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Archaeologists petition High Court to block appointment of new antiquities authority chief
Close to 60 Israeli archaeologists presented an urgent petition to the High Court of Justice to block the appointment of a new director general at the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) by Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu.
The development marked a further step in the growing rift between the Heritage Ministry and academia. Many archaeologists, including Israel’s Archaeological Council, have also opposed a bill backed by Eliyahu to establish direct Israeli civilian responsibility for antiquities in the West Bank and Gaza, a potential move considered by many to be a dramatic step toward de facto annexation.
Earlier this month, Eliyahu tapped Esti Shreiber, the head of an NGO affiliated with the Chabad Hasidic movement promoting Jewish values among young people, as the new head of the IAA.
The appointment needs to be approved by both the government and the IAA Council. According to the document presented to the court, the minister has demanded that the council put the issue on the agenda of its upcoming meeting on Monday.
The petitioners argued that the procedure followed by Eliyahu was not consistent with the legal requirements and that Shreiber inflated her resume to meet the criteria.
“The old guard has discovered that the reality is changing,” the minister said in a statement responding to the petition. “They should be careful not to step on each other while closing ranks.”
Shreiber did not respond to a request for comment by The Times of Israel.
The petition carries the signatures of close to 60 archaeologists from all the major Israeli universities involved in the field, including Tel Aviv University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, University of Haifa, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Bar-Ilan University and Ariel University in the West Bank.
“When dozens of Israel’s foremost archaeologists — from every university and across the full spectrum of archaeological research — come together behind a single petition, this should not be viewed as a personal or political disagreement, but as an expression of deep concern for the future of scholarship, heritage, and public confidence,” Prof. Oded Lipschits, dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Tel Aviv University and one of the petitioners, said in a statement.
“[Antiquities] form the foundation of the memory, identity, and culture shaped through thousands of years of life in this land,” he added. “Those entrusted with safeguarding them must be appointed through a process that inspires the highest degree of professional and public trust.”
Among the arguments put forth by petitioners were that Eliyahu ordered the establishment of a search committee without receiving a request to do so from the IAA Council; he placed the Heritage Ministry’s director general at the head of the search committee as opposed to a professional figure; and significantly lowered the selection criteria compared to the past.
According to the announcement published by the Heritage Ministry calling for applicants for the position, the IAA has about 700 workers and an annual budget of approximately NIS 400 million.
The published position allowed for candidates with at least 4 years of experience managing at least 30 workers and an annual budget of NIS 30 million.
In addition, the petitioners highlighted discrepancies between what Shreiber stated in her resume and the publicly available information regarding the non-profit organizations she managed.
In her resume, Shreiber described herself as the CEO of the INEXTG group of non-profit organizations, managing “an annual budget of approximately NIS 100 million ($34 million)” and overseeing “an organizational structure comprising around 700 employees.”
However, only the names of two organizations are listed in the resume, the American I.NEXT.G and “Hador Habah – Zeirim BeIsrael (The next generation – The young in Israel). In the first case, the petition claims that American tax documents do not list Shreiber as its CEO or employee, and that its annual budget amounts to some $4 million (approximately NIS 12 million). Concerning the latter, according to the petition, Israeli documents show an annual budget between NIS 20 and 26 million and only 60 salaried employees (in addition to 324 volunteers).
There is no set timeframe for the court to respond to the petition. In similar cases, the court has at times issued interim orders freezing appointments until it makes a final decision, but usually only if it finds severe deficiencies in the process or if the appointment could cause severe harm to the organization while the court hears the case.
For the past two years, Eliyahu and the Heritage Ministry have also been at loggerheads with Israel’s Archaeology Council, which advises the government and public entities, including the IAA, on matters related to antiquities, over the bill to create a new civilian authority to manage antiquities and heritage sites in the West Bank and, according to the latest version of the bill, also in the Gaza Strip.
Supporters of the bill have been openly stating that the legislation’s goal is to extend Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank and Gaza.
The council, whose members are all professional archaeologists and academics, has opposed the bill, arguing that it will severely damage academic international relations, expose Israeli researchers to additional boycotts, and cause a dramatic drop in international funding.
The bill is currently in the process of being prepared by the Knesset Education, Culture and Sports Committee for its final readings in the plenum. The committee is set to continue discussing the proposal on Monday.
