This summer, the Israel Museum has unveiled the fruits of its $100 million facelift. After two years of work to renew the structure, the country’s largest museum and most comprehensive collection of art in the Middle East now sports a new design. For the first time in history, the building has been made fully handicap-accessible. The new design also boasts of three reconstructed and reinstalled collection wings, which are connected through a three-storey gallery entrance pavilion, to house the wide array of artifacts.

With funds from 21 donors all over the world, the project to renew the Israel Museum is by far the largest collective philanthropic effort ever undertaken for a single cultural institution in the country. But the work poured into the renewal of the institution didn’t simply stop at funding. Architectural firms in both New York and Tel Aviv worked together to bring new life into the building. James Carpenter Design Associates of New York designed the new building to resonate with the original modernist geometric plan laid out by Alfred Mansfeld and Dora Gad.

The new design offers a way for visitors to navigate intuitively through the museum’s various offerings. Among these are a chronological presentation of archeological holdings from the land of Israel, the first permanent galleries for Israeli art, and a newly configured Synagogue Route.

This Synagogue Route is one of the newest features of the institution, recreating four original synagogue interiors from Italy, Germany, India and Suriname. The Suriname synagogue exhibit has been made into the highlight of the newly installed Mandel Wing for Jewish Art and Life.

Among museum director James Synder’s goals for the institution include broadening its appeal as an international cross-cultural center. Seeing how donors from all over the world collaborated to bring this project to life, Synder is on his way to fulfilling that goal. As one of the seats of world religion, preserving and displaying the richness of Israel’s history is a task worth taking and it’s satisfying to see how people around the world have contributed to preserve the heritage of one culture.