Thoughts on Boycotts

Here is the link to the motions passed by the Assocation of University Teachers in Britain (AUT).

The key points:

1) general endorsement of the notion of a total boycott of Israeli academia
2) a specific boycott against the University of Haifa in response to the treatment of Ilan Pappe
3) a specific boycott against Bar-Ilan University in response to Bar-Ilan’s links with the College of Judea and Samaria.
4) deferral of the question whether to specifically boycott the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
5) general endorsement of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process with a program of outreach to Palestinian academics and a rejection of the idea of outreach to Israeli academics.

#1 and #5 are pretty appalling: generalized boycotts seem inimical to academic freedom and to the whole notion of an academic community.

Here, I can only echo what the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has said.

As for #3,4,5 the charges against Haifa, Bar-Ilan, and Hebrew University seem spurious. Haifa and Bar-Ilan have mounted vigorous defenses of their actions: See here and here.

But even if the charges were true, would such a broad-brush boycott be warranted?

Remember that the AUT motions call for adherence to the Palestinian call for a boycott which includes the following actions:
i. Refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions;
ii. Advocate a comprehensive boycott of Israeli institutions at the national and international levels, including suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies to these institutions;
iii. Promote divestment and disinvestment from Israel by international academic institutions;
iv. Exclude from the above actions against Israeli institutions any conscientious Israeli academics and intellectuals opposed to their state's colonial and racist policies;
v. Work toward the condemnation of Israeli policies by pressing for resolutions to be adopted by academic, professional and cultural associations and organizations;
vi. Support Palestinian academic and cultural institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as an explicit or implicit condition for such support.

(Item iv--as many have noted--is quite ridiculous because it sets up an ideological text for Israeli academics to be exempted from being boycotted. And who decides what constitutes “[opposition] to their state’s colonial and racist policies”? Would an Israeli academic who has spoken out in opposition to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza--as many have--but who has also spoken out against the boycott be caught in some kind of Catch-22 logic and not be exempted from the boycott?)

The argument often made against this sort of thing is that Israel is being singled out. Everyone should remember that this is not an argument meant to defend the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza or the actions of the Israeli government in general. You can’t justify Israeli policy with the schoolyard argument that “Billy did it too but the teacher caught me so I shouldn’t be punished.”

This argument does point out the hypocrisy of some of Israel’s opponents and the extent to which anti-Israel politics with little nuance have become something of a sine qua non in leftist circles. (And that general situation is frustrating to those of us who generally sympathize with the political left, oppose the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and have significant social, academic, and familial ties to Jewish Israelis. But that’s another story).

What the argument is really saying is this: sometimes Israel (qua government) does bad things. When it does bad things, it should be condemned. But many wish to punish Israel in a disproportionate way. In other words: Billy and I both pulled Jane’s hair but I was expelled and Billy got a time-out. The reasonable inference: the teacher has it in for me. Fairness dictates that Billy and I get the same punishment.

This brings me back to my original question. Even if the charges against Haifa, Bar-Ilan, and Hebrew University are true, is a broad-based boycott a reasonable response?

Apparently when apartheid was extended to South African universities in the 1960s and when two academics were banned by the South African government, the most the AUT called on its members to do were 1) protest this and 2) refrain from taking jobs at South African universities. See here for the text of this resolution and for comment. (And here for more discussion of the whole matter.) Yes, it is true that many other forms of boycott against South Africa in general and South African academia in general emerged in the 1970s and 80s, but the question before us is the behavior of the AUT and the specific Israeli situations to which they wish to respond. Thus, the AUT’s first--and only?--resolution on South African academia seems relevant.

