Greatest Victory, Even in Defeat
By: Paula R. Stern
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." -- Edmund BurkeNadia Abu El Haj, a controversial professor of Anthropology at Barnard College has been given tenure. This is a warning to Jewish students at Barnard and Columbia - you will now have one more professor to avoid, one more purveyor of hate in your ranks. Already the lowest forms of life are crawling out amid the ivy. A swastika was painted on a door of a Jewish professor at Columbia , a noose on a black professor's door, more swastikas in other places - think you that there is no connection?
When a school opens its doors to a man such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and when they hire people like Nadia Abu El Haj and Joseph Massad, they invite hate to dine, to make its home in its once-hallowed halls. Too many waited too long, and El Haj's acceptance is the result. Let no one think this woman earned this honor - she did not. You need only read her book to see the poor level of her scholarship, the errors that are readily apparent. Even a small child in Israel can point out the errors in language and most high school students here have a better understanding of archaeological practice in Israel . But Barnard's administration under Shapiro was not interested in facts, there remains the smell of something rotten just underneath the decision.
Judith Shapiro conveniently withheld the fact that she was a professor of Anthropology at Bryn Mawr College while El Haj majored in Anthropology there. This is the same president who admitted to not having read all of El Haj's book, the same woman who is leaving Barnard much worse off than how she found it, lower in the esteem of its graduates for having lowered its standards for El Haj.
As most people know, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that El Haj would receive tenure, she is, after all, the darling of the Anthropology, where no less than 21 professors signed an anti-Israel boycott. She is among friends. No one honestly thought Shapiro would have enough courage to go against the department's recommendation.
At a time when most people would wonder what legacy they leave behind, Shapiro can have little doubt that while some may remember her building and leading Barnard to new directions. Many others will remember her for the seeds she planted that will live on long after she is gone from Barnard. These are the seeds of hatred and racism. Those same ones who once attempted to declare Zionism evil, but were later proved to be evil themselves. Shapiro has helped lower the standards - mediocrity is now acceptable, if you are politically correct enough to hate Israel and brave enough to hide your political agenda in a bastardized book rather than your doctoral dissertation.
While I was a student at Columbia , I took an amazing class, the History of Zionism (I wonder if they bother teaching that anymore at Columbia ), with Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg. It was an enlightening class by a brilliant man. He put forth the idea that you should not fight a battle unless you know you can win. To lose, he told us, is to damage yourself more. Better not to fight at all.
I disagreed then, and I disagree now. You fight evil. You fight injustice. Even knowing you will likely lose - you fight it so that the next time, the fight will be easier and perhaps in the next battle, those who fought against evil will triumph.
Sometimes, the right is in the fight itself and not in the results. No doubt El Haj is drinking her champagne and raising her glass high. But the victory is not hers or Columbia 's. The victory goes to those who fought against her tenure. Because Barnard knows it has damaged itself irreparably in the eyes of thousands of its graduates. I recently attended a graduate gathering in Israel . Some 90% of the women there signed a petition against El Haj's tenure. The visiting Dean of the College, Dorothy Denburg, was forced to offer a rambling explanation, but mostly, she just asked not to be held responsible for the decision. The oldest alumna there, Class of 1943, listened, and was livid. "I want nothing to do with Barnard. I'm finished with Barnard," she said to me, the anger so apparent. This woman has held on to letters and notes from sixty years ago, and when she went home that evening, she left the notes and the book on the table. She is finished with Barnard. It was sad, heartbreaking. This is Columbia 's loss.
A petition with over 2,500 names proved that thousands thought the El Haj tenure was wrong decision. They will think twice before sending their children to Columbia , and certainly those yearly requests for money will go unanswered. This too is Columbia 's loss. But more importantly, Columbia and Barnard have lost their respect.
At the same dinner, a young graduate approached me and spoke of her negative experiences taking a class with Joseph Massad and of the anti-Israel comments he slipped into the lectures. I urged her to tell Dean Denburg about what she experienced, but she refused. All it takes for evil to prevail, is for good men (and women) to be silent. Dean Denburg was silent.
She wanted to talk about the new building going on at Barnard. She wanted to talk about progress. She told us about a new kosher dining room. And I thought, how silly, by granting tenure to Nadia Abu El Haj, and by opening their doors to Ahmadinejad, Columbia is announcing to its Jews - don't come here and expect fair treatment. Why bother with a kosher kitchen, when anti-Semites walk the halls, teach in the classrooms, and lecture from the highest platforms available at the university. Even the anti-Semites think they have won - and they are painting their glory across the campus with swastikas. This too is a sign that Columbia has lost its way.
The battle, some would thus argue, is lost. But I would say we were victorious. We won because we made tens of thousands of people aware that Barnard and Columbia had lost their place in the halls of respect. National and international newspapers have interviewed those who fought against the tenure.
Massad. El Haj. Ahmadinejad... Columbia is being laughed at - and the greatest joke is on Lee Bollinger and Barnard because Judith Shapiro is leaving and Bollinger and Barnard will be left to pick up the pieces of her favoritism. Nadia Abu El Haj will teach at Barnard, but Barnard's students will not learn about truth. They will not learn about the facts on the ground, because the ground under El Haj's world doesn't exist. That's the truest joke of all. Her dissertation offers a mediocre and poorly written diatribe. Her book, a bastardized version of the dissertation, in which poorly researched fact has been poisoned by intentional lies, remains to baffle and amuse all those who attempt to read its rambling diatribes.
Soon, Massad will likely be turned down for tenure and the dirty deal will have been struck. So where is the victory? But, there is no victory at Barnard in this decision.
Instead, though our hearts are heavy, victory goes to those who fought a good fight, a clean fight, an honest one. Victory goes to those of us who stood up against the odds and soon, when more of El Haj's racist attitudes on Jewish genetics become widely publicized, Barnard will lose even more respect and be ridiculed that much more. Our victory will be in the fact that having separated ourselves now, we will not sink with Barnard.
Most important, our victory will come in the next battle, when the Anthropology department or some other department attempts to bring yet another unqualified professor forward because of his or her political agenda. At that time, Barnard and Columbia students and alumnae will have a choice, abandon the College/University completely, or stand up and say, "Enough."
Those who stood up now have shown that it is sometimes easier to stand and protest now, than stomach having professors like El Haj teaching there. Our efforts now will make it easier for others in the future. As for El Haj, let her be warned - the fight will continue to be waged. She can deny Israel 's right to exist all that she wishes and attempt to rewrite Israel 's history, but the study of archaeology continues and each day, as Israeli archaeologists dig, they uncover more and more proof of the facts on the ground El Haj wants to deny desperately.
Recently, Moslem authorities ordered a trench dug on the Temple Mount ...and what did they find as they carelessly dug...remnants of OUR First Holy Temple . El Haj can lie all she wants...but the earth does not lie and from its depths comes the truth she is trying to deny.
And that truth, here in this land, is our greatest victory of all.
B"H, Paula R. Stern is a freelance journalist living in Israel.
Her website is www.paulasays.com
and her blog is www.israelisoldiersmother.blogspot.com
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