Museum reckoning • "After the holidays"

Personal column by: Yotam Yakir, CEO of Haifa Museums

"After the holidays" is here, it wasn't easy, in every sense, thanks for asking. This short article will try to describe what the decision makers' side looks like. They are complex, the decisions, in these troubled days. Even in non-central matters, everyone looks in their own yard, like our museums - Haifa museums.

On the eve of Tishrei holidays, Haifa is under direct threat. The situation, to put it mildly, is not sympathetic. And you are in serious doubt. open? not open? To hold activities or not? Will anyone even come? Do people have a head for museums? We decided to open. All Haifa museums were open throughout the days of the holiday, from Rosh Hashanah, through Sukkot, the first holiday, the second holiday, the weekends before and after.

The guiding line - as long as we comply with the directives of the Home Front Command and the Municipality of Haifa, we will try, go out of our way to be more precise, so that the museums remain open and to hold the planned activities and events. This has been our approach since October 7th, this is our sense of mission at this time. It has a kind of declarative, declarative statement, which is important to me in itself. But probably even more importantly, there is the essential aspect of fulfilling a need for people. For the respite of sanity, for culture, except for spiritual food.

In the first months of the war, this stood out radically. If you remember, Haifa at that time (end of 2023. A long time ago, huh?) was completely quiet. And people filled the museums and all our activities all over the city, that we even gave them the official name "respite of sanity". But this time the situation is different - Haifa and the Gulf region is under threat and attacks. Quite a few alarms, quite a few interceptions, a lot of tension and restlessness.

But we still decided to open. all the museums. We are a public institution that takes things seriously. We even maintained extensive activity hours that were planned in advance, and also added a movie marathon at the Ticotin Museum. And many more activities for families and tutorials in different languages. All that was possible.

The bottom line - the museums as a litmus test for the general situation. No, it really wasn't a normal holiday. The number of visitors was only about a quarter of the usual amount during the Tishrei holidays. The income - even less than that. These are the facts, this is life. But "a quarter" of the number of visitors - that's still several thousand people. Several thousand people who wanted and were looking to do something this holiday with or without the children. that it was important for them to come and continue to consume culture.

So was it right to open and continue? Even in retrospect, I think the answer is yes. am i right Maybe no one is right at this time. This is what felt right to us, this is what we did. And while completing the (great) work plans of the Haifa museums for 2025 - we can only hope that we won't need any more "breaks of sanity".
Hoping for better days, for all of us.