Now let us imagine that Ilan Pappe’s troubles with his colleagues in Haifa could be deemed comparable to banning in apartheid-era South Africa (an idiotic comparison if one knows anything about the two situations). Let’s also imagine that Bar-Ilan’s links to a junior college in a West Bank settlement could be deemed comparable to the removal of black students from South African universities (remember that there are Arab students--and professors--at Israeli universities). And let us imagine that the AUT wished to hold Israeli academics accountable in the same way they held South African academics accountable in the 1960s. Then the resolution ought to go something like this:

We, the (undersigned) professors and lecturers in British universities:
1. Protest against the treatment of Professor Pappe.
2. Protest against the practice of occupation and the involvement of Israeli universities in it.
3. Pledge that we shall not apply for or accept academic posts in Israeli universities which involve themselves in the occupation of the West Bank or the Gaza strip.

Now (a) assuming the allegations against Haifa and Bar-Ilan were true and (b) pretending that the situation was comparable to the events of the 1960s in South Africa and (c) imagining that this were the restrained and reasonable response of the AUT to this hypothetical situation, I would--in this alternate reality--feel no reason to condemn the AUT’s actions.

However:

In regard to (a): the allegations seem spurious.
In regard to (b): the situations are in no way comparable.
In regard to (c): I think the differences between the two resolutions speak for themselves.

Thus, I join with thousands of academics around the world who have rightly condemned the AUT’s actions.

I have linked to ENGAGE in my links column. This is a blog run by a group within the AUT campaigning to revoke the boycott resolution at a special meeting in a few days. The postings there and the material they link to present the case against the boycott and shows up the idiocy of the boycott supporters.

Thoughts on Filibusters

Why shouldn't someone being given a lifetime appointment on the federal bench have to get a super-majority rather than simple majority in the Senate? It seems to me that needing to get sixty percent rather than 51 percent of the votes in the Senate is a reasonable incentive for presidents, regardless of party and where they fit on the political spectrum, to nominate someone from the pretty big middle. If it seems that either party in the Senate is blocking reasonable nominees for political gain, let that party be punished at the ballot box in the next election. In the meantime, extremists don't get lifetime appointments.

Regardless of the many other reasons why Frist and Santorum must be stopped (their hypocrisy and venality, the extreme right-wingers Bush has and will nominate, the odiousness of the attempt to make the Democrats of today look like the anti-Civil Rights southern Democrats of yesteryear, etc.) this seems like a reasonable, common-sense idea that moderate Republicans ought to be able to get their minds around.

Also, I'm a bit confused about the idea that the minority is using the rules of the Senate to thwart the majority. Isn't the Senate itself a pretty clear example of the anti-majoritarian thrust of the Constitution?

Friday Musings 3

1) I usually try to glance at the Chronicle of Higher Education to find out what's happening in the world of academia. The May 13 "Chronicle Review" section is full of interesting articles: Stanley Fish on Ward Churchill and Larry Summers; Jon Wiener on how controversies on college campuses play out in the media (re Massad at Columbia and Thernstrom at Harvard); Richard Freeland (president of Northeastern) on universities and cities; and Carlin Romano on Pope Benedict's past.

2) I also recommend the May issue of Perspectives, the newsletter of the American Historical Association. Carlo Ginzburg has an interesting discussion of the role that on-line library catalogs can play in directing one's research. The piece hinges on the difference between searching a card catalog or an on-line catalog arranged by subject and using the keyword function (only available on-line). The most interesting element of this to my mind is the way that serendipity functions in research--something that my wife's grandfather, the biologist Aser Rothstein, once wrote about. Contra Sven Birkerts (in Gutenberg Elegies), it's not that there was serendiptity in the olden days and none today. It's that the technology that brings about the serendipity has changed. You can read Ginzburg's article on-line here.

3) Binyamin Singer has kindly provided me with a reference and I'm on the trail in regard to Nahmanides' canonicity (see Friday Musings #2) Unfortunately, I can't check it until I get to the library next week. Sorry to keep you in suspense!

Friday Musings 2

1) Apparently I was wrong a few weeks ago. You can beat the Yankees. Even the Tampa Bay Devil Rays can beat the Yankees. I am trying to contain my glee as I am sure the Orioles will fade a little. But could anyone have imagined that this season might bring the AL East a pennant race involving the Orioles and the Blue Jays?

