May 31st, 2018
Photo courtesy of Shoshana and Asher Halevi photo archive, Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi
Conference: How policy on archive access hurts society and research, and how to fix it

On Tuesday June 5, 2018 Akevot, together with many other partners, will be hosting a conference at Tel Aviv University to discuss the prolonged crisis affecting access to materials in governmental archives. On the schedule, among other things, is a presentation of a public agenda document to address the crisis.

Under the title “Who needs archives and why must they be open?”, speakers from a variety of fields will demonstrate how lack of access is hurting their work: social justice campaigns, investigating wrongs done by the state, research, journalism and film work. Among the speakers are Gidi Weitz,  Ha’aretz journalist and Bus 300 film maker; Naama Katiee from the Amram Association (dedicated to raising awareness of the kidnapping of children from Yemen, the Balkans and the East in the early days of Israeli statehood; Dr. Ahmad Amara, co-author, Emptied Lands: A Legal Geography of Bedouin Rights in the Negev; Renen Yezersky, researcher for The Ancestral Sin, a film and television series that examines Israel’s policies on settlement of North African immigrants, and others. The opening panel will feature Prof. Miri Eliav-Feldon, Chair of The Historical Society of Israel and Prof. Gadi Algazi, a member of the Supreme Council on Archives.

The conference takes place on Tuesday, June 5, 2018 at Tel Aviv University, Gilman Building, Room 144. Admission is free, register to secure a seat at this link.

Alongside Akevot, co-hosts include the Historical Society of Israel, Union of Journalists in IsraelIsraeli Association of Archivists,  Israeli Documentary Filmmakers Forum, Movement for Freedom of InformationDavid Berg Institute for Law and History, and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and the Social History Workshop.