IES Changes Guard: Geva Elevated to Director, Aviram Becomes President

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After a quarter century as director of the Israel Exploration Society (IES), on January 1, 2010, 92-year-old Joseph Aviram will assume the position of president. Hillel Geva, Aviram’s second in command, will become director. Alan Paris, longtime editor at IES, will become deputy director.

Aviram, who began his work with the IES in 1949, has spent several decades as “the man behind the curtain” of Israeli archaeology, bringing countless excavations and publications to fruition. He orchestrated the expedition to survey and explore the caves of the Judean Desert, which resulted in Yigael Yadin’s momentous discoveries in the so-called Cave of Letters. (Aviram also led one of the four teams of explorers.) He helped organize the great excavations at Hazor and Masada in the 1950s and 1960s, and under his leadership the IES cosponsored numerous major excavations, including Beth She’arim, Tell Qasile, Ramat Rah.el, Arad, Lachish, Dor, Yoqne’am and—in Jerusalem—the Jewish Quarter, the City of David and the area adjacent to the Temple Mount.

Aviram became director of the IES in 1983. When his dear friend and colleague Yigael Yadin died unexpectedly a year later, Aviram became one of the literary executors of Yadin’s unfinished work. He recruited scholars and raised funds for the final publication of Yadin’s excavations. The Hazor and the Cave of Letters excavation reports are now complete at two volumes each, and seven of an expected nine volumes have been published on the Masada excavations.

Aviram has also served as editor or editorial board member of many publications, such as the five-volume New Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Holy Land, the Hebrew journal Qadmoniot and the Israel Exploration Journal, the country’s major archaeological journal.

As one of the most-respected and best-liked scholars in the field, Aviram has been able to intervene to prevent numerous crises and reconcile warring scholars. He organized numerous scholarly conferences, including two (in 1984 and 1990) called “Biblical Archaeology Today” and one in 1997, “The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years After Their Discovery.” The proceedings of all three of these conferences were then published in large volumes by the IES.

In 1989, the IES was awarded the illustrious Israel Prize, with a special citation of Aviram’s contributions as “the initiator, planner and organizer of all the Society’s activities.”

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Hillel Geva has been Joseph Aviram’s chief assistant at the IES for 23 years. He earned his Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and excavated with Nahman Avigad in Jerusalem’s Old City from 1969 to 1982. As one of Avigad’s top assistants (along with Amihai Mazar and Ronny Reich), Geva took over the publication of the excavation after Avigad’s death in 1992. As the editor and a principal contributor, he has produced three of at least nine anticipated volumes of Jewish Quarter Excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem, published by the IES. The fourth volume is expected out at the beginning of 2010. The publication of the remaining volumes is in progress but depends on much-needed funding.

Geva also directed excavations in David’s citadel adjacent to the Jaffa Gate from 1976 to 1980.

Aviram’s new position as president of the IES will allow him to continue to make major contributions to the society without the burden of day-to-day administration.

After a quarter century as director of the Israel Exploration Society (IES), on January 1, 2010, 92-year-old Joseph Aviram will assume the position of president. Hillel Geva, Aviram’s second in command, will become director. Alan Paris, longtime editor at IES, will become deputy director. Aviram, who began his work with the IES in 1949, has spent several decades as “the man behind the curtain” of Israeli archaeology, bringing countless excavations and publications to fruition. He orchestrated the expedition to survey and explore the caves of the Judean Desert, which resulted in Yigael Yadin’s momentous discoveries in the so-called Cave […]