Israel Museum director steps down after just a year and a half in the job
No reason given for Denis Weil’s departure, and no replacement named; museum says staff will pull together to keep operating
The director of the Israel Museum, Denis Weil, has resigned just a year and a half after taking up the position, the museum announced Sunday.
No specific reason was given for Weil’s departure. He is the third director at the museum in six years.
“We were saddened to receive the notice of Prof. Weil’s departure,” the Jerusalem museum said. “We would like to thank him, as a friend of the museum for many years, for the time he served as the museum’s director.”
The statement made no mention of a possible replacement, saying only that the museum would be entrusted to “the heads of the departments, the chief curators, the other managers and all the employees and volunteers of the museum, known for their professionalism, responsibility and great dedication to the institution dear to all of us.”
Weil was appointed in December 2021, when he was the dean and a professor of design at the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He was unanimously elected by the museum’s board of directors after an extensive search.
Weil replaced Prof. Ido Bruno, who led the museum for the previous four years, helping to navigate the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, when the museum was closed for months at a time and had to furlough its staff.
Bruno succeeded James Snyder, a New York City museum professional who held the role for two decades and was renowned for his fundraising.
