First Person: Does the Israel Antiquities Authority Want to Destroy BAR?

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I’m kind of embarrassed to say this, but the director of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), retired army general Shuka Dorfman, won’t speak to me.

Actually, it’s worse than that. I think Shuka (as he is universally referred to) wants to put BAR out of business. At least he has forbidden IAA archaeologists from writing for BAR. (IAA archaeologists must obtain permission before writing articles; don’t even ask whether you can publish in BAR.) That BAR is the major international source of information about excavations conducted by the IAA is of little concern to Shuka. And that fact is also a measure of his animosity. The source of this animosity is something we will consider later.

Until now this prohibition against IAA archaeologists writing for BAR has had little effect on the contents of BAR. The most important excavations in Israel are conducted by the universities, not by the IAA. And some major archaeologists who work for the IAA are powerful enough to ignore Dorfman’s desires in this regard: See, for example, our article on Caesarea by Yosef (“Sefi”) Porath.^a

In other cases, BAR reports on IAA archaeological discoveries without asking the IAA archaeologists involved to be the author of the article. For example, BAR‘s article on the beautiful church built to commemorate the place where the pregnant Mary stopped to rest on her way to Bethlehem was authored not by IAA archaeologist Rina Avner, who has written her doctoral dissertation on the site, but by BAR staff, using IAA pictures of the site.^b

Another BAR article described the newly discovered late-eighth-century B.C.E. Assyrian palace excavated by IAA archaeologist Elena Kogan-Zahavi in Ashdod. She did not appear as the author of the article, either.^c And pictures were routinely supplied by the IAA.

To even hint that these accomplished younger IAA archaeologists cooperated with BAR in the writing of these stories might jeopardize their positions. Shuka plays for keeps.

Shuka was reportedly infuriated, however, by this method of subverting his prohibition against “his” archaeologists writing for BAR. He regarded the routine supplying of IAA pictures to BAR as a loophole that had to be closed. When BAR published a story on what may be the oldest church in the world, discovered in the confines of an Israeli prison at Megiddo and excavated by a young IAA archaeologist named Yotam Tepper, we assumed that IAA pictures would be available as they had been in the past, especially because they had already been published elsewhere. But this time Shuka learned of BAR‘s request for pictures before the pictures had been transmitted. On his personal direction, his staff was told not to supply the pictures to BAR. Fortunately, photographs of the site were available from other sources.^d

This game between the IAA and BAR resembles nothing so much as a Tom and Jerry cartoon. How long the mouse can avoid the menacing cat remains a question, however.

Shuka has even barred me from visiting IAA excavations. (On Shuka’s orders, advance permission is now required—even of other archaeologists—to visit IAA excavations; in the past, fellow archaeologists would just “drop in,” and they were welcomed.) Not long ago, Shuka called archaeologist Ronny Reich into his office. Reich is perhaps the leading archaeologist digging in Jerusalem. He has dug at the western wall of the Temple Mount, 084inside the Old City’s Dung Gate and, most famously, in the City of David, the oldest inhabited part of Jerusalem. The City of David is the city that King David conquered from the Jebusites c. 1000 B.C.E. Ronny and I have long worked together reporting in BAR on his excavations.^e We have even edited a book together.^f

Shortly before Ronny was asked to appear in Shuka’s office, he had discovered the hitherto-unknown Pool of Siloam where, according to John 9:1–11, Jesus cured the blind man.^g As reported to me, Shuka called Ronny into his office and proceeded to tell Ronny that there are six billion people in the world, but there is only one person who is not permitted at the Pool of Siloam excavation: BAR editor Hershel Shanks.

The source of Shuka’s animosity toward me and BAR dates back to 2002, when BAR published an article by the distinguished Sorbonne epigrapher André Lemaire on the now-famous bone box, or ossuary, inscribed “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.”^h An IAA committee has now declared the inscription to be a forgery (see “Leading Scholar Lambastes IAA Committee” in this issue), and the owner of the ossuary is being tried for forging it, but most leading epigraphers nevertheless continue to regard it as authentic. BAR‘s publication of Lemaire’s article raised a whirlwind of media attention, and when journalists approached Shuka for comment, he was embarrassed because he knew nothing about it. He was furious at BAR for not giving him advance information. And this is supposedly the source of his animosity toward the magazine.

