Israel Museum Donation

By Raphael Ahren November 18, 2005

The photography department of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, recently received a $12 million gift from long-standing New York-based patrons Harriette and Noel Levine. The gift — the largest monetary donation that a visual-arts institution has ever received — will permit the museum’s already established photography department to conduct research and publish books and literature. The donation will also allow the museum to make more acquisitions like this year’s Camera Sacra: Capturing the Soul of Nature, by Scottish photographer James Graham, on display through December 7. That exhibit features some of the oldest photographic images of the Holy Land. Among them is the photo to the left, of the Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem from the 1850s.

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