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Israel’s Universities Take Small Steps to Widen Education; “Students Don't Even Know What They Don't Know,” Officials Say
Israeli Council for Higher Education officials are spearheading a new initiative at Israel’s public universities to “afford broader thought and a broader education.” According to the Israeli daily Ha'aretz the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has, during the current academic year, introduced a requirement that all students take a small number of courses outside of their major, and the country's other colleges and universities will follow suit next year. “It's hard to measure the damage caused by a narrow education, but it definitely exists,” said Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg, chairman of the Planning and Budget Committee of the Council for Higher Education in Israel. Click here to read the article.
“Horses Wearing Blinders”; Haaretz Op-Ed Backs Education Changes
In a strongly worded op-ed in Haaretz, published after the proposed changes outlined above were announced, Prof. Na’ama Sheffi, head of the Communications School at Sapir College in the Negev, says “More than 10 years late, the people in charge of higher education have remembered to tackle the real problem. Not research budgets, not tuition fees, not lecturers' salaries - but education itself.” She continues, “the narrow focus that breaks academic occupations into tiny squares has made us into horses wearing blinders, our vision has become so narrow.” Click here to read the article.
New Private College in England to Put Emphasis on High-Quality Teaching for Undergraduates
A group of leading independent schools in the United Kingdom are studying plans to set up an elite private university for families frustrated by the quality of education at mainstream institutions. The university would be modeled on American liberal arts colleges, which concentrate on providing high-quality teaching for undergraduates, reports The Times (of London). Click here to read the article.
E-News Readers! Exclusive Access to Subscriber-Only Content In New Jewish Review of Books
The Jewish Review of Books is a new quarterly publication (in print and on the web) for serious readers with Jewish interests. Leading writers and scholars are committed to the ideal of the thoughtful essay that illuminates as it entertains. “We aspire to offer something different: a lively magazine of ideas and argument, criticism and commentary, written especially for intelligent men and women who believe, as I do, that Jewish subjects are worthy of attention that is serious, accessible, and occasionally even playful,” writes editor Abraham Socher. The Jewish Review of Books has offered E-News readers exclusive access to a subscriber-only book review by Shalem College Philosophy Chair and noted scholar of Jewish thought Menachem Kellner. Click here to read “God and Idolatry.”
Less Politics, More Poetry: China’s Colleges Eye the Liberal Arts
In a fascinating article, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on the impact China’s first private, independent liberal arts college is having in a decidedly “illiberal” place. “For decades,” reports the Chronicle, “Chinese universities were mammoth, impersonal institutions in which professors lectured and students dutifully took notes. But United International— China's first independent liberal-arts college—is just one of many recent efforts by universities across China to remake undergraduate education into a more dynamic, interdisciplinary experience. The college began as the pet project of Hong Kong educators looking to put their stamp on mainland education. Four years into its existence… its intimate classes, abundant extracurricular activities, and student body of just 4,000 students have thrust it to the forefront of educational reform.” Click here to read more about one college’s impact on a whole country:
In the United Kingdom: Liberal Arts Takes Off
Educational options tend to the narrow in Britain, with subject specialization frequently beginning in high school. Now, in the wake of Lord Dearing’s 1997 review of higher education, the still rare liberal arts degree is starting to take off, increasing in popularity as students and employers seek broader skills. “As well as the existing degree at St Mary's University College, Belfast, Winchester University is to begin a liberal arts course in the fall of 2010, and in 2011, University College London, part of the elite Russell Group, will add its weight to the trend with its own liberal arts degree.” Click here to read a Guardian article on the steady growth of liberal arts in the United Kingdom:
Newsweek’s Editor Writes “In Defense of the Liberal Arts”
Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek, attended Sewanee University of the South, one of the United States’ top ranked liberal arts colleges. In the January 9 issue of Newsweek, he offers an impassioned defense of his alma mater, and the possibilities this kind of education affords for “new innovation and new competitiveness.” “The next chapter of the nation's economic life” he writes, “could well be written not only by engineers but by entrepreneurs who, as products of an apparently disparate education, have formed a habit of mind that enables them to connect ideas that might otherwise have gone unconnected…. Liberal education is a crucial element in the creation of wealth, jobs, and, one hopes, a fairer and more just nation.” Click here to read the entire editorial:
Jewish Ideas Daily, Pathbreaking New Website, Launched
The Tikvah Fund’s Jewish Ideas Daily has just launched and looks set to become a vital and valuable resource. It offers “an expertly prepared selection of the best the world has to offer in Jewish opinion, argument, thought, and analysis, pulled from hundreds of sources from around the globe.” Topics covered include Jewish philosophy, Israeli politics and rabbinic thought as well as new forms of Jewish literature, music, and art. The site also promises “the latest breakthroughs in historical scholarship and permanently relevant essays on the landmarks of the Jewish year, biblical archaeology and profiles of significant Jewish figures of today, yesterday, and tomorrow—all this, plus original columns, interviews and commissioned debates.” Among the articles featured in the initial weeks of publication have been a number from the Shalem Center’s journal Azure: Ideas for the Jewish Nation. To visit the Jewish Ideas Daily site, click here:
In Ghana: Former Microsoft Exec Explains How A Liberal Arts Education is Critical to Forming Leaders
After working at Microsoft for almost a decade, Patrick Awuah returned home to Ghana and cofounded Ashesi University, a small liberal arts college that aims to educate Africa's next generation. Founded in 2002, Ashesi University is already charting a new course in African education, with its commitment to educating young people in critical thinking and ethical service, values Awuah believes are crucial for the nation-building that lies ahead there. Smart, young and idealistic, Awuah left Ghana as a teenager to attend Swarthmore College in the United States. Students in Ghana, he said, “had a stronger sense of entitlement than a sense of responsibility.” He set out to change that. To watch his inspiring TED talk about the college, click here.
In Pakistan: “You Can’t Build a Country if you’re not Thinking Beyond Your Own Lifetime”
In Pakistan, private philanthropy has invested in higher education to build an elite institution that in just over twenty years has been dubbed the “Harvard University” of the country. The Lahore University of Management and Sciences was founded by renowned businessman Syed Babar Ali to counter a leadership crisis that beset that state. “For Mr. Ali,” reports The New York Times in the article linked below, “education was the country’s most urgent need, and in 1986 he helped create L.U.M.S. Founded as a business school, it later added a rigorous liberal arts program, one of the strongest in Pakistan.” Click here to read more about the school Mr. Ali hopes will transform leadership in his country.
In California: How to Start a Liberal Arts College
In North San Diego County, California, philosophy professor Tim Mosteller is part of a group of people who’ve recently formed a small, classical “great books” college, and are recruiting students for their first class in the fall of 2010. In this article, Prof. Mosteller sets out the reasons he and his colleagues are building San Elijo College, and how they are going about it. He points to the deficiencies in his own education and sets out the “ideal” envisaged at San Elijo: “a unified curriculum incorporating the great books… open to all. I envisioned a small learning community of master scholars and student apprentices focused on the great works of Western civilization.” Click here to read more.
Chanukah 5770: A Real Miracle or the Doing of Extraordinary People?
