The Director of the State Hermitage Museum, Dr. Mikhail B. Piotrovsky, appointed Mr. Amir G. Kabiri, President of the M.T. Abraham Foundation to head the newly established Hermitage Museum Foundation Israel.
The Hermitage Museum Foundation Israel (HMFI) created in 2013, is a nonprofit organization registered under Israeli law. The Hermitage Museum Foundation Israel is fully committed to supporting and promoting the Hermitage’s collections in Israel by means of exhibitions, lectures, seminars, publications and educational programs for both general and special audiences of all ages.
The HMFI helps to support and promote The State Hermitage Museum, one of the world’s greatest museums, in its artistic, scientific, cultural and educational activities. Concurrently, the HMFI also promotes cultural and artistic cooperation between leading museums in Israel and the State Hermitage Museum in Russia.
The historical ties between Israel and Russia date to the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, when many Russian Jews involved in the cultural and political spheres, were influential in laying the foundation for the future State of Israel. There is a close link between the people of both countries, one that has manifested itself in the arrival of more than one million Russian Jews during the past thirty years.
Dr.Mikhail B. Piotrovsky, welcomed the initiative to create an Israel-based foundation to support the museum and expressed the hope that The Hermitage Museum Foundation Israel would rapidly be able to facilitate the exchange of exhibitions between the State Hermitage Museum and leading museums in Israel.
