Opening Today, the New Israel National Library

 

These east windows reflect the landscape in the next photo.
To reach the entrance, walk very far along the lefthand side

Looks like an amphitheater at this end (the east end)

I went walking in the last hours before Shabbat began about a month ago, I wanted to be alone with my camera and I was. The site of the new library is across the valley from my home, just a couple of bus stops.  Not much of it can be seen from my side. Some trees get in the way. As I see it it’s a giant skateboard ramp, one Paul Bunyan would have used had he ever thought of skateboarding.

Eastern end looking up

A peek around back

Landscapers have gone wildly beyond themselves

These are the busses you might need to take

Due to the uncertainties of war, the opening of the new library, once scheduled for October 22, was delayed until today, October 29, 2024. I took these snapshots last month late on a Friday when the whole area was practically free of pedestrians and cars were few. Go there today and I would expect to see many.

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I suggest you go to the new webpage of the National Library, headed by an impressive aerial photo: https://www.nli.org.il/en.  According to this website, on the day I accessed it, the opening date would have been October 22. If you click on the link today, everything has changed. Now I see that this is not a complete opening as most of the services will be either nonexistent or limited, and that includes the opening hours. Most discouraging of all, no more than 300 people will be allowed inside at any one time. I suppose this is due to the situation. The new library, after an unsuccessful coup attempt by politicians last Febuary,* promises to be inclusive and open to everyone. Let it be so.

(*The coup — an attempt to strip the library of its independence from the government — was stopped in its tracks when the university threatened to withdraw all of its books from the new library. Since that means most of the books, that would have been a problem.)

This Times of Israel story is wildly enthusiastic about how great it all is and will be:  Jessica Steinberg, “Long-awaited National Library set to reopen with 11 floors and millions of stories” (Sept. 13, 2023).  

There is also a Ha'aretz story, but it is likely locked up behind a paywall, so why bother?

Here is a more recent story from the Jerusalem Post. 

• My main personal regret about the new library is this: It was long ago decided that books and journals related to Asian Studies* would be exiled to the Hebrew University Library at Mount Scopus on the opposite side of the city, a bus route that often takes more than half an hour plus wait time. That means major inconvenience for some of us. 

(*They do not include the Middle East in their definition of “Asian Studies.”)