What Was Promised to Artists in Wartime, and What Arrived

Anyone who makes a living from events knows the moment. Home Front Command issues an instruction, and next month's calendar empties in a single announcement. Then come the words support, or framework, or compensation. Whoever goes looking afterwards for where to apply usually finds nothing at all, and is left suspecting that nobody has heard of them. The real question is not whether damage was done. It is whether anyone paid for it, and who the money reached.

There is a precise answer, and it was given on the record by people who run a museum, a union, a dance company and production firms. The answer is not one answer. It changes depending on who is asking, and that turns out to be the heart of it.

What reached the institutions

Tania Coen-Uzzielli, director of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, gave both halves of the answer in one breath to The Jerusalem Post, in a piece published on 18 July 2026: "The state promises some sort of compensation. We got that during the [post-Oct. 7] war and other campaigns. They understood the situation. But I can't say they understood that cultural institutions are important. But we did get some compensation, and we have acknowledged that" [1]. In the same piece she gives the museum's funding split: 45 percent from the municipality, and 5 percent or less from the Ministry of Culture [1].

It is worth pausing on what that sentence says in practice. Compensation did arrive. It also did not move the ratio between the body that holds the institution up and the body that is supposed to.

Yossi Singer, head of the Israeli Artists' Association, names the shape of the thing in the same report: "No one in the government is listening. They provide ad hoc solutions for situations, like compensation for loss of earnings during the war with Iran. But these are band-aids; they just paper over the cracks. There is no thought-out order of priorities" [1]. By the figure he cites, culture's share of the state budget stands at 0.18 percent, which he believes is the lowest in the OECD [1]. Adi Sha'al, cofounder of the Vertigo Dance Company, adds a second figure there: state and municipal funding together cover 45 percent of the company's outgoings, about half of its self-generated income came from performing abroad, and the international boycott erased that [1]. A loss of that kind is not war damage under any definition a compensation mechanism works by.

Effie Benaya, CEO of Confederation House in Jerusalem, gives a third version, and it is worth reading twice: "The Culture Ministry didn't reduce our budget during the war. They maintained the budget from the previous year. There were no additions, but in a year of war, you have to be grateful for what you get" [1]. A budget that stayed flat while income fell is reported here as a success. That is his position, and it is given here as his position.

And for whoever works alone, by an events calendar

Here the answer changes entirely. In June 2025, during the Home Front Command restrictions in the campaign against Iran, Miki Levin published an opinion column in Maariv making a harder claim than inadequate compensation. In her words: there is no unemployment insurance for the self-employed, no compensation plan pre-budgeted by the Finance Ministry, and not even a clear voice from the government acknowledging the damage and promising compensation to those harmed [2]. She writes that 80 percent of the culture world rests on the private entertainment industry, so its only counterpart is the Finance Ministry, and she describes the mechanism itself: Home Front Command orders performances, conferences and gatherings cancelled for reasons of public safety, and thousands of singers, actors, technicians, sound crew, directors and producers find themselves overnight with zero income [2]. That is an opinion column, and it is given here as the claim of the person who wrote it.

In March 2026, when Operation Rising Lion broke out just before Purim, the same claim comes back from someone absorbing the blow in real time. Attorney Oren Koma Pasternak, a Tel Aviv event producer for nearly three decades, told mako that the absurdity is that as of now there is not even an announcement of any compensation plan following the operation [4]. That is a different statement from compensation that fell short. It is a statement about the absence of an announcement.

He also explains why a grant of the usual size would not have solved it. In his account Purim generates 30 to 50 percent of the annual turnover of some businesses in the field, so even a grant the size of one month's March wages would not cover three to six months of pre-event cost and labour [4]. And there is a mechanic that makes it worse: the producer, in his words, has not seen a shekel even on a fully sold event, because the money sits with the ticketing companies, which do not transfer it until the event takes place [4].

A week earlier, the same industry described the damage in detail. Maor Kalsi, co-owner of the Geisha production company, speaks of hundreds of thousands of shekels already paid as advances to suppliers and tens of thousands in paid marketing that will not come back [3]. Tal Pinchas of Live 360 adds the fact that changes the whole insurance picture: in Israel's security reality, insurance companies long ago stopped insuring events against war risks, which he calls a recognised, built-in market failure, so the entire burden of risk falls on the private producer [3]. And Eliron Ben Hamo describes a cost with no address: artists stranded abroad and unable to fly home, with nobody covering the extra hotel nights and the changed flights. "In practice, it's us. Out of our own pocket" [3].