2) I doubt very much that anyone from the Post-Gazette was worried about my threat to drop my subscription recently. They can start printing the comics in Akkadian and I will most likely continue to subscribe. I am an addict, folks.

3) The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle had an article yesterday on a new super-commentary on Ramban (Nahmanides) written in English by Binyamin Singer, an Israeli with some local Pittsburgh connections. (He wrote the bulk of the work while in Pittsburgh last summer). What most interested me was the comment at the end of article that Nahmanides' commentary was a must-read according to "the sages." I e-mailed the reporter to ask if she could put me in touch with Singer because I was curious about this. I'm sure he (Singer) or she (the reporter, Susan Jacobs), did not mean "Hazal". If anyone can tell me who has talked about an obligation to study Ramban, I would be most grateful.

4) Random quotation for the day:
“’If you want to get attention from anybody in Washin’ton,’ she said, ‘ask them to lunch. People here will do almost anything for a good lunch.’” Willa Cather, The Professor’s House. New York: Vintage House, 1973, p.229.

Daughter's monologue

This is a (nearly) verbatim transcript of a speech my four-year-old daughter made to herself in the bathroom just now (she didn't know I was listening from the next room). I hope she doesn't mind the invasion of privacy when she is older. Note: her brother is 11 months old and she doesn't have a sister.

"The synagogue is the place where we pray to God. The Temple is another synagogue in the city. We have a synagogue. I am six years old. My friends are Jewish too. They might not go to the same places. My teacher is Mrs. S----. She is Jewish. Other people can go to synagogue even if they are not Jewish. The Jewish people have to pray to God. Because God saved the Jewish people. Only God can save your life. My little brother is soooo crazy around the house because he doesn’t know God can save your life. We have to take care of him lots of times. He says ‘Poopyhead’ and we don’t like that. And Mommy and Daddy don’t like it either. My sister said ‘I don’t like my little brother and I want him to go away.’ But I explained that he can’t go away because he is part of the family. Me and my sister play together very often. When we eat a lot of matzah we don’t poop so much. When it’s a weekend I stay home with my Nona or my mommy or daddy. For now on, I don’t have Passover. The first letter in my name is “D” and then “-” and then “-” and then an “-” and then an “-” and an “-” and another “-” and then “-” and that’s how you spell my name. I better wash my hands. I have one paci[fier] and I only have it in the car, when I’m sleeping, or when I’m getting picked up. Actually, I have it all the time and it’s not such a big deal. I’m a big sister. Now I’m four. No, now I’m thirteen.

Friday Musings

1) The Washington Post site is acting strange again. It welcomes me but then asks me for a password when I try to go to an article and then asks me again and again and again. Last week it was working fine.

2) I paid $14.95 to Major League Baseball to listen to games and I am only getting through about 1/3 of the time. I keep getting a message that says "server error." Four e-mails and one phone message to their help desk have received no reply. This is disappointing since the Orioles are doing so well; on the other hand, since they are doing so well and I haven't been able to listen, baseball superstition dictates that I not get this fixed.

3) For various reasons I did not love living in Boston during the two years that I lived there. This was contrary to the expectations of nearly all Bostonians. One of the umpteen things that I didn't like was the Boston Globe. I found the writing pretentious, the need to always find a local angle annoying, the sense that Boston was the intellectual capital of America a bit overblown. But--and perhaps you will think less of me for saying so--what really drove me nuts was that the comics were in a different place nearly every day. The comics were not the only things that migrated around the paper: obituaries could show up in the classified ads; national news in the local section; sports scores in the business section. As one of the three people under the age of 40 in America who like to read at least one actual newspaper in print every day, this drove me bonkers. There are sections I like to read over breakfast and sections I like to read on the bus. But with the Boston Globe you never knew which section would have which features on any given day. Imagine you are sitting on the T and you want to read "Get Fuzzy" and "Doonesbury." But you grabbed the magazine section and today the comics are in the classified ads that you already put in the recycle bin. I finally dropped my subscription to the Globe; subscribed to the New York Times and started going on-line to look at comics.
Why am I reliving this now? Because the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has decided to revamp its daily pages and they have made some odd decisions. To my mind, the oddest is moving the editorials and the op-ed page to the local section. Yesterday or the day before I noticed the obituaries in some section other than local news (I don't remember which). So far the comics are always in the same place and I haven't had to leave the sports section to find the baseball box scores, but I have to say I'm worried: if they can be consistent with placement of features, I can manage under this new regime. But if they are going to start moving things around, we have the Boston Globe problem redux. Further cause for worry: the new(ish) P-G editor is former Washington bureau chief for the Globe. I know he's a Pulitzer Prize winner and all (n'at?) but if he can't put the comics and the box scores in the same place every day, he may lose another reader under 40.

