The recent Palestinian Arab uprising against Israel has had “minimal effect on campus life” at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, according to HU president Menachem Magidor.
During his visit to Milwaukee last month to meet with the local chapter of the American Friends of the Hebrew University, Magidor told The Chronicle that classes and research are continuing, and, in fact, “we believe we should do more of [them], in a way.”
In addition, said Magidor, a professor of mathematics who was elected last week to a second four-year term as president, the university’s many efforts to help build Israel-Arab peace also are continuing.
“Eventually, there will be a peaceful Middle East,” Magidor said. “I believe some seeds we sow today will play a major part in forming this Middle East.”
This goes on largely through the university’s Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace; but it also goes on through collaborative projects with Arab countries in agriculture, medicine, environmental science and education, he said.
He acknowledged that “right now there is a slowdown” in such collaborations. “It has been more difficult to get Israelis and Palestinians together.” Some of the meetings have had to take place in Europe; but others still occur in the region, he said.
Magidor also cited as indirect peace-building efforts the university’s program in Arabic — “one of the best in the world” — and its center for the study of Christianity. Both offer platforms for cultural-ethnic-religious interchanges, “which is important for a multi-cultural city like Jerusalem.”
One direct effect of the recent intifada, however, has been “a certain drop” in the enrollment of foreign students — more from the United States than from Europe and Canada, Magidor said.
This would hardly be worth mentioning save that having a body of such students is one of the ways that “we see ourselves as a world institution,” Magidor said.
In fact, the university collaborates with many higher learning institutions throughout the world, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Magidor said he has particularly close professional ties with the mathematics department there; indeed, he taught there about two years ago. He also said UW has been “one of the most important feeder” institutions for HU’s Rothberg School for Overseas Students.
Magidor emphasized that HU has a powerful influence on Israel’s economy. It does more than one-third of Israel’s civilian research in science and technology and has helped make Jerusalem a center of high-tech industries, he said.
Magidor emphatically denied that HU has been the center of “post-Zionist” thinking and has had the pernicious influence on Zionism and Israel’s culture that Israeli political activist Yoram Hazony alleged in his recent book “The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel’s Soul.”
“I think the book is ridiculous,” Magidor said. “I think we are confident enough in our existence and national identity that we can look at the past critically.”
When it comes to Jewish studies, “I believe the special contribution of the Hebrew University is that we are able to deal with the Jewish heritage as our own but at the same time use the machinery of critical analysis” and apply “multiple interpretations of the same heritage,” Magidor said.
Besides, HU’s Jewish studies faculty is not ideologically monolithic. “We have people who are almost haredi [ultra-Orthodox] to complete agnostics,” said Magidor, yet they all participate “in the same conversation. That shows the richness of what we have to offer.”
Magidor said he travels to visit “friends” organizations some 15 times per year. “It is important to have an active community of friends” for more than just fund-raising, he said.
“We are the university of the Jewish people, a focal point of dealing with Jewish identity and heritage,” he said. Therefore, it is important to “have a constituency not limited to Israel, but spread all over the Jewish world.”
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