What a mechanism that does work looks like, and the complaints about it

For the picture to be complete, it helps to look at an Israeli compensation mechanism that did function, even though it answers a different question. Payment to self-employed people called up for reserve duty is set by a formula: income plus 25 percent over the preceding three months, divided by 90, multiplied by the number of reserve days, capped at 47,465 NIS a month [5]. Alongside it, a fund of roughly 100 million NIS was set up by the banks and the Jewish Agency for self-employed reservists, with grants of 7,000 to 50,000 NIS, conditional on at least 60 reserve days and a drop of at least 20 percent in revenue [6].

That looks like a real mechanism, and it is one. It also draws criticism from people who know it closely. Attorney Yossi Weizman calls it compensation applied "with tweezers", says it may cover a month's work, and says it offers nothing to a self-employed person whose business actually collapsed [5]. Dr. Harel Primek points at who the cap underpays, among them anyone earning above it and anyone with heavy expenses that shrink the profit they live on [5]. Roi Cohen, president of the self-employed organisations' bureau, says the framework markedly improves most self-employed people's position, while occupations with high turnover and low fixed costs receive the lowest tier, 14 thousand NIS [5].

And here is the limit of the comparison, which matters. This mechanism compensates for days a person was away from their business because they were in uniform. It does not compensate for an event the state itself ordered postponed. Someone who works by an events calendar and does not serve in the reserves falls outside it.

A private fund, its ceiling, and the sum that actually arrives

For whoever fits no public mechanism there is a private answer too, and it has numbers of its own. According to a Yedioth Ahronoth examination, requests for assistance to the Eshkolot organisation rose from a single-digit monthly figure before October 2023 to 111 requests in June 2025 [7]. An artist in need can apply for a grant of up to 20 thousand NIS, and if it is approved the money moves within a week. But the fund's budget is limited, and it currently struggles to pay out grants of more than 3,000 NIS [7]. That is the same picture in miniature: one announced ceiling, a different sum that actually arrives, and both figures coming from the organisation itself.

The same report carries a sentence that is not a number and is worth the whole section. A well-known singer helping a colleague in difficulty explains why the fund keeps applications confidential: some artists are ashamed, because they once succeeded and suddenly need money to feed the family [7]. That feeling is documented, and it explains why this mechanism works quietly.

One thing about Eshkolot has to be said precisely: according to that report the organisation represents singers, actors, entertainers and dubbing artists [7]. Visual artists are not inside that definition.

This is not the first time, and that is the part to hold on to

On 4 March 2020, before Israel's first COVID lockdown, after the Health Ministry banned gatherings of more than 5,000 people, the Israeli promoters' and stage-arts producers' association sent a letter to the chair of the Knesset Finance Committee, Moshe Gafni. In it they asked for a mechanism to compensate the self-employed people working in event initiation and production, so as to keep them from collapsing on the slippery slope under the crisis [8].

A week later, on 11 March 2020, Maariv described the damage itself, in exactly the same slot of the calendar. The PR representative Bar Rimoni said there that Purim is one of the most profitable holidays for artists in Israel, and described the harm to artists, to their agencies and to their producers after the cancellation of Purim parades and parties [9]. The media consultant Nava Einbar put the number of cancellations at around 100 and the damage at tens of millions of shekels, and said the harm reached hotels, food and drink businesses and cleaning services that depend on performances [9].

And what came of that round. Rami Shmuel, producer of the Unity trance festival, who led the industry's organising effort in 2026, said in 2020 about the previous round that no legislative change came of it, though a change of attitude within the police did [10]. In the same conversation he explains why he distrusted efforts like it: in his account the people in the room were holders of clear interests worth millions, and once they get their money they abandon ship, leaving smaller operators with nobody representing them [10]. That is the same person, in the same position, organising the same industry around the same demand, for the third time in seven years.

What I looked for here and could not read

I went looking for an earlier precedent and found two I could not verify. The first is a compensation claim by an event-production company that cancelled a festival in 2014 because of Operation Protective Edge, a dispute that reached the Supreme Court. The second is a Knesset Finance Committee protocol from 2024, a session on compensation for institutions and museums whose income fell because of the war. Both documents exist, both sit exactly where an article like this needs a "before", and both are available only as a PDF or a DOC file that my tools do not open. So no claim here comes out of either one. Something I did not read does not become a fact because it sounds right.

The harder problem, without rounding it off

Three things stay open, and they are better said straight.