In his December 10 Jerusalem Post column, Shalem senior vice president Daniel Gordis shares a moving story of “unspoken and inexplicable bonds.” It is the story of two mothers and two sons, and the anniversary of Operation Cast Lead in which Dalia Emanuelof lost her son Dvir. As Gordis writes, “It is the quintessential Jewish story... It is a story of shared destinies… and as is true of this little country we call home, it's often impossible to know which part of the story is the real miracle, and which is the doing of extraordinary people." Click here to read Gordis’ column.
No Right to Exhaustion: Shalem Senior Vice President Daniel Gordis Takes On Forward Columnist
In a passionate response to a column in the Forward by Jay Michaelson, “How I’m Losing My Love for Israel,” Shalem Center Senior Vice President and senior fellow Daniel Gordis writes: “The real question, I think, is not whether we’re exhausted, but rather what we do with our exhaustion… I can’t imagine leaving this place, and angry as I sometimes get, I could never write about losing my love for what we’re building here. Because I know that this is our last chance, and I know without a shred of doubt that the robust Jewish life that exists everywhere – in Manhattan as well as in Los Angeles, in London no less than in Johannesburg – exists because of Israel.” Both pieces have generated considerable discussion, and you can read them in full here:
A New College in Jerusalem Imports a Liberal Arts Education for Palestinians
The October 9 issue of the Forward goes back to school with 42 new Palestinian liberal arts students as they begin the semester at the new Honors College for Liberal Arts and Sciences. The college is a joint project of Bard College, a New York liberal arts institution, with Al Quds University in East Jerusalem and is designed to offer the region’s first four-year, American-Palestinian dual-degree undergraduate program. According to the article, “Apart from encouraging open inquiry and cross-disciplinary learning, the founders of the new college hold out hope that the liberal arts can equip Palestinians to help build a future independent state. Click here to read the article in full:
Ada Yonath’s Nobel Prize Evidence of Israel’s World Class “Contribution to Scientific Knowledge”
Dr. Ada Yonath, a scientist at Israel’s Weizmann Institute, was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry earlier this month, only the fourth woman in history to secure the prize. She joined two Americans in winning the prize for mapping ribosomes, the mechanisms that manufacture proteins within cells. The work has helped medical researchers tailor antibiotics for diseases. Relative to the size of its labor force, Israel has a significantly large number of scientists and scholars who have published in the natural sciences, engineering, agriculture and medicine as compared to other countries. In a comprehensive study of the global marketplace published in 2006 by the National Science Board of the U.S. National Science Foundation, Israel “ranked first in national orientation based on strong governmental and cultural support promoting technology production, and first in socioeconomic infrastructure because of its large number of trained scientists and engineers, its highly regarded industrial research enterprise, and its contribution to scientific knowledge.” Click here to read portions of the study:
Ben-Gurion U. Lecturer Calls for Boycott of Israel, Sparks Debate on Academic Freedom
Neve Gordon, head of the political science department at Ben-Gurion University, unleashed a firestorm in Israeli academia when he penned an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times on August 20th declaring Israel an apartheid state, and calling on the world to boycott it in order to “save [it] from itself.” Some Israeli academics leapt to his defense, citing academic freedom, while others, including Ben-Gurion University President Rivka Carmi, called Gordon’s views irresponsible and an abuse of the freedom of speech prevailing in Israeli universities: “really demagoguery cloaked in academic theory.” American Jews also joined the fray, with Israel’s Consul-General in Los Angeles, Yaakov Dayan, explaining in an article in Haaretz that since Gordon’s article was published, he had received calls from benefactors of Ben-Gurion threatening to withhold donations. Dayan went on to write that he believed that “the definitive answer to anti-Zionist lectures like Gordon is to set up a center for Zionist studies, which unfortunately does not exist in Israeli academia”—a sentiment powerfully articulated in a September 2nd Jerusalem Post article by Shalem senior vice president Daniel Gordis, which argues that “Gordon is correct—Israel needs to be saved from itself. What Israel needs now is a reconceived notion of the educated Israeli. It needs a liberal arts college, and the young people prepared to speak constructively about Jewish sovereignty, its challenges, its failures, and its future that only that kind of college can produce.” For the full text of Gordon’s op-ed, click here. For Carmi’s response, and the Haaretz article about the reaction of American Jews, click here and here. For the full text of Gordis’s article on the situation in Israeli academia, click here.
History Matriculation Exam “Degrades, Abuses” Subject, Warn Israeli History Profs
Three leading Israeli history professors wrote an open letter this July criticizing the fact that the Israeli history matriculation exam’s questions have changed little in the past three decades, and test “neither skill nor thought, values nor appraisals,” limiting themselves instead to answers that require memorization. Insisting that history is taught “not only to ‘transmit the material’ but to develop historical thinking and research skills, and to draw personal moral implications,” the three scholars urged Israel’s Ministry of Education to make the exam more interesting and relevant, and to challenge students to display real understanding and analysis. For the full text of the article, click here.
Bible Studies Doesn’t Have to Be Boring, Argues Popular Israeli Author
Yochi Brandes, author of six novels and a noted scholar of Jewish studies, opined in a June feature article in Haaretz that although Bible is generally considered one of the most boring subjects taught in Israeli high schools, exceptional schools and their teachers prove that it can be done differently. Lamenting that even students who choose to focus on Bible as an elective fail consistently to see it as a source of Jewish identity and culture, Brandes urged teachers of Bible to view the literal explanation of biblical passages as points of departure for discussion, and to focus on the ideas contained in the text. Otherwise, she warned, Israel will lose its most important cultural asset. For the full text of Brandes’s article, click here.
Hebrew U. President Calls on Israeli Academics to Move Out of Ivory Tower
Menachem Ben-Sasson, who was recently chosen as the President of Hebrew University, wrote in an August op-ed in Haaretz, “What Academia Owes the Public,” that institutions of higher learning in Israel must improve their relationship with the public if they want to survive. “We enjoy the public’s taxes and we have to give them our knowledge in return,” he explained. “Many of us avoid public forums because we believe our medium must be scientific journals. But that is not true…. Every scientist must be able to explain why Israeli society will lose out if he stops studying his field of expertise.” For the full text of the article, click here.
