Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Park of Wonders theme park in Israel

PROPOSAL: Developers plan Jewish theme park in desert town of Dimona. Pla'im Park -- 'Park of Wonders' -- is conceived as Israel's first real theme park, with educational value to boot (Jessica Steinberg, Times of Israel).
Project CEO Lea Malul told Walla news the park was envisioned as a Jewish “Magic Kingdom” — a reference to one of the four Disney World parks outside Orlando, Florida.

It is set to include 16 major rides. Plans include a water ride touching on the days of the week (with the Sabbath an island of tranquility in the hectic affair), a Jacob’s Ladder attraction and a roller coaster passing through gigantic tomes — representing Jews as the people of the book.
My first thought was to check to see if the date of the article was April 1st. But no, this is a real project - although it doesn't seem to have any actual funding yet.

Perusing the PaleoJudaica archives, I see this is not the first Jewish-history theme park proposed or built in Israel. See here, here, here and here.

On related notes, there is the Holy Land Experience theme park in Orlando, Florida (see here and here). There are Phoenician theme parks in Lebanon and Tunisia. And how could I omit Erich von Däniken's Mysteries of the World theme park in Switzerland?

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