What would you say if a senior literary editor were appointed to a position on a panel of judges?
Imagine a situation where a celebrated researcher, a professor of Hebrew literature, was invited to the Chief of Staff's office to discuss the upcoming round of appointments of IDF generals.
Are such scenarios unfounded?
Any sane person will nod positively.
Well, that's what's been going on in the world of culture and literature for many years.
Last week, the National Library issued a press release appointing former State Attorney Shai Nitzan to the library's rector.
This is a new position, which is "formed following a management reform decided by the board."
According to the announcement, Rector Nitzan "will manage, coordinate and lead the entire world of content of the library", and as part of it "will be responsible, among other things, for all collections and archives (physical and digital), as well as culture, education and exhibitions, international relations and relations. The public and resource mobilization. "
Is Nitzan - who from the 1980s until his retirement in 2019 served in a variety of positions exclusively in the State Attorney's Office and has never engaged in research, retention or management of cultural content, and certainly not in private or public fundraising - the right candidate for the new position?
According to the "Special Locating Committee" appointed by the library board, the answer is yes.
The National Library // Photo: Oren Ben Hakon,
In the public service, a locating committee is a compromise between a tender and a personal appointment.
In the Women's Lobby High Court of 2008, Judge Edmond Levy wrote that "it is easy for the search committee to focus on the relevant professional decision.
Thus, assuming that the process of the selection committee for the position of Rector of the National Library was strictly legal, the committee must immediately publish its substantive professional decision, detailing why it chose a candidate who has no touch or experience with anyone. Job requirements.
Systematic impeachment
The appointment of Nitzan is not an isolated case in our districts.
Critical jobs in the field of public culture (and in particular the literary one), are manned by new staff in the mornings of people who have no trace of background in the field.
Less than a year ago, Giora Rom, a retired champion, fighter pilot and even the Air Force's first abortion champion - was appointed chairman of the jury of the Sapphire Prize for Literature of the Lottery.
Rom, who after retiring from the military has served in various public positions - from the Jewish Agency to the National Road Safety Authority - is an experienced, valued and decorated figure.
But his public background has nothing to do with the world of Israeli literature, and he certainly does not have a professional mandate to judge and decide on the most important and prestigious literary prize in the country.
Prior to Rom, she served as chair of the Sapir Prize judging panel, former director of the Ministry of Justice, Amy Palmor (a law graduate of the Hebrew University);
Before that, the position was filled by Arena Ben Naftali (Professor of International Law);
She was preceded by retired district judge Edna Kaplan-Hegler (due diligence: the author of these lines was part of the award's panel of judges during her time, in 2015; above), and was preceded by Menachem Mautner (professor of law).
The disease, therefore, is clear even to those who have not graduated from medical school - the directors of culture in Israel, with the help of jurists and military personnel, have taken the literary establishment captive.
The pretext is always "exclusion", "public image" and "managerial experience", but the practice is less beautified: it is a wholesale division of jobs on the backs of literary figures - managers, researchers, writers - who are systematically excluded from key positions.
The ongoing discourse on the decline of the humanities has become a dead letter in the Israeli public.
In practice, the spirit has long been "science", and the load of knowledge and experience needed by its practitioners has been pushed aside, to more important matters in our count - ties at the top and the image of the legal and security elite as a super-patron, which also extends its patronage to culture.
The appointment of jurists and senior military officers to key positions in literary institutions and award committees is to impute the integrity and credibility of the school's staff.
The literary clique is "corrupt" and "takes care of associates," so it includes an inspector, a clean-shaven jurist, or alternatively a military man who will take care of matters.
The result of this condescension, as a result, is expressed in the unprofessional decisions of people who are not suitable for the job.
Moreover, it lowers the nature of committees and institutions, and brings with it non-interest appointments to more junior positions.
A lordly and arrogant act
A peek abroad will reveal a different cultural climate, in which good governance is also expressed in proper professional appointments. Her predecessor in the role was Margaret Bassby - editor and literary critic. The Pulitzer Prize was awarded this year to Elizabeth Alexander - essayist, poet and playwright. Her deputy is Nancy Barnes, a journalist who has previously won herself a Pulitzer. The winner of the French Goncourt Prize is decided by an academic committee of ten senior writers. Now members there, among others, are familiar names such as Philip Claudel, Pascal Bruckner and Pierre Assouline.
Even in the world's leading national libraries sector, you will not find a former state attorney: in the Library of Congress in Washington, the head of the faculty (perhaps the logical equivalent to the position of rector) is Elizabeth Morrison - a historian who has worked at the institution for years;
In the National Library of France is Lawrence Engel - a veteran director of culture in the country;
And at the National Library of Germany - Frank Schulze, an experienced librarian and editor of a journal in the field.
Israeli culture and the literary establishment must overcome the Stockholm Syndrome that has taken its toll, and demand back intellectual and managerial independence of the field.
Lawyers and military personnel - outstanding in their field as they may be - have not the slightest advantage when it comes to running for a position in the field of cultural administration.
In fact, their very confrontation in the cultural field is a lordly and arrogant act.
Shai Nitzan and Giora Rom are just topical examples, which indicate an alarming process that has intensified in the last decade.
But both, who have gained a reputation as someone who cares about good governance is at the forefront of their minds (Nitzan as a state attorney for many years, Rom as someone who ran for state auditor), had to think twice before jumping on the prestigious job bandwagon.
In the "11th High Court" about Netanyahu's tenure in May last year, Judge Dafna Barak-Erez wrote: ?
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
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