Displaying your diploma: The professionalization of curators in Israel

Abstract

This study examines the history of legislation on the subject of curation in Israel and the state of the country's training programs for curators. Israel serves as a representative case study: While many museum activities and curatorial studies programs worldwide were initiated in order to ensure a trained museum staff, today, the scope of those who meet this criterion far exceeds the demand. Furthermore, as happened frequently in other countries, Israeli legislators in the 1980s did not understand that contemporary curation and museology are two very different fields, and a system to train the staff of museums was built together with the flourishing of contemporary curation. Hence, in legislation, these two fields are today bound together. This article builds on the Israeli case study to ask if separating these two fields will create more up-to-date programs.