Jerusalem's famed Israel Museum gets new director

JERUSALEM – The Israel Museum in Jerusalem has selected a successor to its longtime director.

The museum says in an announcement on Tuesday that Eran Neuman will take over from James Snyder who is ending his 20-year tenure to assume the newly created position of international president for the museum's worldwide activities.

Neuman, who currently serves as Director of the David Azrieli School of Architecture at Tel Aviv University, was unanimously chosen by the museum's board of directors.

Snyder is credited with transforming the institution into a world-class museum. Annual attendance doubled to more than 800,000 during his tenure.

Founded in 1965, the museum's collections range from prehistory to contemporary art and include the most extensive holdings of Biblical and Holy Land archaeology in the world, among them the Dead Sea Scrolls.