In collaboration with Israel's State Archives and in celebration of Israel's 60th anniversary, a new exhibition entitled Blue and White Pages: Documenting the History of Israel opens this week at the Israel Museum, displaying approximately 100 original documents from the history of the people and State of Israel, the majority in first-time public display. 
 
Blue and White Pages is culled from millions of documents housed in the State Archives' collection, with the goal of exploring major themes related to the founding of Israel and its national identity. Exhibition highlights include: Israel's original Declaration of Independence, together with related documents; peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan; and also, in its first public display, 2 pages of Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon's diary, which miraculously survived the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster in 2003 and underwent years of meticulous restoration in the Israel Museum's laboratories and forensic work by Israel Police. More than 30 diary pages, written in ink and pencil, survived the fatal, 37-mile-high crash. The pages on display include Ramon's description of the experience of life in space and a handwritten copy of the Kiddush, the Jewish blessing over wine, intended for use in live transmission from space. 

Historic moments represented at the exhibition include the Declaration of Independence, the Law of Return (1950) and the Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel (1980); the order to establish the Israel Defense Forces (1948); the Peace Treaty with Egypt (1979) and the directive to bring the Jews of Ethiopia to Israel (1991). Other objects and documents relating to seminal historic events include the Israeli flag raised at the United Nations on the day of Israel's acceptance into the UN in 1949; Adolf Eichmann's personal diary from the time of his 1961 trial; and the blood-spattered copy of "A Song to Peace" found in Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's pocket on the night of his assassination in 1995. Integrated throughout the exhibition are artifacts from the Israel Museum's holdings commemorating historic events from ancient times dating back to 589 BCE. 
 
The Israel Museum, the largest cultural institution in the State of Israel, is ranked among the leading art and archaeology museums in the world. Founded in 1965, the Museum houses encyclopaedic collections ranging from prehistory through contemporary art, and the most extensive holdings of Biblical and Holy Land archaeology in the world, among them the Dead Sea Scrolls housed in the unique Shrine of the Book building. The Israel Museum is currently in the midst of an $80-million project, launched in June 2007, to transform and unify the facilities on its landmark campus. The Museum continues operations throughout this period with a full schedule of exhibitions and other activities.

For more information on the exhibition, visit www.imj.org.il.