The Prague Jewish Museum is seeking candidates for a new Director, to replace long-time Director Leo Pavlat, who is stepping down in October. Pavlat, 71, has led the museum since it returned to Jewish ownership in 1994.
The new Director will be appointed by the Museum’s Board of Directors for a five-year term, which can be extended.
Candidates must deliver written applications by September 9, 2022 at the latest, either by post to: Board of Directors, Jewish Museum in Prague, U Staré školy 141/1, 110 00 Prague 1 , or electronically to the address spravni.rada@jewishmuseum.cz .
There are specific minimum prerequisites and requirements for potential candidates. In addition, they are asked to supply certain other material, including, for example, a brief concept of the development and further direction of the museum, to include “a short-term and long-term outlook for the development of the [museum that must] take into account short-term and long-term goals in the main areas of management and activities.”
Click here to see full requirements and procedures (in Czech)
The Prague Jewish Museum is consistently among the top two or three most-visited museums in the Czech Republic. It has one of the most extensive collections of Judaica in the world, with as many as 40,000 unique items, and a further 100,000 books, photographs and archival documents. The Museum oversees four historic synagogues, the Ceremonial Hall, the world-famous Old Jewish Cemetery, a gallery, several depositories, an archive, a library with a multimedia centre, restoration workshops, and an educational/cultural centre.
It was founded by the Jewish community in 1906. During the Holocaust, the Nazis took it over and in 1942 founded the Jüdisches Zentralmuseum (Central Jewish Museum). Jewish scholars — themselves doomed to deportation and death — catalogued the wealth of objects looted by the Nazis from destroyed Jewish communities and brought to Prague from the provinces.
After the war, the Museum reopened to the public again under Jewish administration in 1946. But the communists seized control in Czechoslovakia in February 1948 and took over the institution. It was nationalized in 1950 and and over the next four decades was run as the State Jewish Museum.
In 1994, the museum’s buildings were returned to the Prague Jewish community and the bulk of its collections were returned to the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic. It became an institution independent of the state on 1 October 1994.
2 comments on “Senior Job Opportunity: New Director, Prague Jewish Museum”
Mr. Pavlat should be credited for leading this institution for such a long time, since indeed it fared quite well up until the Coronavirus Pandemic. As an outstanding Jewish intellectual here, he represented the museum very well in public, most notably via public radio and TV, contributing to the acceptance of Jews in the broader context. I would like to draw attention of the HaNadiv fund to the article Pavlat wrote on Feb. 11, 2021 in Hospodarske noviny, outlining the post pandemic economic down fall.of the museum
Thanks. We know that article, and we posted a couple times about the difficulties the museum has been facing — https://jewish-heritage-europe.eu/2022/07/28/czech-republic-prague-crisis/ and https://jewish-heritage-europe.eu/2020/04/28/covid-19-loss-of-tourist-revenue/