the Prime Minister’s Office, who embarked on the complex task of enlisting partners and raising funds. Goldman recalls how Ben-Gurion turned to Kollek with the words, “Teddy, we must build a museum!” This phrase later inspired the film’s Hebrew title.
Goldman also recalls visiting the site where the museum would eventually be built, accompanied by Mordechai Narkiss, Director of the Bezalel National Museum, which at the time served as an exhibition space adjacent to the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem. Together, they began shaping the cultural vision that would later materialize as the Israel Museum. The film also includes an interview with Professor Bezalel Narkiss, Mordechai Narkiss’s son, who recounts the story of the establishment from both a personal and family perspective. At the time of filming, Professor Narkiss was battling a terminal illness and passed away just a few months after his interview.
A central theme in Teddy’s Museum is the question of funding and the expansion of the museum’s early collection. Two of the most prominent figures in this context are Stella and Harry Fischbach, Jewish philanthropists from New York whose exceptional commitment to the project left a lasting mark. Stella Fischbach launched the first Friends of the Israel Museum program and organized the historic Palm Beach gala, an evening that raised $350,000 for the institution. Stella and Harry Fischbach also donated works from their personal collection, including Jazz by Henri Matisse, one of the first major artworks to enter the museum’s collection. At the time of filming, Stella Fischbach was one hundred years old, and Tocatly vividly recalls the warm and generous welcome he and Nurit Shilo-Cohen received at her home on Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue.
The film also recounts the remarkable story behind the creation of the Billy Rose Art Garden, which remains one of the world’s most renowned sculpture gardens. Billy Rose, a Jewish-American businessman and prominent art collector, offered to donate his sculpture collection to the Israel Museum on the condition that the garden be designed by Isamu Noguchi, the celebrated Japanese-American artist and landscape architect of the twentieth century. Noguchi saw the project as an opportunity to create an exceptional environmental artwork, but he was unaware that he would also be required to incorporate sculptures from Rose’s personal collection. As he progressed with the garden, he discovered the original plan and repeatedly attempted to withdraw from the project. In the end, Teddy Kollek persuaded him to remain and complete the work. The project culminated in a garden where landscape design, conceived as an artwork in its own right, was seamlessly integrated with a collection featuring masterpieces by some of the most significant artists of the previous century.
Another remarkable story explored in the film is the creation of the museum’s logo. Willem Sandberg, the distinguished typographer and graphic designer, served as a consultant to the museum in its formative years after concluding his tenure as Director of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Sandberg, who had been an active member of the Dutch anti-Nazi underground during the Second World War, was later recognized as Righteous Among the Nations for his efforts to save Jews, including forging documents that enabled many to escape the Netherlands. The logo he designed for the Israel Museum is composed of four geometric forms representing its principal components: the Art Garden, the Shrine of the Book, the Archaeology Wing, and the Art Wing. Minimalist and precise, the design distilled the museum’s vision into a strikingly clear emblem that quickly became one of its most iconic symbols.
Teddy’s Museum also highlights the pioneering work of Aviva Müller-Lancet, curator and founder of the museum’s Department of Jewish Ethnography. Müller-Lancet devoted her career to preserving and reconstructing the cultural and material heritage of Jewish communities around the world through traditional dress, ritual objects, household utensils, textiles, and ceremonial artifacts. Her work reflected the diversity of Jewish life and presented a vivid, tangible picture of a rich and multilayered culture. In the film, she recalls how the museum staff succeeded in reconstructing the traditional wedding attire of a Yemeni Jewish bride, using photographs sent by a community member still living in Yemen at the time. The carefully recreated costume, displayed on a mannequin in the museum, became a renewed symbol of cultural pride. Over time, she explains, Jews of Yemeni origin in Israel began once again to wear this attire for traditional henna ceremonies.
The film also acknowledges the contribution of the Bronfman family, one of the foremost Jewish philanthropic families, whose support was crucial to the establishment of the museum’s Archaeology Wing. It recounts Teddy Kollek’s success in persuading the family to make a substantial donation that enabled the construction of the Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Archaeology Wing, which has since become one of the most distinguished of its kind.
The documentary further explores the story behind the creation of the Shrine of the Book and the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, among the most important archaeological finds in Israel’s history. Magen Broshi, who served as Chief Curator of the Shrine of the Book, describes the process of constructing the distinctive building, designed by architect Frederic J. Kiesler in collaboration with Armand P. Bartos. The structure, with its white ceramic dome set against a stark black basalt wall, was inspired by the clay jar in which the scrolls were found and symbolizes the tension between light and darkness, fire and water, sanctity and earthliness. Its striking form quickly became one of the museum’s most iconic symbols, housing some of the most ancient and significant cultural treasures of the Jewish people. Adjacent to the Shrine stands the detailed Model of Jerusalem from the Second Temple period, meticulously reconstructing the city as it appeared in 66 CE.
Tocatly reflects on his personal experience in making the film: “I believe that in every documentary the goal is to open a window onto reality and allow the viewer to feel part of it, even when that reality unfolded long ago or in a different place. For the remarkable individuals who regarded the museum’s establishment as the most meaningful moment of their lives, their shared connection transforms the film into a gateway to a pivotal chapter in the history of Israeli culture and of the museum itself. I am proud to have been present when they told their story. Martin and Nurit had the wisdom to pause, to look back, and to recognize the importance of telling this story, and I am grateful to have been part of that moment.”
Between 2007 and 2010, the Israel Museum underwent a comprehensive renovation designed to bring the institution in line with contemporary museological standards. The project introduced new entrances, expanded exhibition spaces, improved accessibility across its wings, and placed greater emphasis on creating an interactive and immersive visitor experience. The renewal was led by the Israeli firm Efrat-Kowalsky Architects in collaboration with American architect James Carpenter.
Since its establishment, the Israel Museum has expanded significantly and today holds a collection of approximately 500,000 objects. The campus is organized into three principal wings. The Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Archaeology Wing presents artifacts tracing the history of the Land of Israel from prehistoric times through the Ottoman period. The Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Wing for Jewish Art and Life is dedicated to Jewish communities worldwide and features Judaica, manuscripts, ceremonial objects, and reconstructed synagogue interiors. The Edmond and Lily Safra Fine Arts Wing houses the museum’s multidisciplinary collections of Israeli and international art, including modern and contemporary works, photography, design, and global art. In addition, the museum presents rotating exhibitions in history, science, design, and contemporary art, offering visitors a dynamic dialogue between past and present.