The first: in everything read here, there is no standing mechanism. There are ad hoc solutions, in Yossi Singer's words [1], there is a framework built for reservists that works inside its own definition [5], and there is a round in which not even a plan was announced [4]. A demand for a permanent compensation administration for the culture and events sector was raised in 2020 [8] and again in 2026 [4], and so far it has not become a mechanism.

The second, and it is the harder one for anyone working in caricature or illustration: every sector appearing in this article has somebody who asks on its behalf. Performing artists have a union [1] and a fund [7]. Production and nightlife have an organising effort attempting to form for the third time [4] [10]. The search done for this article found no Israeli body representing illustrators or cartoonists on an economic question, and Eshkolot, by that report, represents singers, actors, entertainers and dubbing artists [7]. That is not the absence of an answer. It is a different kind of answer, and a less comfortable one: even if a mechanism is built, there is at present nobody in the room to say it should include visual artists who work at events.

The third: there is no answer here to what to do tomorrow morning, and no route to point at. What there is, is a precise picture of who did receive, for what, and why someone who works by an events calendar sits outside all of it. On that year itself, and on how to tell a collapsed market from a personal failure, there is an earlier article here.

What can be done with this

Three practical things, taken from the sources themselves.

First, documentation. Every mechanism read here demands proof: reserve days, a 20 percent drop in revenue, the size of the business [6]. Whoever keeps contracts, cancelled bookings, the correspondence about the cancellation and the costs paid in advance is holding what a future mechanism will ask for. Whoever kept none of it arrives at that conversation empty-handed.

Second, insurance. If insurance companies have stopped insuring events against war risks [3], it is worth knowing what an existing policy does cover before the season starts, rather than on the day the cancellation notice lands.

Third, the arrangement with the client. The demand Pasternak raises is a force-majeure clause in the Consumer Protection Law, and in its absence he points at the settlements from the COVID period: a ticket for a new date, credit toward another event, or a refund of roughly 80 percent of the ticket price [4]. Anyone working with private clients can write that arrangement into their own agreement in advance, in a quiet month.

And the last thing, which is not a solution. The sense that the work stopped because of a personal failure is documented here explicitly, by people running a museum, a dance company, a festival and a production office. For them it was not personal, and it probably was not personal for whoever is reading this either.

Sources

[1] Barry Davis, "War, boycotts, and shrinking budgets push Israeli culture to the brink", The Jerusalem Post, 18 July 2026. The words of Tania Coen-Uzzielli, Yossi Singer, Adi Sha'al and Effie Benaya, the Tel Aviv Museum's funding split, and culture's share of the state budget.

[2] Miki Levin, "The government did not take it into account: the sector that will pay the heaviest price against Iran", Maariv, 16 June 2025. An opinion column: the absence of a pre-budgeted compensation plan for the self-employed in culture, and the Home Front Command cancellation mechanism.

[3] Zohar Tzlach, "The blow the nightlife sector took because of the war", mako, 2 March 2026. Maor Kalsi, Tal Pinchas and Eliron Ben Hamo on advances paid, on insurers no longer covering events against war risk, and on artists stranded abroad.

[4] Zohar Tzlach, "Nightlife people demand compensation", mako, 10 March 2026. Attorney Oren Koma Pasternak on the absence of any announced compensation plan, Purim's share of annual turnover, ticket money held by the ticketing companies, the force-majeure demand and the COVID-era settlements, and Rami Shmuel on the organising effort.

[5] Nitzan Shapir, "The self-employed called up to the war come out against the payment method", Globes via N12, 1 November 2023. The payment formula for self-employed reservists and its cap, and the words of attorney Yossi Weizman, Dr. Harel Primek and Roi Cohen.

[6] Israeli banks, Jewish Agency to provide financial assistance to self-employed IDF reservists, Ynetnews. The size of the fund, the grant range and the eligibility conditions.

[7] Raz Shachnik, "Because of the war: a jump in the number of artists in financial difficulty turning for help", Yedioth Ahronoth via ynet. The figures on requests to the Eshkolot fund, its ceiling and what it actually pays, who the organisation represents, and the confidentiality.

[8] The producers' association demands financial compensation following the COVID restrictions, N12, 4 March 2020. The letter from the promoters' and stage-arts producers' association to Finance Committee chair Moshe Gafni, and its wording.

[9] Dudi Patimer, "Tens of millions of shekels: the music industry takes a hard blow from COVID", Maariv, 11 March 2020. Bar Rimoni and Nava Einbar on Purim 2020, the number of cancellations and the scale of the damage.

[10] Rami Shmuel moved from producing trance parties to a plumbing shop, mako, 4 September 2020. His account of what came of the previous organising round and of who leads campaigns like it.