Attacking the Academic Left “Endangers Israeli Democracy and Society”
Ben-Gurion University Politics and Government professor David Newman represented Israeli universities in the UK in the face of a proposed academic boycott of Israel during 2006-2008. In an opinion piece published in The Jerusalem Post in April, he argues that ongoing criticism of the academic left has become a form of “McCarthyism” that “threatens the very basis of freedom of speech. The self-styled patriots,” he argues, “are causing enormous damage to the country and should be prevented from assuming the cloak of self-appointed defenders of the common good, which they are clearly not.” Click here to read his piece in full:
“Regulate and Restructure Higher Learning,” Advises Columbia University Dept. Chair in New York Times
Columbia University Dept. Chair and professor of religion, Mark C.Taylor offers six steps by which academics can more usefully contribute to the “most important issues we face.” In an opinion piece published in the New York Times in April, he argues that when “disciplines are cloistered from one another” no adequate understanding can be reached on zones of inquiry such as “Mind, Body, Law, Information, Networks, Language, Space, Time, Media. Money, Life and Water.” Accusing academics of “complacency” he proposes a vast interdisciplinary approach which would bring new “theoretical insights” along with “unexpected practical solutions.” Click here to read his proposals:
Israel Prize Laureate Anita Shapira Takes on Bestselling Book that Casts Doubt on Jewish Peoplehood
Anita Shapira, head of the Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism at Tel Aviv University, has sharply criticized fellow TAU historian Shlomo Sand’s (History) bestselling book, When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? “Sand bases his arguments on the most esoteric and controversial interpretations” she writes, “while seeking to undermine the credibility of important scholars by dismissing their conclusions without bringing any evidence to bear…Sand would like to promote a new Israeli agenda, striving for harmony between Jews and Arabs, to be based on the remodeling of Jewish identity…but reconciliation between peoples makes necessary a mutual recognition of truth, not an artificial analysis that presents a fabricated front…What Sand is offering is this kind of artificial analysis.” The book was on best-seller lists in Israel for 19 weeks and quickly went to 3 editions when published in French. In France it received the "Aujourd'hui Award", a journalists' prize for a top non-fiction political or historical work. Click here to read Shapira’s essay “The Jewish-people deniers” in the March 2009 issue of the Journal of Israeli History:
NY Review of Books, “Rising Hope and Declining Opportunity” for Higher Education in America
In a review of four different books covering contemporary issues in higher learning, author and Columbia professor Andrew Delbanco offers a dire prediction regarding the nurturing of an educated citizenry in the future. Named in 2003 as New York State Scholar of the Year by the New York Council for the Humanities, Delbanco asserts that while big endowments at Ivy League schools may have been hard hit, minor schools are suffering most in the wake of the financial collapse in America. He discusses differing financial models and proposed solutions but argues that the situation now “is an affront to America’s claim to be a nation of equal opportunity.” Instead, he writes, “a great many gifted and motivated young people are excluded from college for no other reason than their inability to pay, and we have seriously failed to confront the problem.” Click here to read the article:
Johns Hopkins University Raises Near-Record $3.7 Billion
According to reports in the Washington Post and elsewhere, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland has succeeded in raising more than $3.7 billion for its capital campaign. More than 250,000 donors, most from out of state, helped the University raise the second largest sum in the history of American universities. Over 8 years, Hopkins received more than 700,000 gifts from its donors, averaging more than $5,000 each. The funds have generated 92 professorships and 550 new scholarships and fellowships. Click here to read the Washington Post report:
New American Liberal Arts Honors College for Palestinian Students
The NY Times reports on the establishment of the first liberal arts program for Palestinian Arab students. The new program will be conducted jointly by Al-Quds University, considered the pre-eminent Palestinian institute of higher learning, and Bard College, a prominent liberal arts college in New York State. Financier George Soros plans to offer significant funding towards the college. Bard President Leon Botstein notes that “The liberal arts tradition does have a real connection to democratic politics. Adams and Jefferson believed that education is crucial to the development of a functioning democracy… That’s why we’re very proud of what we’re doing.” Click here to read the story:
Ha’aretz: Universities Failing to Train Leadership, Liberal Arts Colleges Needed
Writing in Ha’aretz, director of the PresenTense Group Ariel Beery ponders the lack of fresh leadership on the Israeli political horizon, a void which he argues “has weakened Israel in the past decades and will worsen as time passes and faith in the political establishment diminishes.” A key reason for this, according to Beery, is Israel’s university system, based on the German model which encourages early specialization. Future Israeli leadership depends on “the blossoming of many small colleges that would offer multidisciplinary curricula.” Click here to read the article:
Several American Universities Suspend Study Abroad Programs in Israel
Major American universities including the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers and Duke University have chosen to suspend their study abroad programs in Israel in the wake of the Gaza operation launched in late December 2008. At Penn, the decision to suspend the programs came in response to a U.S State Department warning issued on January 6, 2009 calling for American citizens in Israel to "to maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness." Rutgers University followed suit several days later, advising its students to defer their travel to Israel. Duke University has also suspended its six-week 'Duke in Israel' program that included opportunities for students to assist disadvantaged communities in Israel. Many other universities, including Cornell, are continuing with their programs: "Obviously, if we felt our students were in particular danger in any country, we could withdraw them" said Richard Gaulton, director of Cornell Abroad. Click here to read the article:
Ruth Gavison Speaks Out on Israel’s Future
A wide-ranging interview recently appeared in Ha’aretz with Ruth Gavison, who heads the Metzilah Center for Zionist, Jewish, Liberal and Humanistic thought, and is a member of the Public Council of Shalem College (currently in formation). In the interview, Gavison speaks about Zionism and Israel’s future, telling Ha’aretz: “I think I speak for the large majority of the Israeli public that wants to maintain this country as a state that is both Jewish and democratic... I'll fight any attempt to label me and my message…. I reflect the backbone of the people in Israel." Gavison is also a Professor of Law at Hebrew University. Click here to read the interview:
Times of London: Israel Acts Because World Won’t Defend It
Writing in the Times of London, Daniel Finkelstein argues for the controversial thesis that the historical essence of Zionism is the need to stand firm, when necessary, even against world opinion. Recalling the experience of his mother and aunt in 1944 at the Belsen concentration camp, where they were sent together with Anne and Margot Frank, he writes: “The origin of the state of Israel is not religion or nationalism… [but rather] the bitter conclusion that world opinion could not be relied upon to protect the Jews.” Lamenting the plight of the Palestinians, he promises Israel “will lay down its arms when the Jews are safe, but it will not do it until they are.” Click here to read the article:
Weizmann Institute, Hebrew University Ranked Top in List of Best Places for Scientists to Work in Academia
The Scientist magazine has ranked the Weitzmann Institute and the Hebrew University first and second respectively in its annual Best Places to Work in Academia survey. The ranking, which covers life sciences at institutions outside the United States, is based on a survey the magazine carried out among more than 2,300 life scientists from academic institutions around the world. Among the 41 criteria, participants of the ranking were asked to rank institutions according to the overall job satisfaction of the scientists there, the condition of the facilities, and the availability of resources for research. Hebrew University President Menachem Magidor said he is proud that two Israeli research institutions were ranked at the top of a list of best academic work places outsides the United States. "The Hebrew University is a leading research institution in Israel and the world, and its researchers benefit from mutual inspiration, through a spirit of creative thought and research excellence." Click here to read news of the announcement at MarketWatch:
What’s Liberal? And Why Arts?
