The Diaspora Museum (also called the Museum of the Jewish people) named Nahum Goldmann is in a very beautiful garden of the campus of tel Aviv University. It was opened in 1978 by the thirtieth anniversary of Israel's independence and at the time was one of the most innovative museums in the world.

The Museum collection traces the history and development of the Jewish Diaspora worldwide for millennia. The idea of establishing such a center was formulated in 1959 the President of the world Jewish Congress, Nahum Goldman – that's why the Museum bears his name.

The history of the Jewish communities scattered in many countries, starts at about 2600 years ago, when the Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem, destroyed the First Temple and sent the Jews into Babylonian captivity. This tells the poignant 136th Psalm, repeatedly put to music, including contemporary: "by the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept when they remembered Zion..."

With this event began the great process of scattering of the Jews around the world. Part of the Jews returned from captivity to their homeland, but in Mesopotamia, Egypt, North Africa, Syria, Iran, Greece arose the Jewish community, linked by a common culture and religion. The defeat of the Jews by the Romans in 66 year led to a new Exodus of Jews in Mesopotamia, where for eight centuries had been their spiritual and intellectual center. Emigration flows flowed also to the Balkans, in southern France, the Iberian Peninsula. But the calm life of the people is not found: in 1290 the Jews were expelled from England, in 1394 from France, in 1492 from Spain. This bloody series ended Jewish national catastrophe of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany.

The collection of the Museum dedicated to the diversity of Jewish life in different countries, divided into six thematic sections: "Family", "Community", "Faith", "Culture", "Among the Nations", the "Return to Zion". In the Department devoted to the family, presents everyday objects, models of Jewish homes all continents. Here you can get acquainted with the lifestyle of the families in the ordinary and holidays, and in the section on communities, watch movies about their lives. The "Religion" section demonstrates the layout of synagogues of all countries and ages (there's even a Chinese synagogue). Section "Culture" tells, for example, and the revival of Hebrew in XIX-XX centuries. In the collection of the Museum presents the texts of the poems and prayers in praise of Zion, photographs, describing the illegal repatriation of Jews to Palestine in the first half of the twentieth century. Center for visual documentation of the Museum has over 100 thousand pictures and videos illustrating all the facets of life of the Jewish Diaspora.

Here also created a family center "Dorot", whose computer the database contains data on more than half a million Jewish surnames, families and communities from different countries of the world. Any visitor in whose veins have a drop of Jewish blood, can find here the origin and meaning of the surname.