Fodor's Expert Review First Aliya Museum

The museum is dedicated to the lives of the 30,000 immigrants who came to Palestine with the First Aliya (a period of settlement from 1882 until 1904). Life-size model displays of local immigrants (like Zachariya, the seed vendor, and Izer, the cobbler) illustrate life at that time. A film traces the struggles of a family who came from Europe in this difficult period of Israel's modern history. Commissioned by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, the museum's three-floor building is a fine example of late-19th-century Ottoman-style architecture, built of white stone with a central pediment capped by a tile roof. During World War I, the Turks used it as a military hospital.