Robert A. Weisbuch, president of Drew University, a distinguished scholar of American literature and former president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, has authored several Articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education addressing the crises in the humanities and liberal arts. In 'What's Liberal and Why Arts?', published August 24, 2007, he argues the benefits of “using learning to meet social urgencies” and concludes that “the notion of reaching beyond the self is the liberal arts.” Redefining the university by that “messy but potentially muscular idea” he writes further on the purpose of higher education,” If we had a name for the liberal arts that engaged students and grant makers rather than baffled or vaguely repelled them, it would be of benefit… From now on, how about we just call it college." Click here to read the article:
Israeli Students’ Math and Science Skills Slide Down International League Tables
In what the Jerusalem Post called "yet another indication of the country's troubled education system" and Ynet referred to as a showcase of "mediocrity", Israeli students ranked lower than their peers in Western countries in math and science. The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) exams were taken by 4,300 Israeli students aged between 9 and 13. Israel placed 24th out of 49 nations in math, coming in behind Malaysia, Norway, Cyprus, and Bulgaria. In science, Israel was in 25th place. Click here to read the article:
Two Peoples, Two Narratives – New Book Studies Interface Between Memory and Politics in Middle East
In an insightful and wide ranging account, Jacob Lassner, a Professor of Jewish civilization at Northwestern University and S. Ilan Troen, a Professor of Israel Studies at Brandeis University and Director of the newly established Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, describe the differing narratives of Jewish and Arab history and their role in the Middle East Conflict. In Jews and Muslims in the Arab World: Haunted By Pasts Real and Imagined, Lassner and Troen observe that “no other conflict has been scrutinized so closely…yet this surfeit of attention has not led to a profound understanding of the issues." The book focuses on the historical narrative of Jewish and Arab attachment to the Land of Israel and describes anti-Israel comparisons of Israel to Apartheid or colonialism as making "for a concoction that tastes flat to a cultivated historical palate." Hebrew University Professor Shlomo Avineri describes Jews and Muslims in the Arab World as "a fascinating study of the interface between memory and politics." Click here to read further reviews of the book:
Hebrew University Ranked Among World’s Best Universities
The widely respected Top-200 University rankings published by The Times Higher Education places two Israeli Universities in the world’s top 200. Hebrew University of Jerusalem ranked in 93rd place in the world, while the Haifa’s Technion finished 109th. In the humanities, the Hebrew University’s ranking rose to 41st place and Tel Aviv University finished in 80th place. As in recent years, Harvard, Yale and Cambridge led the list, which is based on rankings by experts, citations in scholarly journals, and faculty surveys. Click here for full rankings:
$14 Million Establishes Jewish Studies Programs at UCLA, City College of New York.
According to reports by the JTA, Michael "Mickey" Ross, a former producer and television writer, in recent months has given some $14 million to create Jewish studies programs at UCLA and the City College of New York. His donation will establish the Michael and Irene Ross Center for Jewish Studies at City College and endow a chair in Yiddish language and literature at UCLA. As reported, Ross intends to “leave more than 90 percent of his assets to Jewish charities.” Click here to read the report:
The Economist: Book supporting Jewish State by IDC, Hebrew U Profs ‘Deserves to be Widely Heard’
The renowned professor of constitutional law Amnon Rubinstein of IDC Herzliya, together with Hebrew University professor of history Alexander Yakobson, have published a new book defending Israel character as the state of the Jewish people. According to a review in the Jerusalem Post, Israel and the Family of Nations: The Jewish Nation-State and Human Rights (Routledge 2008) “is not a traditional pro-Israel polemic… but seeks to point out that, in its basic definition and goals, Israel is well within the norms of democratic practice." An extensive review in The Economist notes that “it is an important book, whose ideas deserve to be widely heard.” Click here to read the review:
Israeli Best Seller by Tel Aviv U Historian: Jewish History Invented to Expropriate Lands
When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? (Resling, 2008, Hebrew) is the title of a national best seller by Tel Aviv University historian Dr. Shlomo Sand. The book, which has been translated into French and is set to be translated into a dozen more languages, argues that “there never was a Jewish people, only a Jewish religion, and the exile also never happened – hence there was no return.” The success of the book, which has spent more than nineteen weeks on bestseller lists in Israel, has received substantial coverage in the Arabic press in the Middle East. Click here to read the Ha’aretz review:
The Collapse of the Humanities
Joshua Schwartz, Director of the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies at Bar-Ilan University and former Dean of the Faculty of Jewish Studies at Bar-Ilan, has published an essay on the state of the humanities in Israel in the Israel Teachers' Union Journal 34. The essay, published on completion of his term as Dean of the Faculty, appears here in English for the first time. In it he warns that “today there is a real threat to the mere continuance of the humanities in the universities,” a situation which will lead to “ignorance, mediocrity and intolerance in every field.” Schwartz lays out a specific plan for reform and appeals for a new approach. Click here to read the article:
Yeshiva University Sets One-Year Record of $104 million Raised
Yeshiva University’s President Richard Joel has led the school in a campaign that has seen the school raise a record $104 million over the last year, including 30 gifts of $1 million or more. 56 full-time faculty positions have been added since Joel's arrival in 2003, while the recent gifts have enabled major renovations and new buildings, such as a glass-walled, 120-seat study hall constructed last year and an additional two-story, 470-seat study hall slated for construction next year. Click here to read more about YU’s campaign:
Washington Times: Israelis Bring ‘Anti-Israel Propaganda’ to US Mideast Studies Programs
Asaf Romirowsky, writing in the Washington Times, examines Israeli academics hired recently by American Middle East Studies Programs in what he calls an “attempt to appear balanced in the face of charges of anti-Israel biases.” Romirowsky argues that the new hires have been drawn from ranks of scholars “critical not only of Israeli policy, but of Israel's very existence.” The result, he argues, is “an ahistorical, one-sided interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict… [which] eliminates debate while providing the illusion of balance.” Click here to read the Washington Times story:
Israeli Academics Call for Palestinian Right of Return
According to reports in Israeli newspapers Ma'ariv and Makor Rishon, several prominent Israeli academics participated in a recent Tel Aviv conference organized by the Israeli group Zochrot which calls for the mass return to Israel of Palestinian refugees from 1948. Participants included Dr. Ariella Azoulay of Bar Ilan University’s Program in Visual Culture and Critical Theory, who appealed to Palestinians: “What kind of life will it be if we are sentenced to lie to our children about our memories of your expulsion or, alternatively, to tell them about it and make them hate the society that lies to them. Return. Return to live with us again. We need you!” Also participating was Dr. Uri Gordon of Israel’s Arava Institute for Environment Studies. Click here to read coverage on Zochrot’s website:
Crisis in Higher Education: Tel Aviv U Humanities Faculty to Consider Canceling Philosophy Dept. Enrollment
On July 7 Israeli daily Yediot Ahranot reported on “another expression of the deep crisis of Israel’s higher education system” when the faculty of the Humanities at Tel Aviv University announced that, due to budget constraints, it will consider canceling registration for its Philosophy program in the coming academic year. Subsequently on July 13, an appeal circulated by Israel’s supervisory Council for Higher Education to university lecturers warns of a Treasury plan to justify cuts through “personal and general slanders and accusations of lack of transparency” and encourages academics to write about “the distress of the system caused by lack of funds... on the brain drain and its effects, on the lack of books in libraries.” Click here to read more about Israel’s crisis in higher education:
$4.5 Million Tikvah Fund Grant Strengthens Study of Jewish Thought at Princeton University
A $4.5 million grant to Princeton University from the Tikvah Fund will help to strengthen undergraduate interest in Jewish thought and bring Jewish history and ideas into dialogue with other historical, philosophical and theological traditions. "We are very grateful to the Tikvah Fund for their generous support," said Professor of Religion, Leora Batnitzky, the project's director, in a news release issued by the University. "We believe the Jewish tradition has an important contribution to make to the humanities as a whole." The Tikvah Fund, based in New York City, is a foundation devoted to promoting Jewish ideas and culture, and has been instrumental in generously supporting the work of the Shalem Center. Click here to read Princeton University’s news release:
Billion Dollar Campaign Sign of Success at Brandeis
