Notes on the History of Palestinian Toronto

Copies of the Canadian Arab Federation's trilingual newsletter, The Arab Dawn.

A pamphlet of the Jewish Student’s Union of the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation at Toronto University conveys an even greater sense of urgency: 

If you see posters, publications or activists from these anti-Israel and anti-Jewish organizations on campus, report it immediately to the Jewish Student’s Union… [address, directions, telephone]

Included are associations of Muslim Students, non-Zionist Jews, Arab-Canadians, Marxists, Trotskyists, Palestinians, even Moonies and Hare Krishnas. Also targeted for surveillance is Toronto University’s Middle East Group, which represents faculty members with interest in the Middle East. 

Naseer Aruri, “The Middle East on the U.S. Campus,” The Link 18:2 (May–June 1985), 5. PDF.

****

Fred V. Winnett in a 1958 issue of the Canadian magazine Maclean's. Winnett was then Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Toronto.

The appointment of Staples brought a distinct enrichment to the Orientals staff in the University of Toronto for he was the first of its members to have been involved in archaeological work in Palestine. His training in pedagogy made him an excellent language teacher. He had a delightful sense of humour and he had a kind of puckish pleasure in shocking students whom he suspected of undue mental rigidity. He never minced his words, but he was a most congenial companion and he did much to promote a spirit of good fellowship among all the Orientalists on the University campus.

Fred V. Winnett and W. Stewart McCullough, A Brief History of The Department of Near Eastern Studies (formerly Oriental Languages) in the University of Toronto to 1976-1977 (1977). PDF. 

I have returned from the Middle East with the overwhelming conviction that there can be neither peace nor stability in that area until Western support of Israel is withdrawn. There is no other action which will allay the fears of the Arabs, remove the anti-Western sentiment which prevails, and halt the spread of Russian influence… The Zionists depict Israel to Canadian and American audiences as a frontier settlement exposed to the nightly attacks of marauding bands of “Indians" [sic]. But the impression that the visitor to Jordan receives everywhere is that it is the Arabs who live in nightly fear of attack. It is they who are on the defensive.

Fred V. Winnett, “Why the West Should Stop Supporting Israel,” Maclean’s (January 18, 1958). 

****

A copy of the Canadian-Arab Friendship Society's Middle East Digest and Newsletter, established in 1962.

At its last meeting, the Canadian Friends of the Middle East, Toronto Chapter, by unanimous vote became the Canadian-Arab Friendship Society, and will [be] known by this new name in the future. The change was inspired by a number of reasons. One was a desire for complete responsibility for its own acts Another is that some people confused the old name with the Quakers, an association which is cause for pride on our part, but perhaps unfair to the Quakers. Another reason is that the new name is a more honest one than the old, because our interests are primarily in the Arab countries of the Middle East and of North Africa. 

The Canadian Arab Friendship Society is a Toronto group of Canadian from various walks of life whose sense of friendship for the Arab peoples has inspired them to join together for the study of Arab affairs and for the encouragement of good relations and political plain and just dealing between the Canadian people and the Arab nations. If the reader finds these aims consonant with his [sic] own, he [sic] is invited to apply to 20 Veery Place, Don Mills, Ontario. 

Middle East Digest and Newsletter no. 2 (March 1962), 1. 

Some twenty members of the Arab communities of London, Ontario and Toronto demonstrated in front of the Holiday Inn in London during the 27th regional convention of the Zionist Organization of Canada held there, Saturday, April 23. The pickets carried cards calling for peace in the Middle East and justice for the Arab refugees. 

A steady downpour of rain prevented the demonstrators from remaining more than half an hour. The demonstration was orderly, and there was no visible reaction from Zionists at the convention. 

Middle East Digest and Newsletter no. 11 (May 1966), 4.

We believe out annual banquet is now the outstanding Canadian Arab event to be held in Toronto. Despite a howling January blizzard, 142 members and friends came out to hear our guest of honour and speaker, His Excellency, George Tomeh, Ambassador of Syria to the United Nations.

