Igor Tulchinsky: Sponsor of British Museum Bayeux Tapestry exhibition funded community centre in West Bank settlement

The sponsor of the British Museum’s Bayeux Tapestry exhibition has funded a community centre in Efrat, an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank that is now under UK sanctions. Igor Tulchinsky, a Belarus-born billionaire who has backed the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition in a deal estimated to be worth £5m ($6.75m), unveiled a “therapy yurt” in Efrat’s Mondlak Center in November 2025 alongside the settlement’s mayor, Dovi Shefler. The yurt is part of a “community resilience centre” serving Gush Etzion, a bloc of illegal Israeli settlements 12km southeast of Jerusalem, and Tulchinsky was identified as its primary sponsor.