Museutopia , Second Chapter : Photographic Research of Military Historical Museums in Israel 2015

Museums have served as a history-shaping instrument for centuries. The accumulation of objects, natural and artificial alike, naming and systematically classifying them, is one of the ways to know the world. However, it is clearly evident that museums have also been shaped by the varied contexts and basic premises that were dominant in different periods and different places.  

A museum, therefore, is not a final object. It is not a fixed entity that is created in the same way at all times and in all places, nor is it grounded in ancient models and ideas that underpin its existence. A museum is a mechanism. It is a culture- and history-making machine. Its identity, aims, and the functions it fulfills change in accordance with the hegemonies and order of privileges customary in a given society. A museum – a society’s storyteller – is therefore a political and social product that reflects the power relations that created it, and the contexts within which it operates and which it is supposed to represent.  

IDF Equipment Center Pavilion showcasing the evolution of personal gear and supply chains.

Photograph from Ha'hagana museum Tel Aviv

The Armoured Corps Memorial Site and Museum at Latrun, featuring a WWII Jewish soldiers' museum and a vast tank collection.

Solitary confinement cells at the Museum of Underground Prisoners, a former British jail in Mandatory Palestine.

Exhibit at the Haganah Museum, Tel Aviv, featuring models of a Shomer guard and an imported palm tree.

Cylindrical wing at Haganah Museum displays faceless depictions of 1920-1921 Arab-Jewish clashes.

Exhibit at Clandestine Immigration Museum in Haifa shows daily life in Cyprus detention camps.

TV monitors at Haganah Museum display Jewish enrollment in Haganah post-1920-21 Arab clashes.

Canon and memorial for fallen Navy soldiers at Clandestine Immigration and Naval Museum, Haifa.

Photo from an exhibtion at the History of IDF museum Tel Aviv

Memorial room for Eliahu Golumb at the Ha'hagana museum Tel Aviv

Exhibition in the Naval and Clandestine immigration museum Haifa

Mannequins behind a mesh screen at the Clandestine Immigration and Naval Museum, Haifa, near a Morse transmitter.

Exhibit at the Etzel Museum – 1948, Tel Aviv, featuring the Altalena flag, a memorial, and warfare model.

Avraham Stern’s preserved rooftop apartment at the Lehi Museum, Tel Aviv, where he was assassinated in 1942.

A commemoration monument honoring Haganah members who died in action at the Haganah Museum, Tel Aviv.

The Etzel Museum, Tel Aviv, featuring models of attacks and a portrait of founder Ze’ev Jabotinsky.

Ha-Haganah Museum in Juw'ara commemorates Haganah commander training from 1938-1948.

The Ministers of Defense and Chiefs of Staff Pavilion. The Israel Defense Forces History Museum, Tel Aviv.

The Independence War in 1948 Pavilion. The Israel Defense Forces History Museum, Tel Aviv.

ChatGPT said: Detail of memorial at Lehi Museum, inscribed with verse from Avraham Stern's anthem.

Visitors at Lehi Museum watch an audiovisual show on Avraham Stern’s 1942 execution through a mirror.

Ship-like staircase at Haganah Museum leads to exhibit on post-WWII clandestine immigration.

Battle map and chairs for audiovisual program at Etzel Museum, built on Manshiya ruins.

Original caption: “The Rifles and Machine Guns Pavilion / The Yom Kippur War (1973).” The Israel Defense Forces History Mus

Detail from Arik Sharon’s biography, The Ministers of Defense and Chiefs of Stuff Pavilion. The Israel Defense Forces History

Etzel members Moshe Barazani and Meir Feinstein's death row cell at Jerusalem's Museum.