Dr. Tomeh’s clarification of the facts in the question of alleged Syrian incursions into the demilitarized zone between occupied Palestine and Syria. He showed how the Isralis had occupied and were cultivating over 55% of the territory of the zone which, by the terms of the armistice, was to remain free of human use… 

The Ambassador received a standing ovation at the conclusion of his speech. Shouts of “long live Palestine” rang through the roof garden of the Royal York. 

Middle East Digest and Newsletter no. 12 (April 1967), 1. 

****

Salman Abu Sitta at the microphone during the first conference of the Canadian Arab Federation. Ibrahim Salti to his left and George Tomeh to his right. Via this presentation given by Abu Sitta on the Federation's 50th anniversary. Youtube. 

I made contact with other Arabs in Canada who became lifelong friends. In Toronto, I met Jim Peters (Jamil Butrus) and Habib Salloum, whose grandfathers had immigrated to Canada at the beginning of the twentieth century or before. They had taught themselves Arabic. In fact, Jim was a teacher of Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi. I also met Ibrahim and Nuha Salti, recent arrivals from the American University of Beirut, both physicians doing advanced research in Toronto.

Arab communities at the time numbered around eighty thousand people in Canada, the majority being Lebanese. This community was dispersed all over the large country and its six time zones. They had dozens of clubs, societies, mosques, and churches. It was imperative to create a unifying structure to speak on our behalf. It was not easy, but the pull of the catastrophic results of the 1967 war was ultimately unifying. 

In November of that year, we met again in my house and decided to form the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF). Dr. Salti was elected as the first president, and I was vice-president of information. Peters and Salloum took other positions. We started to contact all these Arab groups and we found a positive response, occasionally hampered by local differences of opinion. 

I edited our new publication, The Arab Dawn, in English and Arabic and we held annual conventions in Toronto and Montreal. These actions, of course, attracted the attention of the Zionist groups, and consequently the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), whom the Zionists pointed in our direction.

A member of the RCMP visited me at the university. I treated him as a student and I gave him a one-hour lesson in the history of Palestine. He did not visit again. I started to feel that my telephone was bugged. There were strange characters, certainly not the police, loitering around my house. The RCMP kept digging. In one of our annual conferences, the Jewish press announced that this was a conference aiming to destroy Israel and kill the Jews. I arrived early at the hotel reception desk to start preparations, my briefcase next to me on the floor. I looked around and the briefcase was gone. It had the list of addresses of all Arab societies in Canada. Nobody seemed to be bothered, except me. Half an hour later, the briefcase was “found.” 

Those of us on the executive committee sat in one room to go over the program. We asked for several rounds of coffee. The room service attendant looked tall and athletic, but was clumsy in handling the coffee. His disguise was pathetic. More dangerously, we invited a speaker from the resistance movement party, Fatah. Hani al-Hassan was a long-time student leader in Germany, and he had just come back from an operation in the West Bank with a twisted ankle. We moved him from room to room every night. 

Salman Abu Sitta, Mapping My Return: A Palestinian Memoir (Cairo: American University of Cairo Press, 2016), 220-222. 

The second wave of Arab immigration to Canada after World War II assembled enough individuals from the Arab world to make possible the formation of a Canadian Arab federation comprising member societies and private citizens as members-at-large. 

Before the Federation was founded in November of 1967, there existed a number of societies in the larger centres of Canada. A number of these organizations responded to the invitation of the Arab Society of London to convene in that city in November, 1967, with a view to forming a federation. The Canadian Arab Federation was founded at that historic meeting and the Arab presence in Canada became a force to reckon with for the first time in the history of this country….

We Canadians of Arab origins have been so anguished and dismayed by the immorality of Canada’s approval of a commerce with Israel that a vehicle had to be found by which Canadians could be aroused to realization of their wrongs against the Arabs. Canadians have been so much deceived by Zionist propaganda that they see Israel as a great triumph of western values in the Arab World rather than as a heinous imposition upon innocent people. That much-needed vehicle is provided by the Canadian Arab Federation… 

I regret that space forbids the detailing of the many aims of the Federation. I list here only some of the main ones: solidarity among Arab Canadians; fighting for just Western politics towards the Arabs; the provision of effective pressure on Canadian politicians; the advancement of Arab culture in Canada, and Arab unity abroad; the informing of Canadians of Arab and non-Arab origin regarding matters of concern; the raising of funds for worthy Arab causes in Canada and abroad. 

