Jerusalem inside a museum? The Tower of David Museum and the dilemmas behind it, 1967–89

In 1989, The Jerusalem Citadel (or Tower of David) was inaugurated as the Museum of the History of Jerusalem. The museum’s establishment stretched over two decades, highlighting the different dilemmas that were tied to the State of Israel’s attitude towards Jerusalem generally and the Old City in particular. The museum displayed Jerusalem using a historical-chronological approach, avoiding adapting it to the city’s multicultural, vibrant, diverse, and multihued society after the Six-Day War. This spared and precluded the possibility of focusing on the city’s many dilemmas, its complex population and the city’s many political questions and schisms following 1967.