Status as of May, 2007

Nadia Abu El Haj at Barnard: May, 2007

The decision on whether to give tenure to Nadia Abu El Haj is likely to be made in the next few weeks.  I believe that it is important for alumnae not only to be aware of, but to express opinions on such decisions because a college is a community.  The college we love could not exist without the support of graduates dedicated to its welfare, no more than it could exist without its distinguished faculty, or without each  fall's new class of students.

The Barnard community is threatened when the college appoints faculty who hold ideals inimical to the principles to which the college is dedicated.  Barnard has always upheld the highest standards of scholarship.  That is what makes all of us so intensely proud to have graduated from Barnard, and not from a school where lesser standards prevail.  Those feelings, as well as the future of the integrity of Barnard itself stands on trial.  

If the college grants tenure to Nadia Abu El Haj, it will be conferring the honor of a Barnard Professorship on a young woman whose scholarship does not warrant recognition or honor from our alma mater. Her sole book is a study of archaeological practice in Israel. It is a thinly veiled political attack and so markedly deficient that Professor William Dever, the senior American archaeologist now digging in Israel, has called her book "faulty, misleading and dangerous."   I append one of the many scholarly evaluations of her work.

If Barnard grants tenure to Nadia Abu El Haj, it will have upheld two ideas that most graduates of the college find abhorrent. 

First, it will have granted the honor of tenure to a woman who has publicly and repeatedly declared her commitment to the destruction of the Jewish State.  Nadia Abu El Haj is not a critic of Israel.  She is dedicated to eliminating the state of Israel.  While I understand that some members of the faculty do not consider such views as a bar to an academic appointment, many Barnard graduates do.  In my opinion Ms. Abu El Haj's views on the fate of Israel and its seven million citizens are so abhorrent as to make her presence on the faculty morally repugnant to decent people.  Let me also tell you that I am one of those citizens, as are my children and many Barnard graduates who have come to live here in the last few years. This is a personal affront to those of us who desperately want Barnard to step back at this moment, and do the right thing by denying this woman tenure.

Second, Barnard will have conferred tenure on a woman who rejects the principle that scholarly research must be based on evidence.  Abu El Haj proudly announces in her book that she rejects all "commitment to scientific methods,"  preferring post structuralism, philosophical critiques of foundationalism, Marxism and critical theory…  in response to specific postcolonial political movements.”   This, of course, enables her to write a study of Israeli archaeology upholding the  most absurd  idea that the existence of ancient Israelite kingdoms is a "pure political fabrication."  She single-handedly attempts to suggest that the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 C.E. was not a result of the Roman invasion (as is commonly held by approximately...all the world). This leaves El Haj to suggest that perhaps it was the Jews themselves that destroyed their own city. No evidence is given for this ridiculous claim and since El Haj has rejected scientific methodology, she is now free to ignore all known evidence that counters her wild imaginations.

As I said at the outset of this letter, the tenure decision will be made within the next few weeks. I urge you to immediately contact Barnard President Judith Shapiro, Vice President for Development Cameran Mason or Director of Alumnae Affairs Marilyn Chin and share your concern over this appointment.  Even if you wrote to them a few months ago when this was brought to your attention, I urge you to write to them again. We are not outsiders - no matter what anyone claims. We are the ones who attended Barnard, the ones who graduated from there and have hopefully gone on to make lives that better the name of the alma mater we love. We have the right - even the obligation - to speak out now. This was never an issue for the scholars alone to decide because scholarship was left behind when "Professor" Nadia El Haj turned what should have been a scholarly work into a political tool to get her agenda published. Following are the addresses of the people who must now make a decision: please take a moment to write - lest El Haj's agenda be further awarded with tenure at our beloved Barnard College. 

President Judith R. Shapiro
Barnard College
Office of the President, 109 Milbank Hall
3009 Broadway
New York, NY 10027
212-854-2021

Cameran L. Mason
Vice President of Institutional Advancement
(212) 854-2001

Marilyn Chin '74
Director of Alumnae Affairs
(212) 854-2005

Finally, I need your help in getting the word out - please take a moment to forward this email to any and all Barnard/Columbia graduates you know.