Following the launch of a campaign begun in 2003, trustees at Brandeis University near Boston have voted to boost their total fundraising goal to $1.2 billion within the next five year. Major gifts include a $22.5 million gift in 2007 from the Mandel Foundation which established the Mandel Center for the Humanities, “based on a belief that society must support the liberal arts tradition… for education to be truly complete it must be broadly constructed on a solid humanities foundation.” Click here to read more:
Shalem Senior VP Gordis on the Future of Zionism: ‘Getting Beyond Argumentation’
In a recent Jerusalem Post column, Shalem Senior Vice President Daniel Gordis recorded some reflections inspired by The Zionist Idea, a volume of essays edited by Arthur Herzberg. “The first phase of Zionism was one of those periods in which the Jews did well what they’ve long done best; they engaged in the honing and exchange of ideas,” he writes. “How is it possible that 60 years after its creation, Israel still does not have its first liberal arts college? … The people of the book has created a state that robs its young people of the opportunity to think.” Click here to read the article:
Philanthropy Magazine: “Private Philanthropy Sharpening the Public’s Knowledge of the Middle East”
A feature article in the magazine Philanthropy examines Middle Eastern Studies programs at American Universities. “Clash of Cultures” argues that many of these programs have come to be dominated by ideologues and are no longer in a position “to build expertise in a region, so that government officials could draw on academic specialists.” One solution, suggests the article, can be found in supporting alternative programs that provide a more balanced view, noting specifically that “Another example of private philanthropy sharpening the public’s knowledge of the Middle East and its challenges is the work of Michael Oren at the Shalem Center.” Click here to read the article:
Haifa University Politics Chairman to Distribute Booklet Describing Israeli Independence as ‘Nakba’ (“Catastrophe”)
20,000 booklets on the “Nakba” (the Arabic term for “the catastrophe,” as Palestinians describe Israel’s War of Independence) will be distributed outside Arab schools around Israel by Dr. Asad Ghanem, the chairman of the Government and Political Philosophy Division at the School of Political Science, University of Haifa. Ghanem initiated the project "to reaffirm Palestinian consciousness [among Israeli Arabs], and maintain and reinforce it among future generations." Ghanem is Click here to read the Ha’aretz report:
TAU Economist: Israel’s Economics Departments Suffering “Implosion”
A report by Dr. Dan Ben-David, a Tel Aviv University economist and Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London, examines the precipitous decline of Israeli economics departments in recent years. According to Ben-David’s findings, since 2000 top young Israeli economists have been leaving the country at an alarming rate, with three recent graduates leaving for every one remaining. This is caused, the report argues, by markedly lower salaries in Israel compared with the US, and by a system of academic promotion which does not reward talent. “Without qualified economists to advise the public sector, the economic reforms of recent years could well be undone," Shalem Senior Fellow and economist Omer Moav told E-News.
Click here to read the report:
Peres, Murdoch Establish Task Force to Found Elite High School
Israeli President Shimon Peres and media leader and entrepeneur Rupert Murdoch have joined those working to improve Israeli education and train its next generation of leaders. The two have established a task force which is also set to include Leslie Wexner, chairman of the Limited Brands Corporation, and New York Daily News publisher Mortimer Zuckerman. Their goal is an elite Israeli high school which would “be a model for raising the level of Israeli education.” Click here to read the Jerusalem Post article:
Liberal Education, Then and Now
Noted public intellectual Peter Berkowitz argues in “Liberal Education, Then and Now” that although the present state of the universities is alarming, it is not beyond repair. Presenting the educational theories of John Stuart Mill, he argues that “reforming the university is as urgent as the obstacles to it are formidable. Citizens today confront a mind-boggling array of hard questions… No citizen can be expected to master all the issues. But liberal democracies count on more than a small minority’s acquiring the ability to reason responsibly about the many sides of these many-sided questions.” Click here to read the article:
Jewish Studies Now Reach More Israelis
An increasing number of programs for adults offer instruction in traditional Jewish sources to non-traditional Israelis, according to noted columnist Evelyn Gordon, writing in the Jerusalem Post. Gordon argues that familiarity with Jewish sources could form the basis of a “common language,” able to bridge religious and social divides and drive “joint social action.” She warns that “if the Jewish state is culturally indistinguishable from any other Western state its citizens are liable to question whether the sacrifices necessary to maintain it are worthwhile.” Click here to read the article:
Israeli Business Leader Recanati at JFN Meeting:
Not Enough Jewish Funding Going to Jewish and Israel Causes
Oudi Recanati, an Israeli businessman and noted philanthropist, believes that American Jews “are not as attached to their Jewish identity as they could be.” Recanati, who has donated to Interdisciplinary Center of Herzliya and Beilinson Hospital, and served as the former president of the Maccabi World Union, thinks Jewish philanthropy is crucial to the Jewish future. "I joined Jewish Funders Network when I discovered that major Jewish donors in the United States give maybe $10-12 billion each year. Only about 6 percent of that goes to Jewish activities or Israel. That scared me. When I saw that I said, 'we're moving away from Judaism and Israel.'” Click here to read the Jerusalem Post Article:
Economist Special Report: Overhaul Israel’s Electoral System
Amotz Asa-El’s Azure essay, ‘Israel’s Electoral Complex’ (Winter 2008) is the centerpiece of a wide ranging special report in The Economist marking Israel’s sixtieth birthday. Under the heading ‘A Systematic Problem’ the Economist quotes Asa-El extensively, and argues that Israel’s electoral system is in need of a vast overhaul. “The best 60th birthday present Israel could give itself is a new political system” asserts the editorial that accompanies the report. Since its debut in 1996, Azure, the Shalem Center’s widely read quarterly journal of philosophy and public affairs brings together a wide range of writers on Judaism, Zionism, philosophy and public policy in both English and Hebrew editions. Click here to readThe Economist report:
Hebrew University Psychology Prof: Moses’ Encounters With God May Have Been Drug-Induced
Benny Shanon, a Professor of Cognitive Psychology at the Hebrew University and former head of its Psychology Department, recently published a study in Time and Mind arguing for the prevalent use of psychedelic drugs in ancient Israelite culture. Drawing on parallels to his personal experiences with psychedelic substances, Shanon concludes, “Remarkably, several key episodes in the life of Moses exhibit features that are prominent symptoms of the Ayahuasca [psychedelic] experience. These episodes include Moses’ first encounter with the Divine and the Theophany at Mt. Sinai.” Click here to read “Biblical Entheogens: a Speculative Hypothesis”:
Kramer Versus Kramer: The New Yorker, Nadia El-Haj and ‘Facts on the Ground’
Barnard College anthropologist Nadia Abu El-Haj’s 2001 book, “Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society” argues that archaeology in Israel “created the fact of an ancient Israelite/Jewish nation and nation-state rooted therein,” and “fabricated both history and historicity.” El-Haj writes in the book’s conclusion that “one can understand why it was that ‘thousands of Palestinians stormed the site’ of Joseph’s Tomb… looting it and setting it alight… It needs to be understood in relation to a colonial-national history.” Public protest at El-Haj’s work and tenure bid was the subject of a recent article in the New Yorker by Jane Kramer. Kramer argues that El-Haj, possessed of an “original and scrupulous mind” and not “known ever to have brought politics into the classroom” has galvanized the Jewish population “into a kind of collective panic,” creating an atmosphere that makes vulnerable “every scholar who had ever dealt with Israel.” Click here to read Senior Fellow at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies Martin Kramer’s (no relation) response to Jane Kramer’s piece:
Israel’s Academic Exodus ‘Unparalleled’
Professor Ben-David of Tel Aviv’s University’s Center for Economic Policy Research has published a report entitled “Brain Drained.” According to the report, close to 25% of all Israeli academics were working in the US in 2003-2004, the highest per capita of any nation. Canada, the next on the list, had just 12%. Ben-David blames an insufficient number of academics posts, low salaries and government regulation for a problem which “is at a magnitude beyond anything [elsewhere] in the developed world.” Click here to read the full report:
Jewish Telegraphic Association: Jews Flee Paris suburbs and Establish Jewish “Ghettos”
Increasing numbers of Jews are fleeing anti-Semitic conditions in the Paris suburbs, and in some cases communities have been halved in just three years, according to a recent JTA article. University of Paris sociologist Shmuel Trigano explains, “All of France is experiencing the problem. It is a general shift, not a passing crisis. The Jewish community is becoming a ghetto. It is no longer a community of choice but a community of necessity. In a democracy that shouldn't happen.” Click here to read the full article.
