A Sticker on the Door
Next Thursday morning, a small sticker will go up on the front door of the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem. It is easy to miss. It says PTSD Friendly, and it means that anyone living with trauma who walks through our doors should find a place that understands them.
Reut Frankel of PTSD Friendly will come at 10:00 to put it up herself. I am very proud of it.
What we learned after October 7
A museum of the ancient Near East is not where most people think to go in a crisis. We did not think of ourselves that way either, until October 2023.
In the first days after October 7, we moved our most precious objects into shelters and safes. About a week later we reopened, with free admission and a program of art and music. We hosted a school for displaced children with special needs. Families from the south and the north, far from home, came to sit in quiet galleries.
I remember a woman at one of those early sessions. After a simple drawing exercise, she looked up and told us it was the first time she had laughed in a week. I have thought about her often since.
In February 2024, we opened “Splinter from the Storm.”Contemporary artists responding to October 7 filled the cases and spaces where antiquities had been removed for safekeeping. Ancient objects and raw new grief shared the same rooms.
That year taught us what a museum can be: in our current language, a shelter. A place for dialogue, healing and reflection.
When the sirens came back
When fighting resumed in February 2026, we did not wait to be asked. We launched “Open Museum – Safe Museum,” a family program of art-making, quiet corners in the galleries and a story about a sheep who came to dinner at the wolf’s house. Families signed up so quickly that we added sessions within days.
We saw the effect on those families’ faces, and a growing body of research says the same: time in a museum, and making something with your hands, can ease stress and anxiety. For someone living with trauma, a calm and predictable space can be the difference between staying home and stepping out.
What the sticker means
The badge asks something simple of the places that join: pay attention. Biblical tradition has always put meaning on the doorpost. Deuteronomy tells us to write God’s words “on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,” and a mezuzah says, before anyone knocks, what a home stands for. Our sticker is not a mezuzah. But it does the same quiet work: it tells you who we are before you step inside.
Our front-line staff completed the training. The changes that follow are small ones: somewhere to sit, a heads-up about noise, patience at the ticket desk, a welcome for service dogs, and a person to turn to.
None of this is grand, and that is the point. The rabbis imagined Abraham’s tent with openings on all four sides, so that a weary traveler coming from any direction would not have to search for the way in (Avot de-Rabbi Natan 7). Healing rarely starts with a grand gesture. It starts when someone feels safe enough to walk in.
If you are in Jerusalem next Thursday, November 12, come to the museum at 10:00. Stand with us at the door. And then come inside.
*PTSD Friendly is a social badge, not a medical certification, and a joint initiative of TechGym and Metiv. (https://ptsd-friendly.com/)
