Bar Ilan University Music Faculty

[yoel <yoel...>]

Members of this list will be interested in developments at the Bar Ilan
University faculty of music.  Bar Ilan is Israel's version of a parochial
university, founded by orthodox Jews and devoted to the marriage of Jewish
orthodoxy and academic excellence.

The music department of Bar Ilan was academic home to a number of Israel's
leading musicians, including composers Andre Hajdu and Edwin Seroussi, both
composers of international stature.  Both these composers have retired,
along with a number of other faculty members, so the department went out to
search for additional members.  After a three-year search, they recruited
three outstanding candidates: Betty Olivera, a world-renowned Israeli-born
composer living in Italy, whose compositions draw extensively on her
Sephardic musical heritage; Dr. Zeev Feldman, an ethnomusicologist
specializing in Middle Eastern music, especially Jewish and Turkish; and Dr.
Jonathan Berger, head of the Center for Music and Computers at Stanford
University.

These appointments went through the usual approval process.  Ms. Olivera
relocated her family from Italy to Israel.  The three were included in the
published curriculum for the department, and students signed up for their
courses.  However, only a few weeks before the opening of the semester, the
Deacon of Bar Ilan informed the acting head of the Music Department that the
three candidates had not been approved by the "Committee for Institutional
Suitability" and therefore could not be employed by the university.

According to a statement by David Weinberg, spokesman for the university,
"Suitability to the institution, in addition to academic excellence, is
evaluated for every proposed candidate; the intent is to evaluate whether
the candidate is antireligious.  This is not an investigation of whether the
candidate is orthodox or not."

However, no one contended that the three candidates were antireligious.  In
fact, the President fo the university, Professor Moshe Kave, never presented
the candidates' names to the committee.  If he had done so, he would have
been faced with an intolerable dilemma: were the candidates to be rejected,
in spite of the clearly demonstrable fact that they were not antireligious,
it would have been a blatant violation of Israeli law, and could conceivably
put the university's government support in jeopardy.

As a result of what was seen as a breach of faith and a violation of
academic freedom, the music faculty refused to open the semester.  It was,
however, a very ineffectual strike: none of the other departments openly
expressed their support, nor did the department itself make any serious
efforts to rally support within or outside the university.  Aside from a
feature article in the Haaretz Magazine section in August, the entire affair
attracted almost no attention.

A week ago the strike collapsed, and the faculty began teaching again.  In
fact, the music department is, in the eyes of many close to it, seriously
crippled; there is no department head, no head of the composition
department, and without any really bright academic stars.

Personally, I feel that what has happened at Bar-Ilan University is a real
tragedy.  If there is one common ground where orthodox and nonorthodox Jews
can meet in this fractious country, it is music.  By rejecting these three
candidates, the university has not only destroyed one of the jewels in its
academic crown, it has struck at one of the only areas of endeavor where the
religious and the secular can really collaborate and build bridges.

At this point there is little anyone can do to redeem the situation.  If you
feel strongly, you might want to write emails to the president of the
university, Moshe Kave ( kave (at) mail(dot)biu(dot)ac(dot)il ), the rector, 
Hanoch Lavee
 laveeh (at) mail(dot)biu(dot)ac(dot)il ) and the acting head of the music 
department, Eytan
Agmon ( agmone (at) mail(dot)biu(dot)ac(dot)il ).

Joel Epstein
Moshav Magshimim, Israel
tel: 972-3-9333316
     972-52-333316
fax: 972-9338751
yoel (at) netvision(dot)net(dot)il

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