Tel Aviv University Historian Sand: The Jewish People ‘A National Mythology’
In a recently published book, When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? (Resling Press [Hebrew]) History Professor Shlomo Sand of Tel Aviv University argues that the Jewish people never existed as a “nation-race” with a common origin, but rather was invented by Zionists under the influence of 19th century German ideas. Sand, who specializes in modern France, told Ha’aretz, “I am not afraid of the undermining of our existence, because I think the character of the State of Israel undermines it in a much more serious way.” Click here to read Sand’s full interview in Ha’aretz.
As Philosophy Gains in Popularity With Students, Israeli Philosophy Programs Lag Behind
According to a study compiled in 2008, Israel had no graduate philosophy department ranking among the world’s top philosophy programs. The independent “Philosophy Lists” website ranks the Hebrew University as Israel’s top philosophy school, but places it only in 73nd place worldwide, while Israel’s second-place program at Haifa University finished 104th worldwide. Meanwhile, a major New York Times article, “In a New Generation of College Students, Many Opt for the Life Examined” reports that enrollments in philosophy programs are ballooning and students are showing renewed interest in the discipline. Click here to read the NY Times article.
LA Jewish Journal Feature Article on Shalem College
As part of a series of Articles on Israel at 60, the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles has published a lengthy feature on Shalem’s initiative to launch Israel’s first liberal arts college. The article relates that “the college is planned as an American-style, four-year liberal arts school, an educational model that doesn't exist in Israel. Israelis usually enter a three-year college or university program in their early-to-mid-20s, right after army service, choosing their majors straightaway. Most students view their college years as vocational training and commute to school.” Shalem Senior Vice President Daniel Gordis explains, “We want to change the experience of what being an undergraduate student is about." Click here to read “Coming Soon – A Jewish Liberal Arts College”:
Foreign Affairs: The Enduring Power of Nationalism in World Politics
A far-reaching article appearing in the March-April Issue of Foreign Affairs re-examines a number of commonly held assumptions about nationalism. Jerry Muller, Professor of History at the Catholic University of America argues in “Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism” that nationalism “corresponds to some enduring propensities of the human spirit… and in one form or another it will drive global politics for generations to come.” Casting doubt on the notion that it is an invention of 19th century Europe and essentially an obstacle to world peace, Muller assembles evidence that “liberal democracy and ethnic homogeneity are not only compatible; they can be complimentary.” Click here to read “Us and Them”:
Harvard President Rudenstine: "Troubled state of Higher Education" in Israel
Former Harvard University President Neil Rudenstine recently spoke to the Jerusalem Post about strategies for improving “the troubled state of higher education” in Israel and around the world. Arguing that private philanthropy will play a key role, Rudenstine asked, "Where do the great ideas come from that guide our morals and principles? Where do the ideas come from that help us to consider the ways to organize our societies [if not from the humanities and social sciences]? How will we solve all kinds of ethnic, religious, national and gender conflicts? The answers will not come from the sciences." To read the article click here:
Head of Tel Aviv U. Philosophy Dept.: Israel is a “Proto-Fascist in Many Ways”
Professor Anat Biletzki, Chair of the Philosophy Department at Tel Aviv University spoke at MIT on “Human Rights and Politics in Israel-Palestine” in October 2007. Biletzki was critical of the idea of a Jewish state, which she distinguished from a “Jewish homeland.” As she explained: “Israel is not a democracy either within or without the Green Line [i.e., West Bank],” and is “proto-fascist in many ways,” though it should not be compared to Nazi Germany for “pragmatical-rhetorical considerations.” Biletzki continues: “We cop out by talking about 1967 and the ‘occupation,’ because then we don’t have to talk about what has been called ‘Israel’s right to exist’.” Click here to watch Biletzki’s MIT lecture:
Amnon Rubinstein: Israeli Academics Seized by "Frenzy of Hatred."
IDC Herzliya Dean and noted public figure Amnon Rubinstein has authored an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post describing his experience teaching at Columbia University during Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s visit to the institution. Rubinstein recounts his surprise at the indifference of Israeli students, adding “later, I encountered other Israeli academicians at Columbia who added more fuel to the fire of hatred against Israel.” The situation in Israel, argues Rubenstein, is sometimes no better, with students in the grip of "anti-Israeli squadrons in the Israeli academia." Click here to read the article:
Ha'aretz: Writing Skills Continue to Decline Among Israeli Students
Concern over Israeli students' poor level of written expression has been growing in recent years. An article recently published in Ha'aretz cites a number of educators regarding the severity of a problem that they argue manifests itself in shoddy writing by even top university students and a reduced expressive range. In spite of this, university programs designed to ensure basic writing skills have faced cuts or elimination over the past few years. Click here to read the article.
Prize Winning Sociology Thesis at Hebrew U.:
Lack of Rape Among Israeli Soldiers Achieves the Same Aims as Rape
A Hebrew University Sociology department M.A. thesis entitled "Controlled Occupation: The Lack of Military Rape in the Israeli Palestinian Conflict" notes that the relative absence of instances of rape by Israeli soldiers is an alternate method of achieving the same kind of degradation of Palestinian Arabs that would be achieved through a directed policy of raping Arab women. The abstract of the paper, authored by doctoral candidate Tal Nitzan, notes that "the absence of directed military rape constitutes an alternative way of realizing the same political goals [usually achieved by directed military rape]. In the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, we can see that the rarity of military rape only strengthens the ethnic boundaries and clarifies inter-ethnic differences, just as directed military rape would have done." The thesis, selected for publication by the university's Shaine Center for Research in Social Sciences, was supervised by Hebrew University sociologist Eyal Ben–Ari and a senior lecturer in education, Edna Lomsky-Feder. To read the story click here.
