On the face of it, the most boring thing in the world is a library, but the story of what the government is trying to do to the National Library is not a story about books. It’s a story about ego, power, and money. And in the case of books too. A story that begins somewhere at the end of the 19th century, and ends with the government’s revenge against one person at any cost. Literally at any price – we are talking about hundreds of millions of shekels, and expropriation of people’s private property, with all the bad consequences that come from that.
This story goes like this
The National Library was born in Jerusalem in 1892, when some of the leaders of the settlement decided to build the Jewish bookcase, physically. To preserve all the important writings of the Jewish people in one place. And what started as one cabinet of a few dozen books turned over time into thousands of books, then tens of thousands of books, then hundreds of thousands of books.
From one cabinet to hundreds of thousands of books. The National Library at the Givat Ram campus, 2011. Photo: Yaacov Naomi, Flash 90
During all this time the library wandered from place to place in Jerusalem, until in 1925, when the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was established, it took ownership of it. In 1960, when the Givat Ram campus was established, the National Library finally moved there.
There is only one problem with this story
During all this time, the national library was not really a national library. It was a great project and was managed by the first university in Israel, but it was not a real national project. So at the end of the 90’s the president of the university, together with Lord Rothschild, turned to the Minister of Education (Zebulon Hamer) and asked him – let’s think about how to make the library truly national.
They convened a committee that sat and thought for four years. Then this committee recommended establishing another committee, this time chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Yitzhak Zamir. And this committee also sat and thought, this time for two years, and finally came out with a plan – this is how we will turn the library into a fully national library.
Here is what the committee recommended – this is the part where the seeds of disaster lie:
First of all, change ownership. Instead of the library being owned only by the university, it will be half owned by the state, a quarter owned by the university, and a quarter owned by the Jewish people. Then, and this is really important, to create organizational structures that will ensure that the library is an independent body that does not depend on the government in any way or matter.
This structure will look like this: the library will have a public board. Its members will be from academia, intellectuals, economics, such, and the Minister of Education will appoint one member. The council will appoint the library’s board of directors, which will have 11 members. Half from academia, some with financial experience and the rest intellectuals.
The board of directors is the one that will determine the library’s policy and appoint the CEO. Politicians will not have any involvement in the management of the library and its affairs. The committee justified it with the need for business-like and professional management free of political considerations. This is the model that the committee recommended. And do you know what happened?
The Knesset adopted it as it is.
For three years, dozens of Knesset members from the right, led by Arie Eldad, together with dozens of Knesset members from the left, led by Michael Melchior, enacted the National Library Law and made history. In 2007, the bill was unanimously approved by the Knesset. Congratulations Jewish people – you have a full national library.
Now comes the next chapter in our story. After the Knesset made the National Library an independent national body – it was decided to build it a new building of its own, and move it out of the campus of the Hebrew University.
A project costing more than a billion shekels. The National Library is under construction. Photo: Hadas Proosh, Flash 90
This is where money comes into play
Lord Rothschild decided to donate a lot of money to build a magnificent building for the National Library and turn it into a leading technological body. $100 million, to be exact. Other Jewish philanthropists also decided to put money in, such as the Gottsman Foundation, which put in $75 million. And the country? She put up 32 million dollars, and donated a piece of land in a prime location – in front of the Knesset – free of charge. Later, more donations came – both for the construction of the new tabernacle, for its maintenance and for other purposes.
In total, we are talking about a project of more than a billion shekels.
In 2016, work began on this building, which is about to open very, very soon. Really, you can already see the shelves inside. And now, right now, a second before it was going to open, a moment before, the Minister of Education Yoav Kish came out of nowhere and decided that he would ruin the whole business.
This is the part of the story where ego and power come in
At the end of February, on the night when the government sat down to approve the state budget, the Minister of Education Yoav Kish made a mistake. Out of nowhere he brought a bill and put it on the table and asked to include it in the Settlements Law, even though it has nothing to do with the budget. You must be under enormous stress right now – what urgent move did the Minister of Education rush to introduce at the night budget approval meeting?
So here it is: 1 page in total, with 11 sections. Under the title “Increasing transparency and public oversight in the National Library”. According to Kish’s proposal – the library board will no longer have any meaning, the existing board of the library will be dissolved within 30 days and the state and the Hebrew University will directly appoint a new board. The Minister of Education will represent the state and appoint the chairman and most of the directors, so he will have an automatic majority.
Even if one of the Minister of Education’s appointments is disqualified by the committee that has to approve them – because, for example, they have a political affiliation or they do not meet any threshold conditions – the government will still be able to approve their appointment.
The legal advisor of the Ministry of Finance was on the back foot. He explained that Kish’s proposal has nothing to do with the state budget, and that there is no part of it that increases transparency or oversight, but only politicizes the national library. He also explained that this proposal came out of nowhere without any organized staff work.
But it didn’t help him. Ministers and government officials voted on this proposal, and it was approved. But then, just after two donors had already announced that they would withdraw their money if the law passed – another twist in the plot came:
Minister Kish announced that he has reached an understanding with the National Library – he will appoint four council members instead of one, and also one board member. In addition, he will be able to appoint a member of the library’s audit committee. According to the publications, Kish pledged to withdraw from the law he presented at the night cabinet meeting.
the end of the story? Definately not!
First of all, Minister Kish did not really shelve the law, and it can still be put to a vote in the Knesset at any moment, and we know what they say about a gun that appears in the first act.
The National Library is just a parable
The analogy is the government’s ability to confiscate private property whenever it feels like it, for any reason. In this case they are talking about transparency, but among us, everyone knows that it is because the National Library decided a few years ago to hire the former state attorney, Shai Nitzan, who was one of the people who forcefully pushed Prime Minister Netanyahu’s criminal cases.
The point is that Lord Rothschild and the other donors decided to donate these tens of millions of dollars because the National Library Act guaranteed that it would be an independent, apolitical body, detached from government control.
Now, if the government simply tramples on its promises, Lord Rothschild and the rest of the donors have the right to go to court and say – the government is infringing on our private property. In a country where there is a strong and independent court, Lord Rothschild will get relief.
In a country with a politicized legal system, go find out. And this is absolutely not speculation in the air – some donors have already decided to suspend their contribution, until it is clear what exactly the government intends to do.
Is Minister Kish’s move aimed at “increasing transparency in the National Library” or is it related to the desire to remove Shai Nitzan from the position of rector of the library? That’s it, that’s not the story at all.
The story is this: the government and the Knesset assure us that the changes in the judicial system will strengthen democracy and that we have nothing to worry about and that we can leave the money here and everything is fine. But with her own hands she does the complete opposite, changes rules retroactively and damages people’s private property. You can tell it’s just a library, right? who cares.