Founded in 1918, years before the State of Israel, with Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud among its original board members, the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus is both an intellectual institution and an architectural landmark. The campus occupies a ridge above the Old City with panoramic views east over the Judean Desert toward the Dead Sea and west over Jerusalem. The terrace outside the library is one of the finest viewpoints in the entire city.
The campus is open to the public and worth visiting for the views and the architecture — a mix of 1920s Orientalist design and later brutalist additions that somehow works. The National Library of Israel is also here, housed in a distinctive mid-century building and containing over 5 million items including rare Hebrew manuscripts, Einstein's personal archive, and the papers of Martin Buber and Franz Kafka, who donated his estate to a friend who eventually bequeathed it here. The library's public reading rooms are accessible to visitors.