An enormous collection of works by Jewish artists permanently grace the walls of the Ein Harod Mishkan LeOmanut (House of Art), a venture that began with the vision of an artistic founder member of the kibbutz.

One of the hardy kibbutz pioneers who came to the swamp ridden valley in the early 1920s, Chaim Atar, was an artist and lover of art who also had an eye for Jewish ritual items and became a serious collector of Judaica.

Some of the items that ended up in his collection and were originally kept in a corner of the wooden shack that was his studio, had been lovingly transported to British Mandate Palestine by fellow members of his community – many of whom had left traditional Jewish homes in Europe but had taken an item of their rich past with them to the future state of Israel.

The pioneers began their long and arduous journey to Palestine with few belongings but were bearers of an ambitious ideology regarding building a community based on the values of physical labor, collective living and, whilst building a community different from all others, to participate in building a state for the Jewish people.

Nineteen-twenties dream merchants of a social Jewish renaissance integrated tradition with new values – nature, freedom and equality – that almost 100 years later doesn't appeal to their grandchildren who are privatizing the very communal collectives their parents were born into and accepted as the closest to Utopia one could get on earth.

Chaim Atar searched marketplaces for traditional Jewish items and reproductions of illuminated manuscripts brought to the country by a multitude of new immigrants from different countries. His collection provided the kibbutz with original traditional decorations for the Jewish holidays when the community sat together in the communal dining-room to celebrate, and became the envy of other kibbutzim.

With the influx of Holocaust survivors to Israel in the 1950s the collection grew substantially, leading to the opening of the first rural museum in the country and first art museum of the kibbutz movement. The dream of Chaim Atar, the energetic visionary and pioneer who died in 1953, was realized.

In present times Mishkan LeOmanut, which is supported by Israel's Ministry of Education and Culture, is one of the principal centers of art activity in Israel, housing a massive collection of works by Jewish artists on permanent exhibition as well as regular special exhibitions and educational projects.

The Mishkan also has an impressive art library, is engaged in art research and serves as an institution for the study and encouragement of art. There is also a course for art teachers.

Construction of the large building which houses a dozen or more exhibition halls, study rooms and a library, began in 1948 and was designed by architect and kibbutz Beit Hashita member Shmuel Bikels. Standing on a slope, the museum commands a stunning view overlooking the fields and fishponds of the Harod valley and the impressive Gilboa mountain range across the way.

The Mishkan also boasts sculpture courtyards, workshops and storerooms for the enormous collection of art treasures that today includes thousands of paintings and drawings, prints, hundreds of sculptures and objects of Jewish folk art from over thirty different countries.

A short walk from the Miskan LeOmanut is Bet Sturman, a museum of a very different kind, which concentrates on nature, geography and archaeological interest of the area.

Bet Sturman is named after Chaim Sturman who was a contemporary of Chaim Atar. A founder member of Ein Harod and member of the Haganah, Sturman was killed together with Aharon Etkin and Dr. David Mosensohn when their car struck a land-mine in the valley in 1938. Gan HaShlosha National Park is also named after them.

Bet Sturman contains permanent exhibitions of the natural history and archaeology of the region, an area enjoying a pleasant climate, availability of water and plentiful food constituting ideal conditions for the subsistence and procreation of animals and other creations of Mother Nature.

The nature exhibition in the museum provides a rare glimpse into the richness of the flora and fauna of the region whilst also painting a vivid picture of the day to day life of those who settled in the area from the Stone Age to the Arab period.

Another exhibition – dedicated to the memory of the Kiev born Sturman, an adviser and friend of Orde Wingate and leading personality in the guarding of the Jewish settlements in British Mandate Palestine – shows the activities of the Zionist pioneers who made the area flourish again and of the fight for survival in, and defense of, pre-state Israel.