ICJR Study: 95% of Major Jewish Gifts Go to Non-Jewish Organizations
According to a new study released by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research (IJCR), between 2001 and 2003 Jewish individuals and foundations in the United States gave 95% of their dollars from gifts of $10 million or more to general causes and only 5% to Jewish causes. "While Jewish organizations do a reasonable job attracting smaller mega-gifts, they are failing dramatically to attract the biggest gifts that Jews make to non-profits," according to Gary A. Tobin, president of IJCR. To read IJCR's report click here.
Sharansky: A Wedding in Moscow, A Wedding in Jerusalem
Adelson Institute Chairman and Distinguished Fellow Natan Sharansky comparing his own wedding in Soviet Russia to that of his daughter in sovereign Jerusalem at his daughter's wedding in Kibbutz Ramat Rachel last month. Sharansky reflected on the challenges facing this generation, and those which faced his own. His moving remarks were reprinted in their entirety in the Jerusalem Post. Click here to read "We are in Jerusalem."
Journal Catharsis: Strikes are “Not the Issue” as Higher Education Crisis in Israel Deepens
All of Israel’s universities have been closed for almost an entire semester due to a nation-wide strike of professors and senior lecturers. A recent editorial from the Israeli journal of the humanities, Catharsis, argues that the real problem in Israeli higher education is much deeper than issues addressed by striking faculty. The article argues that beyond matters of finance, the Israeli system suffers from a deep erosion in the quality of instruction. Click here to read about higher education in Israel:
Haaretz Editor-in-Chief Tells Condoleezza Rice Israel “Needs to Be Raped” by the U.S.
At a recent dinner held at the residence of Richard Jones, America’s ambassador to Israel, David Landau, editor-in-chief of the influential Ha’aretz daily, was quoted as telling the American Secretary of State that Israel “needs to be raped” by the U.S. in order for a final settlement to be imposed. Landau later confirmed his comments, adding that he had no regrets, and mentioning that he was congratulated by several Israeli professors in the room at the time. To read the full article as it appeared in the Jewish Week, click here:
Palestinians Refuse to Recognize Israel as a Jewish State
A number of recent statements by Palestinian leaders and prominent figures cast doubt on their readiness to recognize Israel as a Jewish State. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Salaam Fayad, and Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat have each made statements expressing their rejection of the legitimacy of Israel's connection to the Jewish people. To learn more about the Palestinian position on the idea of a Jewish state click here:
What is a University For?
It is often argued that the study of humanities is in crisis. This has in turn led some to wonder if the humanities serve any purpose in modern and market-driven societies. An article by Peter Berkowitz in Policy Review renews the debate surrounding the purpose and aim of a liberal education. He tackles one of the most important recent books on the subject and in “What is a University For” argues that “the humanities destroyed themselves by abandoning secular humanism in favor of the research ideal, which for a century and a half now has been gaining ground,” yet still remain “capable of restoring our appreciation of the grandeur and the limits of the human.” Click here to read the article:
On Campus: Lecturer Refuses to Teach Army Reservist in Uniform
Freedom of expression at Israel's colleges and universities would only seem to go so far. When First Lieutenant (Res.) Eyal Cohen, a cinematography student at Sapir College in the Western Negev desert showed up to class still in uniform following a long army reserve service, his professor refused to teach him. Tensions at the College still remain high over the issue, and the professor is likely to face disciplinary charges, though a petition by some students supports him. Click here to read more:
Dissent: Anti-Israel Views on the Left Share Traits with Anti-Semitism
"No, anti-Zionism is not in principle anti-Semitism but it is time for thoughtful minds - especially on the left - to be disturbed by how much anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism share, how much the dominant species of anti-Zionism encourages anti-Semitism." Mitchell Cohen, Dissent magazine co-editor in a fascinating online piece that analyses the evolution of the "left" and the author's own commitment to its once stated ethos of democratic humanism and social egalitarianism. Click here to read more:
The Nation: Campaign Against Anti-Zionist Columbia Prof is "New McCarthyism"
Larry Cohler-Esses, Editor-at-Large for the Jewish Week, and contributor to The Nation, adds to the claim that an Israel lobby is choking debate about Israel in the United States. His piece about a Barnard professor's bid to secure tenure examines the role of a 'network of right-wing critics' who, he says, have assailed Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj's controversial book Facts on the Ground. Click here to read more:
Leading Israeli jurist Gavison: Not only Palestinians, but Jews also entitled to self-determination
While Israeli leaders are floating various bridging proposals regarding the Palestinian Arabs' "right of return," which designed to get the parties to the negotiating table, jurist Ruth Gavison argues in Ha'aretz that Israel cannot compromise on the key issue of Israel's standing as the state of the Jewish people: "Israel's red line is not merely preventing the refugees' return in actuality; rather, it is the fact that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people. This is so not only because that is indeed the situation in Israel, but because such a situation is legitimate and justified. The Jewish people, too, has a right to self-determination in part of its historic homeland. Not only the Palestinians." To read more, click here.
NYT book review: The "canon wars" may have been won, but the battle is still raging
In a recent essay in the New York Times book review, Rachel Donadio traces how the "canon wars"–once considered a conflict the multi-culturalists won–are still being fought: Some scholars are re-evaluating their hostility to the Western canon, while humanities departments are feeling the impact of undergraduates who choose majors based exclusively on career concerns. "Bloom believed education should be transformative," Donadio writes, "that it should remove students from the confines of their own backgrounds to engage with books that open up new realms of meaning." Whether today's universities do that remains an open question. To read more, click here.
Gordis: What treadmills, Darfur and re-imagined higher education have to do with Shalem College
In a moving essay, recently published, that touches on his personal commitment to the well-being of the Jewish state, Shalem Senior Vice President and Senior Fellow Daniel Gordis asks, "What if we could produce generations of university students who didn't succumb to cynicism? ... What if we could produce students who were profoundly prepared to be citizens of the Jewish State, of the Jewish people, and of the world, who could speak intelligently about nations and states, and political philosophy, and religion and morality, and who eventually rose to become Israel's political leadership, its great jurists, academics and social entrepreneurs?" To read more, click here.
Yale Law Prof: Higher education has stopped addressing life's big questions
The Humanities need to speak to the meaning of life from a perspective that is broader than either research or established religion, writes Anthony Kronman, Sterling Professor of Law at Yale University, in the Boston Globe. "Over the past century and a half, our top universities have embraced a research-driven ideal that has squeezed the question of life's meaning from the college curriculum," he writes, "limiting the range of questions teachers feel they have the right and authority to teach. The encouraging news is that there is, today, a growing hunger among students to explore these topics." To read more, click here.
Jewish Week: American Jews must confront fact that Israel may be "unraveling"
American Jews are devoted to Israel, but sometimes their commitment to the Jewish state blinds them to the real problems facing it, writes Gary Rosenblatt, editor and publisher of the New York Jewish Week: "The prospect of an Israeli society unraveling politically, morally and psychologically is too disturbing to contemplate. But the evidence is all around us, even as most would prefer either to look away or focus on the mix of myth and pride that is Israel's past. ... [American Jews'] confronting the problem is the first step toward solving it."
To read more, click here.
Philanthropy Magazine: Mideast, Jewish Studies use gifts contrary to donor intent
Can charitable giving help fight the war on terror? Can a bequest turn around and terrorize the giver? In a sweeping, comprehensive article in Philanthropy Magazine, journalist John J. Miller looks at how charitable giving to universities and other institutions of higher education can contribute to (or hinder) the war against terror. The article details ways in which many gifts can be used against the donor's original intent - particularly vis-a-vis Israel and Jewish studies programs on campus, and includes comments from Senior Fellow Martin Kramer and a section on Michael Oren's Power, Faith and Fantasy.
