What Public Money Actually Reaches an Artist in Israel

Somebody tells you there are prizes and grants for artists. You go and look, and you find calls for applications addressed to institutions, theatres, festivals and galleries, and nothing that appears to be written for one person with a studio. After an hour of that, most people land on one of two conclusions: either it does not really exist, or it exists and is not for them. There is a more precise answer, and it is documented from beginning to end across the past year.

The short version was said in January 2026 by the Association of Plastic Artists itself, inside a protest against a cancellation: the creation prizes being cancelled were the only direct public support that reached artists themselves, rather than institutions or galleries [1]. That is the frame worth holding before any figure. Most public culture money in Israel reaches bodies. The channel that reached individuals was one.

What was cancelled, and how much of it

The programme "Gam Kach Tarbut" on Kan Tarbut revealed that the Ministry of Culture had struck dozens of creation prizes for 2025, across every cultural field: literature, dance, music, design and plastic arts. In plastic arts, prizes that in 2024 stood at roughly 800 thousand NIS and were distributed among dozens of artists were cancelled. In concert music a prize budget of 120 thousand NIS was deleted, and in dance prizes worth 230 thousand NIS were cancelled. In literature, prizes for emerging writers, translators and editors and creation prizes in Arabic were cancelled, along with the Dvora Omer prize for children's literature [1].

Calcalist published the full picture, with a byline date of its own, 14 January 2026. Elad Yaron, chair of the Curators' Association, said there that the prizes came to roughly 5 million NIS a year in total, and that in plastic arts the figure was roughly 700 to 800 thousand NIS. In his words this is one of the weakest-funded fields in the ministry and has been for years, and it is the only way the ministry supports artists directly [2].

One detail here teaches more about the mechanism than any sum does. On that same day, two different reasons came out of the same ministry. The Ministry of Culture's first response was budgetary: because of cuts to the ministry's budgets in 2025, some of the prizes were not distributed, and the 2026 prize budgets had not yet been set. A few hours later, once the story was already in the headlines, Minister Miki Zohar issued an entirely different one: for years prizes had been distributed from all Israeli citizens' tax money while clearly ignoring artists holding views that most of the public holds, and in light of that he had ordered funding halted until a professional committee was formed to distribute prizes to artists from every part of the public [1].

The artist Miriam Cabessa, a winner of the Ministry of Culture's lifetime achievement prize, responded in the same broadcast, saying that cancelling these prizes is like saying there is no culture, and that government recognition matters no less than a prize's monetary value [1]. That is her position, and it is reported here as her position. It also points at something practical: a public prize is two things at once, a sum and a line in a biography, and both vanished together.

What happened next

More than 500 writers, poets and senior artists, among them Eshkol Nevo, Chaim Be'er, Dana Olmert and Yaniv Iczkovits, petitioned the Ministry of Culture's legal adviser, Dani Chorin, to examine the legality of the decision, arguing that the minister was acting from political motives, and doing so during a war. The ministry's reply was a single sentence, and it is the most useful sentence in the whole story for anyone planning ahead: the prizes are not set in legislation, and the decision rests with the minister [3].

The ministry's own legal adviser's position was published later: a decision based on the political views of prize winners cannot stand legally, since candidates' political positions or identity are not a relevant consideration at all and cannot be a factor in choosing winners [4]. In that same report, Dr. Chaim Perlock, chair of the Israeli Council for Culture and Art, whose role is to advise the minister, said the creation prizes would return in 2026 and that the prize regulations would be published soon. The minister's office said at the same time that the matter was under discussion and that no decision had been made [4]. Two statements on the record, not reconciled with each other.

And what happened in June

About half a year after the cancellation, on 22 June 2026, N12 reported that the distribution of creation prizes would resume in an expanded format for 2026. Every traditional prize that had been cut returns: the Levi Eshkol prize for writers and poets, the Arik Einstein prize for veteran artists, the Frank Peleg lifetime achievement prize for a soloist or conductor, the Prime Minister's prize for composers, prizes for writers and poets at the start of their path, classical music prizes and a jazz prize [5].

In plastic arts specifically, two new prizes are added: a prize for the encouragement of creation, and alongside it a young-artist prize for someone educated in a youth village or a boarding school [5]. For a reader this question touches directly, that is the practical detail in the whole article.

The reform adds new categories in other fields too: a literature prize for work dealing with the heritage and identity of Mizrahi Jewry, new prizes for Eastern music ensembles and composers, a lifetime achievement prize for an artist from the periphery, a Hebrew-song prize for work connected to tradition and the Hebrew calendar, a dance prize for a new immigrant active in the field for up to ten years, and an interdisciplinary Council prize for lifetime achievement for a creator with more than 30 years of practice. Film prizes grow from six to ten [5]. These categories are the minister's January statement in concrete form, and that is stated here as a description of what the ministry itself published, not as a verdict on policy.

Sources in the Ministry of Culture clarified that budget had been added and that the new prizes would be distributed in addition to the existing ones rather than in their place. They also noted that the distribution mechanism and the judging method were still to be examined, that this was a longer process to be done in stages, and that in literature the trustee committee would continue to select the judges [5]. So the channel came back, and the question of who chooses inside it is still open.

The door this whole episode never touched

Running alongside all of this was one door the story did not affect at all, because there is no public money in it. The Plumas Art Foundation is funded by private sources and, in the wording of its own about page, with no government assistance or restrictions other than the laws governing non-profits. The foundation allows repeated applications by artists across their professional lifespan, and awards open grants with no requirement to report on how they are used [6]. In 2025 it awarded 40 artist grants totalling 1,400,000 NIS [7].

