About myself

Shortly after my immigration to Israel from Poland in 1968 I started to work at the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem, undoubtedly one of the most important and largest Jewish archives in the world. At first it was a temporary position but soon afterwards I became a tenured archivist, then deputy director and from 1990 to 1998 director of the archives. Simultaneously with my employment, I enrolled in archive studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and received my MLS degree (cum laude) in 1989. Of much importance in shaping my professional viewpoint was my participation in 1984 in the International Course on Archive Management organized by the State School for the Training of Archivists in the Hague. It was in Holland that I realized for the first time the importance of outreach in archives which gave birth to a number of exhibitions mounted at the Central Zionist Archives in the 1990s. 

Throughout my career, I used to devote some of my time to research, firmly believing that an archivist should from time to time change sides and approach archives from a different angle. This resulted in a number of publications in two separate fields: French-Jewish involvement in Palestine before WWI and Jewish archives. In the framework of my work and research I visited most of the major Jewish and Israeli archives as well as many non-Jewish ones. Most unforgetable were my two visits to the so-called "Special Archives" in Moscow, where archival material originally looted by the Nazis during WWII and recovered by the Red Army in 1945, is kept. I devoted one of my articles to the Jewish holdings in the "Special Archives". 

In October 1998, at the age of 51 and after almost 30 years of work, I retired from the Central Zionist Archives and established myself as a free lance consultant on, and researcher in archives.   

I live in Jerusalem with my wife Nina. Our three grown-up sons are already on their own.