Population Figures

Much hand-wringing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette over continued population decline in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, and the metro region.

I agree: Pittsburgh has some big problems.

But we’re not alone in terms of urban core areas slowly losing population:

from http://www.census.gov/popest/counties/CO-EST2004-08.html:
the first figure is the 2004 estimate; the second figure is the 2003 estimate:

Philadelphia County, PA 1,470,151 1,476,953
Middlesex County, MA 1,464,628 1,466,561 (this is the biggest of Boston’s suburban counties)
Allegheny County, PA 1,250,867 1,259,176
Cuyahoga County, OH 1,351,009 1,361,933
San Francisco County, CA 744,230 751,908
Suffolk County, MA 666,022 676,299 (this is Boston proper)
Baltimore city, MD 636,251 643,304

What’s growing in these metro areas: all the suburban counties in the Philadelphia area, the DC area, and the outlying parts of the Boston area.

What’s growing in the Pittsburgh metro area: nothing--so yes, we’ve got it worse.

DC itself (not counted as a county) is also apparently down although DC officials dispute this (see this report in the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21111-2004Dec22.html). (Mysteriously and with no action on my part, my ability to read the Washington Post on-line has returned. The Baltimore Sun site is still acting crazy.)

Massachusetts is apparently the only state to suffer a population decline overall from 2003 to 2004--see here: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/04/17/shrinking_pains/.

My point: some places like Pittsburgh haven’t solved the post-industrial riddle. Other places have, but haven’t solved the problem of sprawl. Either way, central cities and inner-ring suburbs are losing relative to their outlying areas and older metro areas are losing relative to new ones in the south and west. While Pittsburghers are busy trying to solve the problems of this region (there are many), we would be wise not to forget that we have a national problem that may require national solutions. In another post, I will try to outline why I think this is, in fact, a problem. And someday I may think up a solution.
Keep checking back with me for that.

Baseball Records since 1954

Earlier this week, I noted that in the early to mid 1980s, I had heard that the Orioles had the best record in baseball since 1954 (the year they moved to Baltimore from St. Louis). I had wondered if this were still the case. (See below: it turns out never to have been the case). Alas, it’s not. Here are the win percentages for all teams 1954-2004 with a winning record.

1. New York Yankees .563
2. Philadelphia/Kansas City/Oakland Athletics .545
3. Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers .542
3. New York/San Francisco Giants .542
5. Cincinnati Reds .526
5. Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins .526
6. Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves .525
7. Boston Red Sox .523
8. Baltimore Orioles .522
9. St. Louis Cardinals .520
10. Chicago White Sox . .514
11. Arizona Diamondbacks .507

I used the raw data under team pitching statistics at mlb.com. If you really care about this, you should probably check my math. And a statistician might also point out that the differences between the Reds, Twins, Braves, Red Sox, Orioles, and Cardinals are not statistically significant. (A statistician might also point out that this is an entirely pointless exercise.)

Then I wondered. Was my mid-‘80s memory correct or just a bit of Orioles mythologizing? Here’s the same check for the period 1954-1984. The Orioles look a lot better but apparently I was wrong. All those good years in the ‘50s were still carrying the Yankees and the Dodgers over the Orioles.