To read the full text, click here
Hebrew U. Prof. Ezrachi: Israeli universities fill public sphere with "technicians" and "fools"
Hebrew University Political Scientist Yaron Ezrachi writes in Ha'aretz that Israel's universities themselves aren't meeting their most basic obligation: Instead of producing educated citizens capable of leadership, they're creating "doctors who were never exposed to a lesson in ethics, but who daily use their authority to make fateful ethical decisions" and "economists never exposed to cultural studies, but who wield the budgetary ax with intolerable ease when it comes to cultural institutions such as orchestras, operas, museums, theaters and universities."
To read more, click here.
Columnist Tobin: Jewish state needs to break from existing academic culture
Though some elites continue to echo former Jewish Agency head Avraham Burg's much-discussed post-Zionist vision of the Israel in some cases, deciding to "just leave" if the century-old conflict isn't resolved soon enough columnist Jonathan Tobin argues in the Jerusalem Post that ordinary Israelis continue to show strength, optimism and determination in pushing the Jewish national project forward. Seriously challenging those who would give up the country necessitates the "training of a new generation of leaders steeped in Jewish and Zionist values that the critics of Israel's legitimacy have either forgotten or never learned."
To read more, click here.
Former Jewish Agency Head Avrum Burg: "I am Beyond Israeli"
After leading Israel and the Jewish people as chairman of the Jewish Agency and Speaker of the Knesset, Avrum Burg's recent and pointed condemnation of the Jewish state and Zionism provoked wide discussion in Israel. In a June 7 interview published in Ha'aretz, Burg compares Israel with Germany before the rise of the Nazis, denounces the Law of Return as an "apologetic law - the mirror image of Hitler," and calls the idea of a Jewish state "the key to its end." Once a rising star here - his father, Yosef Burg was the veteran head of the National Religious Party, he was a founder of Peace Now and a leader within the Labor Party. He rose through the ranks to hold two of the most important positions leading Israel and the Jewish people. Now, reports journalist Ari Shavit, he advises that every Israeli who can get a foreign passport should do so. Burg himself has taken French citizenship. To read the full text of his lengthy conversation with Shavit, click here.
Volumes of responses to Shavit's interview have emerged, critical and sympathetic, from top news editors and outraged Jews across the globe. Among these, Shalem lecturer Amotz Asa-El's Middle Israel: Avraham Burg's French concoction was published prominently in the Jerusalem Post on June 14. Despite his life-long attempts at fortitude, writes Asa-El, Burg has emerged not as a leader but rather as the lost child of Israel's founding - and now disappearing - nobility. Avrum was well-born, well-dressed, well-connected, and, according to Asa-El's analysis, should have held off the public pronouncements. To read the full text of Asa-El's article, click here.
Leading U.S. Jurist Richard Posner Critiques Former Israeli High Court President Aharon Barak
U.S. Appeals Court Judge and University of Chicago Law School lecturer, Richard Posner's April 23 review of Aharon Barak's The Judge in a Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2006) is an entertaining read. Highlighting countless examples of Barak's "aggressive" conception of judicial authority, Posner accuses Barak of having created a degree of judicial power undreamed of even by America's most venturous courts. To read the full text of Posner's review, click here.
An Israeli Defeat in Sderot?
Is the IDF in a military deadlock in Sderot? In one of the last Articles written before his death on June 19, prominent Israeli journalist Ze'ev Schiff certainly thinks so. Published in the June 8 issue of Ha'aretz, Schiff invokes the magnitude of Israel's loss during the 1948 War of Independence to illustrate its current "defeat" in Sderot. Normal life has been brought to a halt, writes Schiff, pointing to the government's failure to defend the bombarded city as an indication of its inability to lead the nation in a major military confrontation. To read the full article, click here.
Winograd Commission Calls for Long Term Look Into Israeli Soul
The just-released Winograd Commission's preliminary report into the Second Lebanon War sharply criticizes the political and military handling of last summer's conflict. Beyond the examination of failures in decision-making, however, the report urgently calls for an exploration of Israel's long-term aspirations and identity. In summarizing the report, the commission concludes with a set of questions whose answers are essential to Israel's continued existence as a Jewish and democratic state.
Click here to read the English summary of the report:
Professor Bernard Lewis - Muslim Migration Biggest Influence on Islam of Tomorrow
In a speech to the American Enterprise Institute in March 2007, Prof. Bernard Lewis identifies increased migration to Europe as a significant turning point for Muslim issues of identity. Tracing the millennial struggle between Islam and Christianity, he highlights issues of acceptance and assimilation as key to the future of Europe, and asks how the West might best approach its newest citizens. Parsing past trends and present realities to understand the possibilities and choices ahead, it's powerful reading:
Click here to read Lewis' analysis of Europe's current struggle:
Author, Scholar Gordis: To Restore Hope, Build a College
110 years after the First Zionist Congress, observes author and scholar Daniel Gordis, people are wondering openly if Zionism is failing. Bringing neither safe refuge nor normalcy to the Jewish people, many of Zionism's original promises are left unfulfilled. The question: how can hope be restored and the continuation of the Jewish people ensured? One fix he proposes: An elite institution of higher education to train a qualified core of Jewish leaders. Concludes Gordis, "If the system's broken, let's fix it."
Click here to read the complete text:
"I say that something bad is happening in academia here.
Something very bad."
Amnon Rubinstein, renowned Israeli thinker, law scholar and politician slams what he sees as the post Zionist takeover of Israeli academia in a recent Haaretz interview. Currently dean of the IDC in Herzliya, he called the current situation at Israeli universities damaging to academic freedom, as well as illegal.
Click here to read the full text of the interview
Bringing Down the Iran Curtain.
Shalem Center Distinguished Fellow Natan Sharansky recent call to arms regarding the growing hostility towards Israel from Iran has struck a nerve. His recent piece in the Jerusalem Post, "Mobilize Now, Save the World" has attracted global attention for its power and lucidity - "As in the case of the Soviet Jewry movement, we are not alone. We are surrounded by potential allies who may not themselves know they are ready to join us until we create a movement for them to join."
Read the complete text here
Thirty-six percent of Israelis would 'not mind at all' if one of their children were to marry a non-Jewish immigrant
According to a sample of 500 respondents polled by the Mutagim Institute on behalf of Gesher, an educational organization and Ynet, 57 percent of secular Israelis would have no problem with their son marrying a non-Jewish girl. Twenty-seven percent would try to persuade the bride to convert to Judaism and 16 percent would try to stop the wedding.
Click here for further data.
"Progressive" Jewish Thought and the New Antisemitism
Alvin Rosenfeld's recent essay for the American Jewish Committee continues to generate controversy. The professor of English and Jewish studies at Indiana University's argument that segments of the intellectual left," including some Jews who call themselves "progressive," share, along with the far right and radical Islam an "emphatic dislike" of Israel has been the subject of discussion in Articles, websites and blogs on all sides of the political spectrum.
Read the full text of the essay here.
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