A Museum Director to Play Ping-Pong With

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Crossposted from Haaretz
Former Tel Aviv Museum of Art director Professor Mordechai Omer was complex, comprehensive, multilayered, beloved and controversial at one and the same time. In his various roles, he influenced thousands of people.
“We’re left with a large black hole, and it will be a tough assignment to find a replacement who can fill his huge shoes,” says Omer’s former student, Doron Sabag, chairman of the exhibitions committee of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and an art collector. “Married to art, like a Buddhist monk, he was so involved in the field that he was almost divorced from everyday life,” Sabag adds.
From the eulogies delivered two days ago at Omer’s funeral by family members who called him “Uncle Mordechai,” many of those present heard personal details about the man who was so protective of his privacy for the first time.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