The first annual convention of the Federation was held in Toronto in May of 1968. The impressive success of this convention on all countries augurs well for development and expansion of the Federation in the future. 

The Arab Dawn 1:1 (October 1968), 1-3. 

On Sunday October 20, the Arabs of Toronto led by the Palestine Arab Club of Toronto, Held a demonstration at the Inn on the Park where Abba Eban, the foreign minister of the Zionist state, spoke to a Jewish organized meeting. 

About sixty Arabs showed up for this demonstration carrying signs which read: 

1. VICTORY TO THE LIBERATION MOVEMENT OF PALESTINE 

2. ABBA EBAN ZIONIST, MURDERER, TO THE GALLOWS

3. EL-FATEH TO VICTORY 

The demonstration carried the Palestine flag and marched in an orderly fashion in front of the entrance of the hotel. Abba Eban was spirited in a back entrance. This Zionist meeting was addressed by Mr. Sharp, Canada’s foreign minister. 

The Arab Dawn 1:2 (December 1968), 10. 

Mr. James Peters, Vice-president of the Ontario section of the Canadian Arab Federation, spoke to the Young Socialist League in Toronto on Saturday, January 11, 1969. He gave an excellent talk on the Arab position via the Palestine problem. Many of the audience supported the Arab cause, especially the Armed Struggle of the Courageous Palestinian People…  

On February 8, 1969, the Arab Palestine Association of Toronto organized a parade, protesting Zionist atrocities in occupied Palestine. The protest march started at City Hall and ended at Queens’ Park where Mr. H. Shahristani and Mr. J. Peters addressed the marchers…

Wednesday, March 19, Professor Marmoora, of the University of Toronto, defended the Arab-Palestine position in a debate before the Zionist students of the University of Toronto… 

The Arab Palestine Association of Toronto held an evening in honour of the battle of Al-Kerama when 150 Al-Fatah Fighters held off a force of 10,000 Israelis armed with all the modern weapons of war. The evening was very successful with many Toronto Arabs attending. Many patriotic poems were recited in honour of the Freedom Fighters of Palestine. Amer Kadaj was brilliant in his patriotic music honouring these fighters of liberty… 

The Arab Dawn 1:4 (May 1969), 11-12. 

Images of the arson at the Arab Community Centre of Toronto from The Arab Dawn 6:2-3 (February 1975). 

ARSON AT ARAB CENTRE

At approximately 3:00 a.m. on Thursday, December 12, 1974 arson was committed against the offices of The Arab Community Centre of Toronto (an immigrant information and community service organization)

This malicious action, though no doubt politically motivated and related to the fact that The Centre is an Arab entity, could not have been more misguided. The Centre is incorporated as a Canadian charitable organization and is being funded by the Department of the Secretary of State, Canada Manpower and Immigration, the United Community Fund, and the Council of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. The Centre is dedicated to aid newcomers and other community members in ways totally related to the Canadian context, and it serves interested persons regardless of class, national origin or creed. Throughout its two-year history, it has helped thousands of persons in need of assistance or information, and has developed important cultural and educational projects.

As such, The Centre is a unique organization in North America and deserves to be considered a model for similar future developments elsewhere. 

From the nature of the damage, it is clear that the action is vindictive and ill-motivated, and is aimed at discouraging even peaceful and local community organization among the Canadian Arabs. The Centre's files were stolen, and several hundred books of a cultural nature in English, French and Arabic, audiovisual material and the office equipment were destroyed. Damage was extensive, and the loss of over $10,000 will only be partially covered by insurance.

ARAB DAWN urges Canadian Arabs to stand prepared in order to defeat the objectives behind this act of violence that is intended to discourage the community. We hope that Canadian Arabs and their neighbours may continue to live in security and peace of mind.