1. New York Yankees .563
2. Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers .556
3. Baltimore Orioles .550
4. Cincinnati Reds .540
5. Kansas City Royals .523
6. Detroit Tigers .520
7. Pittsburgh Pirates .518
8. New York/San Francisco Giants .517
9. Boston Red Sox .516
10. Chicago White Sox .515
11. St. Louis Cardinals .514
12. Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves .511

Also note that the Pirates and the Royals are on the 1984 list and drop of the 2004 list. Remember Willie Stargell and George Brett? The Pirates just missed the 2004 cut-off at .499 and the Royals slipped to .494. The newcomers on the 2004 list were the Twins and the A’s who went from .477 (Twins) and .460 (A’s) on the 1984 list.

(By the way, if you want to see all records going back to the end of the 19th century, check here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/. Saddled with the legacy of the St. Louis Browns, the Orioles don’t do so well on this list.)

Lessons learned:
--Memory is slippery.
--The A’s win “most-improved” since 1984.
--Since 1954, only 10 teams of the ones that have played the entire time have winning records.
--The Diamondbacks are the only post-1954 team with a winning record.
--You just can’t beat the d*** Yankees.

Some new blogs on the link list

I just added three new blogs to the right. "Accommodatingly" is by Steve Burt and Jessie Bennett. Steve is an accomplished poet and literary critic and a friend from high school; Jessie is an accomplished web designer. "Pittsblog" is by a law professor at Pitt who works on intellectual property law; this blog is of interest to me for the comments on life in Pittsburgh. (If intellectual property law is your thing, his other blog, linked from "Pittsblog" looks interesting as well.) I found "Pittsblog" via "Creating Text(iles)" which is by an English professor and medievalist at Duquesne. I have no interest in knitting but otherwise this looks like an interesting blog. Check out her recent post on what might shape up to be a kind of anti-plagiarism vigilante movement.

More on baseball

I forgot to add a link to another comment on being on the sidelines of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. I can't endorse the profanity but I can agree with some of the sentiments.

Opening Day Thoughts

Opening Day holds great significance for me: it's the day I stop wearing winter coats (my wife thinks I'm a little nuts especially since the introduction of the wild card has moved opening day back to the beginning of April) and it's the day I start reading the Sports section first when the morning paper arrives.

So here are my thoughts for the day:

I am a once and future Orioles fan (the Senators left DC the year I was born and my father was a Baltimorean anyway). I used to take great pride in the Orioles as one of the elite teams of the American League and used to rattle off the statistic that the Orioles had the best record of any team since 1954.(This was true as of the mid-80s. I wonder if it's still true today. Probably not.) I didn't pay much attention to the Yankees until the late 90s when they got good for the first time since the early 80s. Then, of course, I started hating them. And I rooted for the Red Sox to beat them--I'm married to a Bostonian after all, they had my sympathy of course, and as the fan of one of the other non-Yankee AL East teams I felt a sense of solidarity.

But lately all the Yankees-Red Sox hype has me feeling like a Princeton football fan. (If you're not a fan of Ivy League football, you should know that Yale and Harvard have a football rivalry; Princetonians think it's a 3 way rivalry, but it's not. Yale fans and Harvard fans just don't care that much about Princeton.)

But here's the rub: baseball is not college football! It's not about the "big game"; it's about playing day in and day out, the slow (some would say boring) pace of each game, of each week, the cumulative won-loss record and the cumulative individual statistics. Baseball teams play each other three or four times in a row and in five and seven game series because it's the cumulative effect that matters. Yes, the Yankees and Red Sox play each other every year. But guess what? The Yankees and the Red Sox also play every other American League team every year. In other words, baseball shouldn't have "rivalries"--let's leave that to football (I would make an exception for teams sharing a hometown: Mets/Yankees, Cubs/White Sox, Giants/A's, and even Nationals/Orioles. Whoops: I forgot the Dodgers and Angels--how curious.)

