Minister Yoav Kish will decide on appointments in the National Library?
At the Hebrew University they are threatening to demand back the collections they donated: at the end of the week it was announced that the Minister of Education Yoav Kish tried to take over the National Library and stipulate by law that he will be the one to appoint the members of the board of directors and the officials.
Among other things, it is claimed that the move was made in order to depose Rector Shai Nitzan, former state attorney.
Immediately after that, the National Library received requests from various donors who began to look into options to receive back the collections they had donated to the National Library on the grounds of political interference.
Minister of Education Yoav Kish, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Now this is a step up, in the letter sent by the legal counsel at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to the Minister of Education Yoav Kish it is written that: "The university will not hesitate to demand the return of all the books, collections and treasures given to the National Library by virtue of the agreement (agreement between the National Library and the Hebrew University) and to stop the funding that it transfers to the National Library".
It is also written that "any change in the law which is not coordinated with the university and which, according to our understanding, will lead to a violation of the independence of the library constitutes an omission and cancellation of the agreement between the university and the library on which it is based and in fact constitutes a thwarting or violation of the agreement."
Since the National Library was fully owned by the Hebrew University until 2008, most of the writings and treasures belong to it.
These include, among other things, the S.Y. Agnon archive, the Hatikva manuscript (Naftali Hertz), the Rothschild Haggadah (the oldest Passover Haggadah in the world), the Rambam's writings, the Laor collection (one of the largest and most important ancient map collections in the world) and many other collections.
The National Library, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
The National Library receives two types of donations, one is a monetary donation, which in recent years has reached about a billion shekels, and in addition they receive books, manuscripts and various priceless collections.
The fear is that more and more donors will ask for their collections back on the grounds of political interference.
We will remind you that according to the publications, the Minister of Education Yoav Kish recently exerted pressure on the Ministry of Finance to change the Library Law and insert a clause in the Arrangements Law according to which the Minister of Education himself will decide on appointments to the National Library.
Currently, the person holding the position of rector is Shai Nitzan, former state attorney and there is a claim that this was done in order to remove him from the position.
If he is not successful in the process and if he is not frightened by the public criticism, it is expected that the Minister of Education Yoav Kish will try and achieve what he wants through a private bill - thus he will be able to control the appointments in the National Library.
The National Library has over five million books and periodicals, as well as thousands of other items in special collections, including manuscripts, archives, maps, music recordings and digital collections.
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