Sincerely yours,
Paula Rubenstein Stern
Barnard, forever part of the proud Class of 1982

Some scholarly evaluations of Nadia El Haj's work:

The Va'ad ha-Emet concludes that Facts on the Ground fails to meet the most minimal academic standards and actually slanders a distinguished scholar:

A Brief Evaluation of Methodology and Use of Evidence in Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society by Nadia Abu El-Haj

Command of the Hebrew Language

El-Haj has undertaken to write an anthropology of Israeli attitudes towards archaeology and their role in "self-fashioning in Israeli society," yet there is no indication in the text that she either explored these topics in conversation with Israelis in a systematic way (she cites only conversations with tour guides) or by reading materials published in the national language. Indeed, there are indications in the text that she was not capable of doing so due to her apparent unfamiliarity with Hebrew. Even when following a source (p. 95), El-Haj repeatedly mistakes neve (settlement) for nahal (stream), misnaming, for example, Nahal Patish as Neve Patish (writing, roughly, the town of Patish in place of Patish Creek, a stream valley named for its hammer [patish]-shaped rock formation.)

On the next page (p. 96), she accuses Zionist pioneers of naming Tell Hai, Tell Yosef, and Tell ha-Shomer in a manner intended to mislead, that is, by implying that these new villages were built on tells, that is, on sites "of the remains of ancient settlements." El-Haj not only condemns such misappropriation of the word tell but asserts that the government Committee on Place Names (Va'adt ha-Shemot) "insisted" that "such improper terminological uses could not be continued."

Throughout this remarkable passage, Abu El-Haj appears to be entirely unaware that tell (tel) is a common Hebrew word meaning both "hill" and "artificial hill created by the remains of an ancient settlement." A direct translation of Tel Aviv, for example, is Hill of Spring, a hopeful name for a city that makes no pretense to antiquity. El-Haj's assertion that the names of these towns were condemned by the Va'ad ha-Shemot is sheer untruth.

A lack of familiarity with the language of a nation disqualifies a scholar from attempting certain projects. Lack of Hebrew disqualifies a scholar from undertaking a technical discussion of Hebrew and Arabic place-naming.

A study of "archaeological practice" in Israel could be carried out without a working knowledge of Hebrew. It would require the investigator to master the fundamentals of archaeological field research. There is no indication in the text that El-Haj has conducted such a study.

Familiarity with Previous Scholarship

In her discussion of place names, El-Haj demonstrates no knowledge of the indispensable work of Ruth Kark, Haim Goren, Yossi Katz and Dov Gavish. In her discussion of Israeli historical memory, she demonstrates no awareness of the important work of Nahman-ben-Yehuda, Anita Schapira, or Yaakov Shavit. Lack of familiarity with the work of the leading scholars who have written on her chosen subjects is part of what marks El-Haj's book as falling outside the realm of scholarship.

Use of Anonymous Sources and Unsourced Assertions

El-Haj repeatedly makes assertions of fact based on citing unnamed informants or no sources at all. These assertions would be shocking, if they were true. Examples:

"One archaeologist told me of a right-wing colleague who was constantly labeling Christian sites Jewish." (p. 233)

"In general, however, in Israeli archaeology… the practical work of excavating favors larger (mostly, well-preserved architectural) remains over smaller remains…smaller finds…do not survive the onslaught of bulldozers." (pp. 148-9)

Slander

On page 148, El-Haj makes a direct, personal attack on David Ussishkin of Tel Aviv University, whom El-Haj accuses of "bad science," using "large shovels," failing to sift dirt "in search of very small remains," and of using bulldozers "in order to get down to earlier strata which are saturated with national significance, as quickly as possible." According to El-Haj, he did so in such a way that "the remains above it were summarily destroyed."

El-Haj supports these assertions with nothing more than stories "recounted to me after the fact by both archaeologists and student volunteers," none of whom she names.

Ussishkin has responded that "All her accusations are based on talks with anonymous participants after the excavations…This is not a proper and serious way of research." He details his field methods and demonstrates the falsity of her assertions.

We consider El-Haj's accusations to be slanderous.

Summary

Facts on the Ground exhibits an inability to understand the language (Hebrew) of the nation that the author pretends to study, a broad failure on the part of the author to encounter the scholarly work in her field, a failure on the author's part to understand the use of evidence, and, finally, descends to the baseless slander of a highly respected scholar.

Signed by the Va'ad ha-Emet (Truth Committee)

28 March, 2007 ………………………..

*The statement of the Va'ad ha Emet (Truth Committee) was composed by scholars familiar with the fields relevant to an evaluation of Facts on the Ground (Israel Studies, archaeology of the ancient Near East, and toponymy.) They feel a need to remain anonymous because of the vituperative political climate on the campuses where some of them are employed.

http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/3172