But I can't swim against the tide of history (in baseball matters, I am a conservative): the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is here and it's real and I think the reason it exists is because of the amazing run of the last eight years in which the Red Sox have finished second to the Yankees every time. I'm hoping this is cyclical and one of these days the Orioles will push past third place, but I'm worried the imbalance is going to stay until there's a salary cap or a massive collapse of the economy in New York and New England.

Meanwhile I had decided when I moved to Pittsburgh that I would root for the Pirates in the National League and in the World Series (unless they play the Orioles again. I'm dreaming of a 1971-1979 rematch and yes, I know I will keep dreaming). When I lived in Philadelphia I rooted for the Phillies (who, along with the 76ers, got a lot better when I left town, but that's another issue).

The Orioles mediocrity since 1997 is partly due to economics but mostly due to the combination of bad luck and bad decision-making; the Pirates' recent run of losing seasons (since 93) has much more to do with economics. The usual plaintive cry among Pittsburgh baseball fans is that people here care so much about the Steelers that they ignore the Pirates. But it's hard to muster enthusiasm for a team that's destined to lose. (The Steelers are apparently destined to lose but not until the AFC championship game.)

In case you haven't figured it out, I am a proponent of a salary cap. (I didn't say I was a free-market conservative in baseball matters.)

Finally, a word about the Nationals. I saw a fellow DC-bred Orioles fan of my generation in New York yesterday, a soon-to-be resident of Wisconsin. We compared notes and had similar mixed feelings: nice to see baseball back in DC but we have both been in the process of developing interest in our local NL teams.

Meanwhile, the Orioles are already 1/2 a game out of first because of the outcome of the Yale-Harvard game last night.

Weekend Update

Back from a nice weekend in Jersey City and NYC. A family wedding Saturday night in Jersey City, followed by a quick trip into Manhattan (with fewer panhandlers than Squirrel Hill) to visit some friends.

Quick notes from the trip:

--We don't have cable at home so when I'm in a hotel room I obsessively flip through TV channels. This mean that rather than spending Saturday afternoon before the wedding meditating, studying Torah, or crocheting, I watched parts of "Beverly Hills Ninja," "Midnight Run," and a lot about Pope John Paul II.

--Apparently some bartenders (okay one bartender) agree(s) with me about the superiority of gin over vodka. The one I spoke to is planning to start a marketing campaign with the tag-line "Gin: the New Vodka."

--We have a nice tradition going in my family: since my mother's cousin came from New Jersey to the University of Maryland in the 1970s, we have had a number of relatives go to college where an older cousin lives. One of my cousins is going to UPenn next year where I'll be a research fellow in the fall. So we can keep this going at least for one semester.

--Typical conversation around the table at the wedding: real estate, the comparative advantages and disadvantages of various places of residence and hometowns, start of the baseball season, how dear and wonderful are the bride and groom, which fish are okay for nursing mothers and pregnant women (we were the "older of the younger" cousins and friends table). Less typical conversation (instigated by me when I found out that one of my tablemates works for the NY Federal Reserve): the overlapping jurisdiction in bank regulation between the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve system.

--The frequency of PATH trains on a Sunday leave something to be desired.

--I don't care how gentrified, yuppified, and mall-ified it is, the Upper West Side is the only part of New York I like.

--I very much enjoy having relatives and friends tell me how cute my children are.

--An acquaintance in NY tells us that he and his wife might move to DC and will probably live in the Dupont Circle/Adams Morgan/lower 16th street area. But within the next few years the question of schools and backyards will arise. They've heard of an "up and coming Jewish area" in the city called Shepherd Park. When I burst into laughter and point out that Shepherd Park has been a Jewish area since the 1950s (at least), he responds that he meant that apparently the congregations are aging and that few families with young children have moved there recently. He's probably right and I certainly applaud those Jews who are making their home in DC. My father was on the losing side of a battle to keep the JCC and the new Jewish day school in the city --actually in the Shepherd Park/"Gold Coast" area--in the 1960s. They lost and the institutions moved to Rockville. I'm partly amused and partly offended by what I see as a typical attitude of newcomers to DC: the belief that the area is "transitory" and has no locals. My sense is that in other metropolitan areas the newcomers make themselves at home by "going native" to some extent (this might explain my interest in the Steelers) but that in DC the newcomers use a myth of transience to establish themselves by ignoring the natives.

