How Is the Bayeux Tapestry’s £5m Backer Linked to the IDF?

Few exhibition sponsors receive billing quite like Igor Tulchinsky. The British Museum has formally titled its blockbuster The Bayeux Tapestry: Presented by Igor Tulchinsky, describing the exhibition as ‘made possible by the generous support’ of the hedge-fund billionaire.

That support is substantial. According to the Financial Times, Tulchinsky’s contribution is worth as much as £5m, putting it among the largest exhibition sponsorships in the museum’s history. The British Museum has declined to publicly confirm the exact figure.

The prominence of Tulchinsky’s name in the show gives the sixty-year-old Belarus-born financier – a figure little known outside investment circles – significant recognition for helping bring one of Europe’s most celebrated medieval artistic objects to London.

But the sponsorship has also drawn attention to Tulchinsky’s Israeli business interests, including an investment operation reportedly led by Saar Tzur, a former major general of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), who also advises a company supplying remote-operation technology to the Israeli military.

Alongside charitable support for Israeli causes, including assistance to Israelis affected by the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, Tulchinsky has reportedly backed a range of defence technologies through his company WorldQuant Genesis. Tulchinsky’s links with Israel have been publicly opposed by a series of Palestinian-advocavy groups, including Artists for Palestine UK and Culture Unstained.

“WorldQuant Genesis has already invested in Navairo, an Israeli defense-tech startup developing solutions to counter swarms of low-cost drones,” reported Calcalist, Israel's leading daily business and economic newspaper, on 27 April 2026.

Detail from the Bayeux Tapestry, courtesy British Museum

In the article, Calcalist reports that Tulchinsky has recruited Tzur to manage a “venture capital operation in Israel which will focus on investments in early-stage deep-tech companies”. Tzur previously served as commander of the Northern Corps before his discharge from the IDF at the end of 2024. 

“I have been involved in the Israeli innovation ecosystem for a decade and have full and steadfast faith in its potential, both in times of crisis and in times of stability," Tulchinsky is quoted as saying in the article. "Even against the backdrop of the complex reality, my commitment to Israel and its future remains intact.”

Tzur also sits on the advisory board of Ottopia. The company says it has supplied remote-operation technology for IDF bulldozers, trucks and other vehicles since October 2023.

In an opinion piece published on 3 August for The Jerusalem Post, Tzur, wrote: “AI is fundamentally changing how commanders think, decide, and fight” in conflict. 

“AI is redefining the division of labour between humans and machines, transforming both military decision-making and the execution of operations across every echelon of the battlefield,” he wrote.

The campaigning groups Culture Unstained and Artists for Palestine UK have joined forces in their opposition to Tulchinsky's involvement with the exhibition. In an interview with The Art Journal, Isobel Tarr, the co-director of Culture Unstained, directly relate Tulchinsky’s investments in Israel to civilian deaths in Gaza.

"Sponsorship is a business transaction, not a donation - particularly for Igor Tulchinsky, who revealed he knew almost nothing about the Bayeux Tapestry," Tarr says. "In return for his money, The British Museum is providing Tulchinsky with unparalleled positive exposure, while his investments help develop AI-driven weapons technology for Israel's military to use against Palestinians."

Born in Minsk, Tulchinsky emigrated to the United States as a child. He founded WorldQuant in 2007 after 12 years at Millennium Management, building a business that uses mathematical models to identify trading opportunities.

Saar Tzur, 2021. Photo: IDF Spokesperson’s Unit / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

In an interview with The Independent on 26 February 2026, Tulchinsky highlighted access and education as the key drivers behind his sponsorship. The museum subsequently announced Bayeux Around Britain, supported by WorldQuant, in June – a nationwide effort partnering with over 60 educational institutions to enable non-ticket holders to encounter the medieval telling of the story of William the Conqueror’s seizure of the English throne in 1066.

Tulchinsky’s assistance to the victims of the October 7th attacks was public long before the sponsorship announcement. In November 2023, Chabad reported that he had financed a visit to New York for relatives of hostages to pray for their release.

Tulchinsky has also described committing more than £1.2m to resilience and PTSD programmes in Israel’s Ichilov and Hadassah hospitals. He said this followed donations “to aid soldiers, hostages, first responders and their families”. The statement gives no breakdown of assistance to soldiers; its context is medical care and recovery.

The British Museum has already faced protests connecting sponsorship to Israel. In March 2024, it was forced to close its main entrances during a demonstration against sponsorship by BP, whose Israeli offshore gas interests campaigners linked to the war in Gaza. 

The museum has also faced scrutiny over changes to references to Palestine in its galleries. A July investigation by Middle East Eye, drawing on internal emails obtained through Freedom of Information requests, reported that some changes followed complaints from pro-Israel activists, challenging the museum’s account that they arose from an independent curatorial review. The museum also disclosed that it held no records of audience research specifically testing the term “Palestine”, despite previously citing audience testing to explain its approach. It has denied that external lobbying drove the changes and says Palestine remains referenced across its galleries. No evidence links Tulchinsky to these decisions.

"This deal follows the museum's partial erasure of Palestine in its galleries, its hosting of an event for the Israeli embassy in 2025, not forgetting its sponsorship agreement with BP - one of the major suppliers of oil to Israel's military," says Tarr.

The museum’s June 2023 donations policy required trustees to weigh financial benefits against reputational risks, including effects on staff, visitors and other sponsors. It also excluded gifts whose conditions outweighed their value. Trustees approved amendments in July 2025; the terms applied to this agreement remain to be clarified.

The museum has previously said that decisions rest with its trustees and staff and rejected suggestions of inappropriate donor influence. There is no evidence in the reporting reviewed here that Tulchinsky has influenced the tapestry’s interpretation.

"The museum has consistently welcomed and elevated its perpetrators," Tarr says. "None of these transactions are neutral - they contribute to the normalisation of crimes against humanity and help to shield those complicit from accountability." 

In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for WorldQuant said: “Igor’s rationale behind the exhibition and sponsorship has been reported on in several locations.” The Art Journal also approached the British Museum, but received no response.