To make matters worse, the ossuary was shipped to Toronto for exhibit in the Royal Ontario Museum without Shuka’s personal knowledge. He reportedly would not have allowed the object to leave the country, even for the six weeks of the exhibit. This situation was doubly embarrassing because the IAA had, apparently routinely, granted the owner’s application for an export permit to take the ossuary to Canada, despite the fact that the application had called attention to the inscription on the ossuary and even noted that it had been insured for $1 million. The IAA nevertheless apparently failed to appreciate the significance of the ossuary and its inscription.

Shuka blamed me, however, because I had made the arrangements for the exhibit with the Royal Ontario Museum, contingent on the owner’s obtaining permission from the IAA to export the ossuary for the term of the exhibit.

The depth of Shuka’s ire toward BAR is reflected in the fact that he even refused to allow an excavation to proceed because the money came from a donor through BAR. The long-time, universally admired head of the Israel Exploration Society, Joseph Aviram, undertook to speak to Shuka but could not change his mind. BAR‘s money was dirty money.

It is true that BAR has been critical of Shuka. And he does not take criticism well. He is an ex-general who came to the office of IAA director without any archaeological knowledge or experience. But his background in the military gives him very considerable political clout as a member of Israel’s most elite fraternity.

Our criticism has been more specific, however. Recently, Shuka had a leading Dead Sea Scroll scholar, Hanan Eshel, as well as his graduate student Roi Porat, arrested for purchasing (with funds supplied by Bar-Ilan University, where Eshel teaches) a Dead Sea Scroll fragment from the Bedouin who had found it in a cave in the Judean Desert. The scholars were accused of dealing in looted antiquities. Eshel had promptly published the badly deteriorating fragment in a scholarly journal and gave the fragment to the IAA. This, however, was not enough to exonerate Eshel and his student. Eshel and Porat were quickly released after their arrest, but the matter is still hanging over the heads of the two prospective criminal defendants. Nearly 60 of Israel’s most prominent archaeologists protested Shuka’s actions in a petition published in one of Israel’s leading newspapers, Ha’aretz. It is not easy for an IAA director to arouse nearly 60 Israeli archaeologists to publicly protest anything. Shuka succeeded, however. The protest had little or no effect on Shuka. He simply ignored it.

Another example of the high regard in which Shuka is held by Israel’s archaeological community and how he deals with criticism involves the Mughrabi Gate to the Temple Mount high up on the western wall of the mount. It is the only entrance tourists may use to enter the mount. It is approached by a ramp that was undermined several years ago by a small earthquake and an unusual winter snow storm. To replace the ramp, Shuka endorsed a long, unsightly winding ramp that started hundreds of yards from the gate, obscuring the view of important archaeological remains. More than 20 leading archaeologists, including the head of Israel’s Archaeological Council, wrote a letter to Shuka objecting to the ramp on archaeological as well as aesthetic grounds. He didn’t even give the scholars the courtesy of an answer.

In early 2007, while I was at lunch in Jerusalem with Shuka’s assistant director, Uzi Dahari, Uzi suggested a reconciliation. I replied that I welcomed his interest. Indeed, I had been trying to do this for years. I suggested to Uzi that I would draft a letter to Shuka along the lines Uzi suggested and send it first to Uzi to review and, if needed, to improve. I sent a draft to Uzi, who found it satisfactory and suggested no changes. “Let us work together …” I wrote. I then sent it to Shuka. I never received a reply.

Early last fall, my long-time friend Dan Bahat, one of Israel’s leading archaeologists of Jerusalem and a former Jerusalem district archaeologist for the IAA said he would arrange a meeting between Shuka and me. When Danny mentioned my name to Shuka, however, Shuka cut him off. He did not want even to discuss the matter. When I got this report, I wrote Shuka that I bore him no ill will and that I hoped we could sometime establish a civil relationship. Of course I never heard from him.

There the matter stands. Will Shuka destroy BAR? I hope not. Perhaps the broader question is whether he will destroy Israeli archaeology.

I’m kind of embarrassed to say this, but the director of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), retired army general Shuka Dorfman, won’t speak to me. Actually, it’s worse than that. I think Shuka (as he is universally referred to) wants to put BAR out of business. At least he has forbidden IAA archaeologists from writing for BAR. (IAA archaeologists must obtain permission before writing articles; don’t even ask whether you can publish in BAR.) That BAR is the major international source of information about excavations conducted by the IAA is of little concern to Shuka. And that fact is […]