The Centre has been able to restore its information and social services back in order, but much has been lost in materials that has not yet been replaced. ARAB DAWN appeals to the community at large to help The Centre so that it can continue to offer help and to achieve its aim to provide complete facilities to the community. Membership is open at $5.00 per person, $10.00 for family, and contributors will receive a receipt for income tax purposes. Make cheques payable to The Arab Community Centre of Toronto, P.O.Box 204 Station "D" Toronto, Ontario M6P 3J8 (located at 175 St. Clair Av. West, Toronto), and the telephone number is (416) 922-6776.

The Arab Dawn 6:2-3 (February 1975), 2. 

****

Announcement for a film screening sponsored by the Arab Palestine Association in the University of Toronto's student newspaper The Varsity (November 16, 1979), 2. 

Two Arabs were arrested during a demonstration held outside the Sheraton Centre hotel last Thursday night preceding the dinner held by Prime Minister Trudeau in honour of visiting Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

The demonstrators, representing various groups, such as the Canadian Arab Federation, Arab Palestine Association, and the Alliance for Non-Zionist Jews, were there to protest the visit to Toronto of the "racist, fascist, terrorist" Prime Minister of Israel. They shouted slogans such as "Begin Butcher" and "Terrorist Begin Out of Canada"

The group of 400 demonstrators was represented by a spokesman, Khaled Mouammar. Mouammar condemned the Camp David agreements as "a step towards war", as they encouraged Israeli "wars of aggression". He called on the Canadian government to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization, and for the Ontario Government to try Begin publicly as a "war criminal".

Across the street from the hotel was another group of demonstrators, this one in support of Begin, from the B'nei Akiva Jewish religious school in Toronto. Spokesmen Eddie Cohen and David Berk said that the group had arrived at 5:00 in order to welcome the Prime Minister to Toronto. They referred to Begin as a hero and said regarding Israel "the land is ours."

Begin paid little attention to either group. Upon his arrival, he was whisked into the hotel by very strict RCMP and Israeli Secret Service Security.

The Varsity (November 13, 1978), 8. 

Race and Class at Sea

"A flotilla of steamships sailing under the flags of several nations" (1901). Via the Library of Congress.

There were no days off. If you took a day off you were logged for four. One trip in Havana only two of my 18 galley helpers showed up for the evening meal and three of us had to prepare dinner for the passengers. There was only one problem we didn’t have—insufficient stores. Five large freezers were jammed to the bursting point with fresh meats and vegetables and the steward, fully aware that the crew would steal whatever was not delivered to the table, allowed us to feed well. But nine hours a day in a crowded, steaming galley, seven days a week, month in, month out, is work indeed. I never fried an egg or flipped a pancake without wondering “What in hell am I doing here?” One can’t work this way in a militant atmosphere without wondering about the meaning of work, exploitation, and the future—especially when one is 52! 

There were two other conditions on the Polk that aroused my political and social consciousness—the route we traveled and the character of the passengers. The Polk was on a round-the-world schedule, putting into 20 or more ports in more than a dozen countries, territories, and possessions. Usually the tourists, ashore only for the day, headed for the fanciest hotel or shopping district. At our first stop, Havana, they set course straight for the Nacional or Sloppy Joe’s, and spent most of the day in an air-conditioned bar, with, maybe, a daring sortie or two to buy a piece of lace, straw hat, or a bauble. The following day at sea they could be heard “analyzing” the problems of Cuba—the workers were lazy and filthy, the weather was too hot, prices too high, and Cuba was lucky America had taken such an interest in it—otherwise it would be worse off! They learned nothing of this island’s dictatorship which had been completely taken over by American sugar interests; its once rich, multicrop land converted into a one-crop estate which could employ the workers only a few months of the year. An Englishman could have formed equally valid views of America from a day in the Waldorf-Astoria bar!

… Few of the Polk passengers gave any thought to the problems of war or peace. That Korea had been enslaved by the Japanese since 1905, that Japanese armies had already occupied large parts of China, that its military machine had moved into the islands of the South Pacific, almost none knew or cared—they were interested only in the “quaint charm” of Japan, a ricksha tour of the parks and gardens, a visit to the Ginza for bargains, and finally, for no trip would have been complete without it, a visit to Tokyo’s Yoshiwara or Yokohama’s Homoku sections, where numbered 15-year-old prostitutes were exhibited in store windows and could be “ordered” by number for four yen the whole night! This was “doing” Japan. 

