family

Tucked away behind stone walls in the city’s German Colony neighborhood sits the Jerusalem Nature Museum. Located in a 19th century villa, this place is much more than a museum. It is a great destination for families to spend a morning or afternoon experiencing nature, history and food. The stone building, surrounded by gardens, is […]

On a mountain top overlooking Jerusalem’s Old City and the desert beyond, piles of ancient rubble await discovery. This is the Temple Mount Sifting Project, where ordinary people like you and me can look carefully through buckets of what look like rocks and sand, hoping to find archaeological artifacts, or at least confirm that none […]

In 1892 a large delegation of both Jews and Arabs, as well as forgienr dignitaries, gathered at Jeruslaem’s newly-built railroad station to welcome the first train from Jaffa, which was the main port city and link to the rest of the world. Among the people greeting the train was Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the father of […]

Just outside Jerusalem, in the Judean desert, sits an unexpected but spectacular new site: DCity.  The D is for “Design;” and specializing in home decor and furnishings, the sprawling shopping and entertainment complex includes life-like replicas of the streets, buildings and canals of Venice.   With a free shuttle from Jerusaelm’s centrally-located Binyanei Hauma convention […]

Jerusalem boasts dozens of city parks. Recently, many of them have gotten makeovers, especially to their playground areas, making a morning or afternoon at a local park a great option for families with young children.   One of the most anticipated parks to undergo renovation recently was Gan Sacher, nestled below the Knesset and within […]

There are dozens of natural springs in the hills and forests surrounding Jerusalem.  In fact this system of streams, pools and underground water sources has helped sustain settlement here for more than 3,000 years, providing a source of life for people, crops and animals. Now, many of these springs provide the perfect place for hiking, […]

In a small art studio near the bustling Mahane Yehuda market, a table is covered with freshly-painted ceramic coffee mugs, mezuzot, and tiles. Paint brushes dipped in pale green, pink and purple paint are also scattered on the table.

In the middle of Jerusalem, a large expanse of wild grasses, trees and ponds is now once again home to a growing herd of gazelles. This spring, 11 babies were born, bringing the total number of gazelles to 38. Nestled between the central Katamonim and Givat Mordechai neighborhoods, and bordered by the busy Menachem Begin Expressway, Jerusalem’s Gazelle Valley is a rare patch of nature in the city.

A red-headed boy leads his sheep across a grassy field, interspersed with trees. The music of a flute plays and the rolling, rocky hills of Judea rise in the background. These are the opening scenes of the new evening sound and light show King David, which transforms the 1,000-year old stone walls of the Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem’s Old City into a surround-sound movie theater five nights a week. Once the sun sets, David and his story come to life in this Crusader-era citadel via 18 laser projectors and 20 speakers.

In one corner of Jerusalem’s Hebrew Music Museum, a group of visiting children and adults are sitting in a circle, playing drums. All the drums and other instruments they are using are from Yemen and Ethiopia and other lands in the region which have been home to Jewish communities throughout the centuries. Nearby, in the sprawling museum built inside ancient stone buildings in the city’s central Nahalat Shiva neighborhood, other rooms are filled with instruments from Europe, Morocco and Central Asia, also home to historic Jewish communities..