2007 Scholar-in-Residence: Aref Abu-Rabia, 
Professor of Middle East Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Professor Aref Abu-Rabia, from the the Department of Middle East Studies at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, will be in residence at Skidmore from the first of September through the end of October, 2007. While in residence, he will be teaching a 5 week course in the Anthropology Department (AN-251A: Traditional Medicine of the Middle East) and will visit in classes in several departments including Anthropology, Government, Biology, a Scribner Seminar and in several other formal and informal venues.

Professor Abu-Rabia holds a PhD from Tel Aviv University from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, a Masters in Public Health from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and a BA in Education and Hebrew from Ben Gurion University. He has most recently been an Honorary Research Fellow in the Departments of Anthropology at University College London and Huron University in London, and has received research grants to work with The Bureau of Arab Affairs in the Office of the (Israeli) Prime Minister, the Department of Education of the Histadrut (Israeli Organization of Labor), the Israeli Ministry of Science and the Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at Hebrew University. He has served as the Superintendent of Bedouin Schools in the Negev, was an instructor at a Teachers College, and worked in Public Health in the Negev as well. His research interests focus primarily on ethno-botanical medicine, nomadic culture and on the Bedouin in particular.  Following his residency at Skidmore, Professor Abu-Rabia will head to Minnesota to serve as a Fulbright Scholar to the Muslim World at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.

"Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life,"
Sari Nusseibeh, President, al Quds University
Monday, October 15, 2007 - 5:30 pm Gannett Auditorium

An outspoken and utterly honest critic of Israeli and Palestinian attitudes, policies and practices, Nusseibeh openly opposes Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians, condemns Israel for the appalling conditions of its occupation of Palestinian land, and calls upon all to make difficult compromises in pursuit of peace - for which he has been much denounced and more admired by Palestinians and Israelis alike.  His memoir, Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life, is "a deeply admirable book by a deeply admirable man."*                                                    

Sari Nusseibeh is Professor of Islamic Philosophy and President of al Quds University in East Jerusalem; former Palestinian Liberation Organization representative in Jerusalem; Founder of Palestinian Peace Movement “The People’s Campaign for Peace and Democracy;” co-Founder, with former Israeli security Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon, of “The People’s Voice;” recent recipient, along with Israeli author Amos Oz, of the Premi Internacional Catalunya Award for his peace work; and currently a Radcliffe Institute Fellow working on Nonviolence as a Means of Disarming Violence.Dr. Nusseibeh has gained considerable attention with his public criticisms of the direction of the current Intifada and his call for both sides to make difficult compromises in the pursuit of peace. He has played a high-profile role as a leading Palestinian moderate, participating in countless meetings with Israeli peace activists. In openly calling for an end to the attacks on Israeli civilians, he has been showered with condemnations by Fatah leaders and the Palestinain Authority, even as he has been described as "the pretty face of terrorism” by the (now former) Israeli Public Security Minister Uzi Landau, who ordered his offices closed at the university alleging they served as PA offices. Shimon Peres has called him a "courageous and trustworthy interlocutor" and he has increasingly been viewed as among the most important Palestinian voices speaking out in support of peace.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM:  Thanks to a gift from Skidmore alumna Jane Greenberg, through a fund honoring her late uncle Jacob Perlow, the Greenberg Middle East Scholar-in-Residence Program enables the college to bring to Skidmore esteemed guests and scholars who will, through teaching, lecturing and participation in the life of the institution, educate the Skidmore and larger area community on a range of topics concerning life in the Middle East. In addition to supporting the scholar-in-residence, generally a member of the Middle East Studies Department at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, the annual gift provides support for numerous supplementary activities as well. 

Administered by the Office of the Dean of Special Programs, the Program has involved collaborations with academic departments and programs like Government, History, International Affairs, Theater, Anthropology and many others; has engaged student groups and organizations and members of the local community; and has enabled the College to foster on-going relations with vistors who return as lecturers, as instructors and as friends.

This gift represents the second contribution to the college from the Jacob Perlow Fund. In 1983 the college received a gift from the Fund to endow the Jacob Perlow Series, which presents events on topics related to Jewish history, literature, culture and thought.

"How does one regard a good man in a dark time?  With joy, obviously, but also with sorrow.  Seneca said that one must either hate the world or imitate it, but there are few things in this world so stirring as a man who neither hates it nor imitates it, but in the name of what is best in it resists what is worst in it."

 *(Leon Wieseltier, International Herald Tribune)