By contrast it is well to point out that by 1939 the seamen and West Coast longshoremen had already declared their own strict embargo against the shipment of scrap iron and oil to Japan, while the rest of the world was blithely trading with the aggressor. The bombs that rained over Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, were, in a very real way, our own steel chickens coming home to roost. 

— Hugh Mulzac, A Star to Steer by: As Told to Louis Burnham and Norval Welch (New York: International Publishers, 1963), 121-123. 

The boat wound through the Red Sea showing us the coast of Arabia one side and East Africa on the other. Then I remembered the visit of the Queen of Sheba to the court of the Hebrew king Soloman and also of the commercial and cultural relations of India with Mespotmaia and Egypt through the ages. A young Marathi student was proceeding to Enlgland hoping to compete for the I.C.S. and he began to squeeze something every day from me about Indian history and culture. On September 4, while we were studying together, some Indian Khalasis came with pathetic faces to tell us that a middle-aged Muslim stoker had suddenly died of heat-stroke, and far away from his relatives and friends he was given a sea-burial before our eyes. While such brave but poor Indians were dying by thousands unknown and unwept by their countrymen while serving as galley-slaves, some of the Indian students proceeding to England with us were behaving like real spoiled brats. Their parents must have provided them with fat bank balances and they appeared to be bent on specialising in the art of dressing and spending lavishly. Some of them showed an atrocious temper born of pride, for I was shocked to find two well-dressed Indian students suddenly begin fighting with each other after a short altercation on deck. It was a perfect scandal, making the Indian youths the laughing stock of other passengers. We rushed, however, to stop the fight but it took two full days for their vile tempers to cool down. On September 6, our boat would enter the Suez Canal after dinner and so the first class passengers were entertained to a fancy-dress ball with dances to the accompaniment of war tunes till the boat reached the mouth of the Suez Canal at midnight. 

— Kalidas Nag, Memoirs: Volume One, 1891-1921 (Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1991), 88.

"United States Warship 'Intrepid': Passing through the Canal—not so long ago." Via New Middle East (January 1969).  

The previous year King Farouk, loyal to the west, had been overthrown and a new revolutionary government of Egypt led by President Naguib had taken over. Within the temporary government, Gamal Abdel Nasser was already a strong force. There were disputes simmering about the control and use of the Suez Canal. The bitterness in Anglo-Egyptian relations was already quite strong, though it would not burst into open warfare until three years later. 

So there was some tension as we waited on board, hoping that the Egyptian officers would soon come, as they eventually did, all neatly dressed in well-starched white uniforms. We passengers had formed a long queue from the deck that gave access to the shore, right to the top of the ship. I was sandwiched between two groups of rather loud men talking about the lethargy and other failings of Egyptians, and the gullibility of Egypt-loving Englishmen such as T.E. Lawrence and the archaeologist Leonard Woolley. 

An Egyptian officer came up the steps, stopped and looked at me, and asked where I was from. When I told him that I was from India, he took me straight down off the ship to the line of waiting buses, to join a cluster of people of colour (to use a modern term not then in use) who were getting into them. This was the only occasion in my whole life when my Indian citizenship resulted in favourable treatment at a border control. Since I still have only Indian citizenship, I am very used to standing in long queues at passport checkpoints, answering questions about whether I might be tempted to stay in whatever country it is I am passing through. I did not know how unusual this episode of favoured treatment would be. 

— Amartya Sen, Home in the World: A Memoir (New York: Liveright, 2022), 248-249. 

We had no idea, in any case, that for the next four or five years our little group would constitute with a few rare exceptions the entire complement of first-class passengers on the Compagnie des Transports Maritimes passenger-and-cargo steamers which plied between France and South America. We had a choice of either second-class on the only luxury-liner which worked this route, or first-class on the humbler sort of vessel. The intriguers went by luxury-liner, paid the difference out of their own pockets, and hoped by so doing to rub shoulders with an Ambassador or two and in some way profit thereby. We others chose the bateau mixte; it took six days longer, but we were its masters and, what is more, it made many stops en route. 