Joni Mitchell would not approve...

...and nor do I. The story is that the
National Trust for Historic Preservation is saving one building by destroying another. At least, that's the National Trust's line. If the National Trust is right that this is the only place to put the 1000 (!) car garage, I can only conclude that downtown St. Louis must be really thriving: no vacant lots or architecturally unimpressive post-war buildings with low occupancy. Wow!

What's the Expression About Strange Bedfellows?

Apparently, gay activists have (accidentally?) come up with a new strategy in bringing together different factions in the Middle East. See here for details.

Sad News

Some sad news this week. One of the nicest people and one of the best scholars in my small corner of the academic world has passed away.

This is a nice tribute from the H-Judaic listserv:

This past week our community lost a dear friend and colleague, and a
very talented young scholar.

Elka Klein, z"l, received a B.A. from Yale in 1988, and a PhD from
Harvard in 1996. She was a Dorot post-doctoral Fellow at the Skirball
Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU before becoming an
assistant professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Cincinnati.

Dr. Klein was a regular and enthusiastic contributor to scholarly
panels at the annual Association for Jewish Studies conference. In her
work, she drew upon her knowledge of rabbinic literature and Spanish
archival materials to shed new light upon Jewish-Christian relations in
medieval Iberia, stressing the influence of royal power on Jewish
social history. A fine archival scholar, Dr. Klein also translated
royal charters and other sources for the study of medieval Sephardic
history for a number of on-line sourcebooks.

In her recent book Hebrew Deeds of the Catalan Jews (1117-1316)
(Barcelona, 2004), Dr. Klein edited 18 Shetarot that she discovered in
the archives of Barcelona, and she was in the final stages of
completing a study entitled Community and King: Jews and Christian
Society in Medieval Barcelona, 1050-1300. Dr. Klein also leaves behind
a legacy in the field of Jewish Women's History, in which she had
become an important and pioneering voice. Her publications in this
area include "The Widow's Portion: Law, Custom and Marital Property
among Medieval Catalan Jews," (Viator 2000), "Splitting Heirs: Patterns
of Inheritance among Barcelona's Jews" (Jewish History 2002), and
"Getting their Day in Court: the Jewish Community and Royal Justice in
Thirteenth Century Catalunya" (forthcoming).

Dr. Klein is survived by her husband, Yossi Francus, and her two
children, Dina and Shaul. Our thoughts and prayers are with her
family.

Jonathan Ray
Yale University

I think he meant Manhattan, Kansas

from today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on the first mayoral debate:

"O'Connor also said the city must do a better job keeping Downtown clean and cracking down on panhandlers, not only in the center core but in neighborhood business districts as well. 'There are more panhandlers in Squirrel Hill than there are in Manhattan,' he said."

Here's the whole article.

Clarifications

1. I am not sure property taxes are the best way to fund local government or public schools. But if we are going to have them, assessments should be done properly.

2. I don't enjoy paying taxes, but I do like the services that governments (at all levels) provide.

3. That said, I don't think that city governments need to be in the wireless network business. (Sorry that's not a clarification but a new throught.)

4. It's not that I have no sense of adventure and it's not that I don't seek/uncover/think big. It's that I tend to seek adventure in the old books. Ok?

A True Story About Property Assessments

Once upon a time, property in a big village called Riverville was seriously undervalued.

After some not-so-wise elders decided to freeze property values, a wise judge told them they could not.

So the chastened elders hired some wise magicians from a different village to appraise all the property. The new assessments angered many of the householders in Riverville--especially the ones who had lived there for many years and believed that they should not have to pay any more money to support the village that they had stuck with while other villagers had left for warmer villages where the Sun was worshipped.

