The Reuben and Edith Hecht Museum is a museum located on the grounds of the University of Haifa, Israel.

History

The Hecht Museum was established in 1984 by Reuben Hecht, director of

Dagon Silos Dagon ( he, דָּגוֹן, ''Dāgōn'') or Dagan ( sux, 2= dda-gan, ; phn, 𐤃𐤂𐤍, Dāgān) was a god worshipped in ancient Syria across the middle of the Euphrates, with primary temples located in Tuttul and Terqa, though many attes ...

and a founding member of the University of Haifa Board of Governors. For sixty years, Hecht collected archaeological artefacts representing the

material culture Material culture is the aspect of social reality grounded in the objects and architecture that surround people. It includes the usage, consumption, creation, and trade of objects as well as the behaviors, norms, and rituals that the objects creat ...

of the

Land of Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine (see also Isra ...

in ancient times. He was particularly interested in finds from the Canaanite period to the end of the Byzantine period. Hecht believed that archeology was an important expression of Zionism and these ancient artifacts were proof of the link between the Jewish people and Eretz Israel.

Exhibits

Exhibits display the archaeology and history of the Land of Israel in chronological sequence, from the Chalcolithic period to the Byzantine period. Exhibits include coins, weights,

Semitic Semitic most commonly refers to the Semitic languages, a name used since the 1770s to refer to the language family currently present in West Asia, North and East Africa, and Malta. Semitic may also refer to: Religions * Abrahamic religions ** ...

seals, jewelry, artifacts from the Temple Mount excavations; Phoenician metalworking, woodworking, stone vessels, glass making, and mosaics. The museum is also home to the

Ma'agan Michael Ship The Ma'agan Michael Ship () is a well-preserved 5th-century BCE boat discovered off the coast of Kibbutz Ma'agan Michael, Israel, in 1985. The ship was excavated and its timber immersed in preservation tanks at the University of Haifa, undergoing ...

, the wreck of a fifth-century BCE merchantman. The museum art collection includes French painting of the Barbizon School, Impressionism, Post-impressionism, and the School of Paris, and Jewish art from mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century. The museum owns paintings by

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot ( , , ; July 16, 1796 – February 22, 1875), or simply Camille Corot, is a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching. He is a pivotal figure in landscape painting and his vast ...

, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet,

Camille Jacob Pissarro Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro ( , ; 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but then in the Danish West Indies). Hi ...

, Vincent van Gogh,

Amedeo Modigliani Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (, ; 12 July 1884 – 24 January 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern style characterized by a surreal elongation of faces, necks, and ...

Max Liebermann Max Liebermann (20 July 1847 – 8 February 1935) was a German painter and printmaker, and one of the leading proponents of Impressionism in Germany and continental Europe. In addition to his activity as an artist, he also assembled an important ...

Activities

The museum has an acoustic auditorium that seats 380 and a

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...

, built by Gideon Shamir from parts of organs used in churches throughout the country over a century ago. It also serves as a study center for students and academic researchers, offering enrichment studies in archaeology, art, Bible, and history for schoolchildren, soldiers, teachers and the public at large. The Museum holds an annual art competition open to high-school students, soldiers, and fine arts students. Winners of the competition are granted scholarships by the

Hecht Foundation Hecht may refer to: *Hecht (surname) * Hecht, a pop rock band from Lucerne, Switzerland. * Hecht's, a chain of department stores, also known as Hecht Brothers, Hecht Bros. and the Hecht Company * Hecht Museum at Haifa University in Israel * ''Hec ...

, which also awards fellowships to M.A. and Ph.D. students in the Departments of Archeology and Maritime Civilizations. The Museum holds conferences,

symposia ''Symposia'' is a genus of South American araneomorph spiders in the family Cybaeidae, and was first described by Eugène Simon in 1898. Species it contains six species in Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic o ...

, seminars, and lectures and publishes catalogs of its exhibitions of archeology and art.

Journal

''Michmanim'', the museum journal, publishes scholarly articles on archaeological research and artifacts in the museum collection.

References

External links