Chairman of Israel's Yad Vashem to step down after 27 years

chairman of Israel's Y Vashem Holocaust Museum and Memorial said Sunday he will be stepping down after 27 years.

Avner Shalev, 81, said in a letter to Y Vashem employees that he me decision to leave position after nearly three deces following “thorough self-examination.” He said was stepping down by end of year and gave furr details on his reasons for leaving.

Shalev guided a period of dramatic transformation at one of world's foremost Holocaust remembrance institutions. During his tenure, site expanded to include a sleek new museum, a centerpiece that draws hundreds of thousands of visitors a year, and solemn Hall of Names, a collection of 4.8 million names of Holocaust victims, which is a mainstay during visits of foreign dignitaries to Israel.

He also oversaw creation of an international school for Holocaust studies and an institute for Holocaust research.

According to his letter, a successor has t been designated.

Y Vashem is an almost sacred institution in Israel, where students, soldiers and company outings tour regularly and where country holds its annual Holocaust remembrance day ceremony.

Still, during Shalev's term, it has weighed in on a number of controversies.

In 2015, Y Vashem challenged accuracy of a claim by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggesting that a World War II-era Palestinian leer persued Nazis to opt ir Final Solution to exterminate 6 million Jews.

It lambasted an Israeli-Polish compromise over a Polish Holocaust hate speech law, saying a joint statement by countries' prime ministers contained “grave errors and deceptions” over Poland's role in Holocaust.

It also came out against a government plan in 2018 to deport tens of thousands of African migrants, saying it saw issue as a “national and international challenge that requires empathy, compassion and mercy."

" experience of Jewish people over generations heightens this obligation,” it said.