After much hue and cry, the elders decided to re-assess property every three years rather then every year. At least, they reasoned, they would not have to pay magicians every year and they would not have to listen to villager complaints all year.

One day, some new villagers arrived in Riverville. They bought an old house in a neighborhood called Tree Rodent Vista that was very nice but was in one of the sub-villages (Minister Borough) that was running out of money. The new villagers paid a lot more than the house's appraised value. (They had moved to Riverville from a really expensive village called Boston where every house cost a lot so the house in Minister Borough seemed like a good bargain).

So the elders of Minister Borough (who needed money) asked the elders of Riverville to raise the appraised value to the sale price of the house. The new people grumbled a little but were chastened by the Hearing Walla: "the assessment should reflect fair market value." The new people bowed their heads and accepted that this was a fair doctrine. Nobody likes to pay more in taxes, they said, but it's good that the elders are making sure that everyone pays their fair share.

After three years, along came the day of the new assessment. The magicians were hired and did their work and reported to the Head Elder of Riverville that times were good and houses were worth more. Some people would have to pay more taxes because their houses were worth more. But, they said, assessments should reflect fair market value. Some wise men who chronicled the doings of the village reminded everyone that the sub-villages like Minister Borough and Upper Clarity could reduce their tax rates so people would not be wiped out by the new assessments. The wise chroniclers also pointed out that elderly villagers, living on fixed incomes, could be given larger homestead exemptions. And they also pointed out that annual re-assessments would lead to more gradual and more manageable tax increases for the villagers.

But the Head Elder said no. Rather than make everything fair, he said, he would once again protect the villagers who had lived in the village for a long time. He also wanted to protect all the wealthy villagers. So, he said, after the magicians finish their work, we will limit all increases to 4% at the most. Some assessments would only be increased 1% or 2% or 3%. Some would have no increase at all. But if someone bought a house many years ago and it had steadily increased in value, his assessment would be artificially kept low. If someone had bought property in the last few years and done extensive renovations and increased the value of her property, we will artificially keep that assessment low too. If someone had bought property in a wealthy neighborhood or sub-village and his equity and net worth had gone up drastically in a few years, we will still keep the assessment low. But if someone lives in a poor neighborhood where property values have only crept up, 1% or 2% or 3%--well, that villager must pay his full share of taxes.

The wise chroniclers again pointed out that this was regressive taxation, that this would not solve the long-term problems of the village, that this was unfair to newcomers, that this was arbitrary, and that this was out of step with good government practices across the whole province and the whole empire. But this did not matter to the many happy people who would save money. The happy people forgot that while nobody like to pay taxes, everyone must pay their fair share for civil society to function.

The new people, who had seen their assessment go up 30% RETROACTIVELY TO THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR of the appeal of the elders of Minister Borough, with the approval of the Hearing Walla, could only shake their heads. They like living in Tree Rodent Vista and Minister Borough but they worry a lot about the village elders.

Future Hollywood Producer

I took Daughter to see her first movie in a movie theater yesterday: Pooh's Heffalump. All went well. Daughter's comment after the movie: "I think they should make another movie now that they know the Huffalumps aren't scary and now that they are all friends." (Sorry to ruin the ending for anyone).

Apparently my daughter thinks I have a very bad memory. This morning at breakfast: "Do you remember the Heffalump movie we saw yesterday Daddy?"

Internalized lessons

The scene: Sunday afternoon after theoretical nap-time but before actual nap. The Living Room.

Mother: You need to calm down.
4-year-old Daughter continues to bounce off the walls (not figuratively).
Mother (louder): You need to calm down.
Daughter continues, etc.

Mother (quite loud): You need to calm down!
Daughter: No! You need to calm down.
Mother: You need to calm down.
Daughter: I know: we will take turns calming down.

Father and Mother: peals of laughter.
Baby son (as interpreted from facial expression): huh?