How I wish today that I had realized twenty years ago the full value of what we were given! The unbelievable luxury, that is to say: the royal privilege of sharing with eight or ten others exclusive rights over the first-class deck, cabins, smoking-room, and dining-room on a ship built to carry a hundred or a hundred and fifty passengers. We were nineteen days at sea; our province was rendered almost illimitable by the lack of other passengers; our appanage went everywhere with us. After our second or third crossing we came back to our ships, our own way of life; and we knew by name, even before we got aboard, those sterling stewards from Marseilles, with their moustaches and their heavy-soled shoes, who overpowered us with their garlicky smell as they bent over us with suprêmes de poularde or filet de turbot. The meals, planned in any case on a Rabelaisian scale, became even more so from the fact that there were so few of us to sit down to them. 

That one civilization is ending and another beginning; that our world has suddenly found itself to be too small for the people who live in it: these are facts which became real to me, not because of figures or statistics or revolutions but because I happened, a few weeks ago, to make a certain telephone call. I had been playing with the idea of retrieving my youth by a return visit, after fifteen years, to Brazil. The answer was that I should need to book my cabin four months in advance.

And I had imagined that, since the establishment of regular air-services between France and South America, the sea route was the preserve of a few eccentrics! It is, alas, a mistake to suppose that because one element has been invaded the other has been set free.

But in between the marvellous voyages of 1935 or thereabouts and the one to which I returned an immediate “No” there was one, in 1941, which was charged with symbolic meaning for the years to come. Shortly after the armistice I was invited to the New School for Social Research in New York. (This I owed in part to the friendly interest which had been taken in my work by Robert H. Lowie and Alfred Metraux, in part to the vigilance of relations of mine long settled in the U.S.A., and, finally, to the Rockefeller Foundation s scheme for the rescue of European scholars who might find themselves menaced by the German occupation.) The problem was: how to get there? My first idea was that I should pretend to be returning to Brazil in order to continue my pre-war research there. I went to the ground-floor rooms in Vichy, where the Brazilian Embassy had set up its temporary home, and asked to have my visa renewed. The interview was cruelly brief. I was well known to the Ambassador, Luis de Souza-Dantas, and he would, in any case, have behaved in the same way had I not known him. He was just raising his hand to stamp my passport when one of his staff reminded him, in tones of chilling respect, that under the new regulations he could no longer renew visas. For several seconds his arm remained poised, and there was a look almost of entreaty in his eyes as he tried to make his junior turn aside for a moment. My passport once stamped, I could at least have left France, even if I could not get into Brazil. But he wouldn’t; and at length the Ambassador had to let fall his hand wide of my passport. No visa for me; he handed me back my passport with a gesture of distress.

… but I saw myself as marked down for a concentration camp. Moreover, I had spent the previous two years, first in the virgin forests of Brazil, and later in one improvised billet after another in the course of a disorderly retreat that had taken me from the Maginot Line to Beziers by way of the Sarthe, the Correze, and the Aveyron: cattle-trains on the one hand and sheepfolds on the other: so that my interlocutor s scruples seemed to me out of place. I saw myself going back to my wandering life but on the oceans this time, sharing the labours and die frugal repasts of a handful of seamen, sailing hither and yon on a clandestine vessel, sleeping on deck, and gaining in health and strength from the day-long nearness of the sea. 

I did at last get a ticket for the Capitaine Paul Lemerle. When the time came to embark the quayside was cordoned off. Helmeted gardes-mobiles, with automatic pistols at the ready, severed all contact between passengers and the relatives or friends who had come to see them off. Good-byes were cut short by a blow or a curse. This was not the solitary adventure I had had in mind; it was more like the departure of a convict-ship.

— Claude Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques, Translated by John Russel, (New York: Criterion Books, 1961 [1955]), 23-25. 

No Palestinians Involved: An Open Letter to My Colleagues

Palestine Exploration Fund map (1876). Via Palestine Open Maps.

