JERUSALEM \/ ISTANBUL <\/p>\n
A secret facility at Harvard University is dedicated to preserving everything published in Israel as part of an effort to safeguard the country\u2019s cultural and scientific output in case the state ceases to exist, Israeli media reported on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The report, published by the Haaretz daily under the headline \u201cAt a Secret Harvard Site, a Massive Archive of Israeliana Is Preserved \u2013 in Case Israel Ceases to Exist,\u201d said the archive contains tens of thousands of volumes and works across disciplines representing Israeli culture, all cataloged and stored in large underground halls.<\/p>\n
According to the newspaper, Israeli poet and novelist Haim Be\u2019er said organizers of a late-1990s literary conference at Harvard took him to what he described as an \u201cextraordinary place.\u201d He said the building looked like a Greek temple from the outside before he was led into a vast basement.<\/p>\n
Be\u2019er said he entered \u201ca massive space filled with printed materials,\u201d adding that he saw young women working nonstop at computers, each documenting items not typically found in an academic library.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the archive included \u201csynagogue pamphlets, kibbutz newsletters, memorial booklets for fallen soldiers, Simchat Torah flags, advertisements and political campaign materials.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harvard has not issued a comment on the report.<\/p>\n
Haaretz said staff at Harvard do not view these items as marginal ephemera but as valuable social documents that capture changes in Israeli society, language, politics and religion over time.<\/p>\n
According to the report, the archive is not a standard academic initiative but functions as an \u201calternative memory system\u201d for Israel. Its independence from Israeli government institutions, the newspaper added, gives it greater security in the event of national crises.<\/p>\n
Be\u2019er, who visited the site, described it as a \u201cfull backup of Israeli culture,\u201d saying that storing the materials in the US serves as a form of \u201ccivilizational insurance\u201d to ensure the survival of Israel\u2019s cultural and social history in a politically stable environment.<\/p>\n
The report said the project was led by Jewish scholar Charles Berlin, who was appointed in the 1960s to head a new division at Harvard devoted to documenting Jewish life and culture across generations.<\/p>\n
Harvard librarians said the division now holds roughly one million archival items, each potentially containing dozens or hundreds of documents, including tens of thousands of hours of audio and video recordings and at least six million images, the newspaper said.<\/p>\n
Haaretz quoted Moshe Mosk, who directed Israel\u2019s state archive from 1984 to 2008, as saying he refused to share sensitive collections with Berlin because he was uncomfortable with the project\u2019s premise that Israel might not survive.<\/p>\n
Israeli writer Ehud Ben-Ezer, who also worked with Berlin, said the scholar faced harsh criticism, including from a young Israeli historian who accused him of documenting Israel out of doubt over its future.<\/p>\n
He added that Berlin believed the project did not require a catastrophe to justify it, noting that archives in Israel are vulnerable to floods, fires or neglect due to being stored under poor conditions.<\/p>\n