Beside the grants, Plumas runs a policy project together with the Association of Plastic Artists in Israel, centred on promoting a "Percent for Art" law, the allocation of 1 percent of construction costs on projects with significant public spaces toward installing artworks. A bill was drafted with Attorney Hadas Farber-Almogi and is intended to be promoted in the Knesset during 2026 [7]. The same page reports one result already achieved: a 2 million NIS budget addition for public galleries, originally won in 2024 as a one-off, was incorporated into the Ministry of Culture's base budget and became a permanent allocation [7].

What does not yet exist is stated here exactly as that foundation's own page states it. Its policy page describes a field that has suffered for years from outdated legislation based on obsolete definitions, and sets out an agenda it will support an in-depth discussion of together with the artists' association: public institutions' obligation to pay artist fees, reduced city tax on studio spaces, resource allocation, artists' taxation, and policy on art in public space [8]. These are things being argued for at present, and not things that have been settled.

For whoever needs help with the paperwork rather than the money

Bar-Kayma in Jerusalem answers a different question, the one that usually stops people before they reach the question of money. According to its about page it works to minimise the damage bureaucracy does to culture and art, providing administrative, production, legal, organisational and marketing support, and over sixty initiatives operate with it. The service it calls "The Bureau, Studio for Art and Bureaucracy" describes a response to an artist's or cultural entrepreneur's bureaucratic needs, including building work plans, submissions and reports, a database of organisational templates and professional advice on legal, accounting and insurance matters [9]. It is not a source of money. It is the body that helps fill in what a source of money demands.

The harder problem, without rounding it off

Three things stay open, and all three are better said plainly.

The first is structural. The only channel reaching individuals is a prize channel, and it rests on a minister's discretion, according to the ministry's own answer [3]. A prize is not an income. It is a sum and a recognition, once, by the decision of a committee whose composition is itself still under review [5]. Anyone building a decade on a mechanism like that is building on somebody else's discretion. The thing that would change it is legislation, which is why the "Percent for Art" bill matters more to a working life than any single prize cycle, and also why it matters to say that it is a bill and not a law [7].

The second is a gap in coverage. Nothing in this entire record concerns caricature or event artists. Every source here is about plastic art in the gallery and studio sense, about literature, dance, music and film. In preparing this article the gap was checked three times from three different directions, and no public funding route addressed to a visual artist who works at events was found. That is stated as an absence, not as an answer in either direction.

The third is something that could not be read at all. The business-continuity grant route for the self-employed during wartime is probably the most relevant thing of all to someone whose bookings stopped, and on it there are zero sources here. Six attempts at government pages, a rights-information page and reporting about them were made across three weeks, and not one page was read in full. So no eligibility condition is claimed here. Anyone whose turnover fell should ask an accountant rather than an article. On that year itself, and on how to tell a collapsed market from a lost hand, there is an earlier article here.

What can actually be done with this

According to the June report, calls for applications for the new prizes were expected to be published by the ministry soon [5]. The practical meaning is simple and not comfortable: the body of work exists before the call does. No artist was asked between January and June whether this channel would be open, and when it opens it asks for work already made. The same holds on the private side. Plumas awards its grants in appreciation of an artist's work and allows repeated applications across a career [6], and there too what is asked about is what has been done.

So the honest answer to "is there public money" is this: there is a little, for individuals, through one channel, at a committee's discretion, and it disappeared and came back within half a year without artists having any say in it. What does not depend on that is the work itself, which is also the one thing every route named here asks to see.

Sources

[1] "Gam Kach Tarbut" exposé: the Ministry of Culture cancelled dozens of creation prizes, Kan Tarbut. The per-field figures, the ministry's first budgetary response, the Association of Plastic Artists on the only direct support, Miriam Cabessa's words, and the minister's full statement.

[2] Maya Nachum Shachal, "On the threshold of a death blow to culture": the Ministry of Culture cancelled dozens of creation prizes, Calcalist, 14 January 2026. The roughly 5 million NIS annual total and Elad Yaron's account of the plastic arts field.

[3] Hundreds of writers and artists against Minister Zohar's decision to cancel the creation prizes, Kan Tarbut. The petition by more than 500 creators to legal adviser Dani Chorin, the named signatories, and the ministry's reply that the prizes are not set in legislation.

[4] First report: the Ministry of Culture's prizes will return for 2026, Kan Tarbut. Dr. Chaim Perlock's statement, the minister's office's response, and the ministry's legal adviser's position.

[5] Amit Atias, The Ministry of Culture restores the creation prizes and adds new categories, N12, 22 June 2026. The list of restored traditional prizes, the new categories including the two in plastic arts, the growth in film prizes, and ministry sources on budget and on the judging mechanism.

[6] About us, Plumas Art Foundation. Private funding with no government assistance, repeated applications, and open grants with no reporting requirement.

[7] Activity report 2025, Plumas Art Foundation. The 40 grants and 1,400,000 NIS in 2025, the "Percent for Art" law and the bill headed for the Knesset in 2026, and the 2 million NIS public-gallery addition folded into the base budget.

[8] Artists rights and Policy, Plumas Art Foundation. The outdated legislation and the agenda being argued for, including public institutions' obligation to pay artist fees.

[9] About, Bar-Kayma for Culture, Art, Music and Peace. The administrative, legal and organisational support, the sixty initiatives, and the description of "The Bureau, Studio for Art and Bureaucracy".