Moments from Jerusalem

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem's largest cultural institution, holds the Shrine of the Book, a distinctive white-domed building purpose-built to house the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient manuscripts discovered in caves near the Dead Sea in the mid-twentieth century that include the oldest known copies of biblical texts, displayed in a deliberately low-lit, climate-controlled space designed to evoke the caves where they were found. Beyond the museum, Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market, the city's main produce market by day, has become one of the more unexpected canvases for street art in the region, with shutters and walls throughout the market covered in murals that only fully reveal themselves once the stalls close for the evening.

The contrast between the two is worth building a day around: the hushed, curated formality of the Israel Museum's ancient manuscripts against the loud, commercial, constantly repainted energy of Mahane Yehuda's street art a short distance away. If you visit the market specifically for the murals, go in the late afternoon or evening when the metal shutters are down, during trading hours much of the painted surface is hidden behind stalls and produce.