Dear colleagues, 

Since the new Dan David Prize has arrived on the shores of Lake Ontario, I think it’s prudent to think about why and how. 

The Dan David Prize is hosted by Tel Aviv University. From its inception in 2001 until 2021, the prize was reserved for well-established scholars and artists, three prizes of $1 million each were awarded annually according to a theme (in 2014, the medical school’s Peter St George-Hyslop received the prize). In the last two years, the format has changed. Now 9 junior scholars (no more than 15 years beyond their PhD) working in the “historical disciplines” (historians, art historians, archaeologists and the like) are awarded $300,000 each through an open nomination process. This shift is undoubtedly linked to the historian Catherine Hall’s public refusal of the prize in 2016. What junior scholar, Palestinians be damned, can refuse 300,000 U.S. dollars? 

A new academic advisor position was established and a major PR firm, New York’s DKC, was hired by the Prize, which was rechristened “the largest history prize in the world.” The firm has done its job well. Last year the Washington Post dubbed the previously obscure prize a “MacArthur-style ‘genius grant’ for history.” This year, whoever runs the American filmmaker Ken Burn’s Twitter account is busy publicizing the prize. University PR offices of course need no outside incentive to publicize their faculty's awards, so breathless press releases streamed out in an efficient manner from all the awardees' institutions. 

The annual selection committee of 9 scholars is now also widely publicized after the prize’s announcement, their affiliations and visages listed on the Dan David website and posted to their social media with flashy graphics. So each year now, 18 scholars of history are enlisted in a PR project hosted by Tel Aviv University and Israel. Three members of the 10-member board of the foundation are affiliated with Tel Aviv University, including the current president, a former one (Itamar Rabinovich), and a historian. 

Tel Aviv University's campus was constructed on the site of the Palestinian village Sheikh Muwannis. Today, you can host a wedding at the renovated “Green House,” as it’s called, one of the village's only remaining structures. If you look across the street from the house’s rooftop patio, you’ll see the brutalist edifice of the Institute for National Security Studies. Gaze towards your north, you’ll see the buildings of the Engineering faculty. More pressing than the past however—the Dan David Prize after all “celebrates scholars and practitioners whose work illuminates the human past and can enrich public discourse with a deeper understanding of history”—is the future. Tel Aviv University, especially its engineers, information technologists, and Orientalists, is tightly enmeshed in the war-making and intelligence-gathering apparatus of the State of Israel. Its faculty and students collaborate in an official capacity, to give one pressing example, with Elbit Systems, the most high-tech and wide-reaching weapons manufacturer in Israel, producer of the drones which terrorize Palestinians on a daily basis. Needless to say, the University like all academic and cultural institutions in Israel, is the subject of an international boycott. 

Last year, on the same day that the Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was murdered by an Israeli sniper in Jenin, the Dan David Prize winners were paraded on stage in an extravagant ceremony just fifty miles west on the grounds of Tel Aviv University. 

The Dan David Prize, like the Jerusalem Prize before it, serves to legitimize Israel’s presence on the global stage. In 2001, Edward Said wrote to Susan Sontag, explaining what her acceptance of the Jerusalem Prize entailed: “your charismatic presence for the Prize and your acceptance of it is, for the Israeli government, a badly needed boost to its poor international standing, a symbol that the greatest talents in the end subscribe to what Israel is doing.”

I am

Sincerely yours, 

Esmat Elhalaby 

Assistant Professor, History 

March 2023

Read

Hamed Owais, "Dr Mostafa Sweif" (1961).

Read, read, read. Read till your eyes swim; get yourselves right, hold meetings, keep on holding them. To aim high and far is not the problem, for that is not what distinguishes those who accomplish. It is the planning, the organisation, the attention to detail, the tenacity that count. 

— C.L.R. James (1956) 

You gotta study the Qu'ran, Torah, Bhagavad Gita The Bible, Five Baskets of Buddha Zen

And when you've read them shits, read them shits again! But watch what you're repeatin

If you don't know the history of the author You don't know what you're reading!

— KRS-One (1992)