Haganah Museum

Went to the Independence Hall first, but was being renovated so carried on to the Haganah (predecessor to the IDF) Museum and then the Lehi Museum nearby which is on a combo ticket,

Israel would not even exist without the heroics of the underground army they built from 1920 to defend the kibbutz's (as the defensive force, Haganah, which means defense in Hebrew) and later fight the British (as the offensive arm called the Palmach) in organizing the immigration of Holocaust survivors. They trained soldiers and ran hidden arms factories. The British hung anyone found with weapons or ammunition, so the fact they were able to build a force that then became the Israeli Defense Force in a single day on Independence day, then defeat four counties with air forces and armored divisions is almost impossible to imagine.

Like all of the museums here, this is also very well done.

I also stopped at the sister museum, Lehi Museum. This group was not part of the Haganah, but was a much more radical group that carried out terrorist acts as the Irgun and Stern Gang. The museum is in the house where Abraham Stern was assassinated by a British policeman.Read more