The Israel Museum in Jerusalem is Israel’s National Museum. Founded in 1956, the Israel Museum was extensively extended and refurbished reopening in 2010. The focus of the museum is on the art, Judaica and ancient artifacts of the Land of Israel and beyond, with the museum holding some 500,000 artefacts, with 7,000 on active display.

Yad Vashem, Israel’s largest Holocaust memorial is set on the slopes of the Mount of Remembrance on the edge of Jerusalem. The new Yad Vashem Museum opened in 2005 and its nine chilling galleries of interactive historical displays present the Holocaust using a range of multimedia including photographs, films, documents, letters, works of art, and personal items found in the camps and ghettos. Yad Vashem is a place which is not fun to visit, but is definitely somewhere that we recommend all visitors to Israel experience.

The Museum of the History of Tel Aviv-Yafo opened in 2009 in what was the old Tel Aviv Municipality building in Bialik Square, one of the most iconic public spaces in Tel Aviv. Chronicling the development of Tel Aviv from a suburb of Jaffa (Yafo), the main entrance point into the land, just one hundred years ago, to a bustling world-class metropolis and center of culture, commerce, and coolness, the museum uses visual and multimedia displays to show life in the city through the decades.

In the Northern Israeli city of Haifa, on the slopes of Mount Carmel, sits the Bahai World Centre and its amazing gardens, known as the Bahai Gardens. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2008, the Bahai Gardens features 19 terraces covering about a kilometer from top to bottom, with roughly 1,000 steps.

The coastal city of Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv has in the last weeks seen the emergence of a makeshift, temporary artists colony and gallery on the city’s main beach. Set to remain in place for about a month, the Bat Yam Artists Colony will host artists from Israel and abroad, ranging in style from visual arts, through to the performing arts. The artists will live in temporary structures along the beach, and the gallery space will be within the abandoned Riviera nightclub. The Bat Yam Artists Colony will live during the month of August, 2011.

In the relatively remote hills of the Western Galilee lies the Tefen Open Museum which is a unique collection of exhibitions in a unique setting, an industrial park. This is no typical industrial park, however. There are a handful of Tefen Industrial Parks across peripheral regions of Israel. The Open Museum includes sculpture gardens, artwork, a vintage car collection, displays on the Tefen Model and ISCAR the company founded by Wertheimer, as well as changing internal exhibitions.

In the heart of the Carmel Forest, just south of the city of Haifa is the wonderful village of Ein Hod, an artists colony with windy streets, phenomenal vistas, and loads of little art galleries, mostly within the homes of residents. What makes Ein Hod special is the involvement of the artists – after all, how often can you chat to an artist in their own home about the piece of work they have just created.

One of the trendy South Tel Aviv neighborhood of Neve Tzedek’s most notable and fascinating artists is Samy D, a French born pioneering ceramic artists who has been living in Israel and creating beautiful pieces since 1997.

The BBC talk about the Tower of David Museum’s new night-time light show which is bringing the Old City to life.

Jerusalem has literally hundreds of small museums, here are some other interesting, off the beaten track ideas.