Tag Archives: Saul Noam Zaritt

‘Harvard Crimson’ Report Fails to Mention Abuse of Harvard’s Name for Legitimizing the Campaigns of Academic Exclusion by ‘In Geveb’

Posted on 21 November 2024 by Defending History

IN GEVEB WATCH  |  OPINION  |  YIDDISH AFFAIRS

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VILNIUS—Today’s comprehensive and much-researched article on Saul N. Zarrit’s tenure situation in the Harvard Crimson fails to make any mention of his alleged instrumentalization (or, in more common parlance, “use as Harvard hit man”) by a retired grandee of the field — himself a sibling of the previous long-time, and illustrious, Harvard professor of Yiddish — in the editing (and providing of apparent “Big H legitimacy”) of the online publication “In Geveb” which, it is alleged, pursues the retired grandee’s vendettas against Yiddish scholars who do not meet with his liking.

After long silence, this journal began to track the disturbing pattern in the section In Geveb Watch. Beyond possible abuse for selective bashing of scholars, there have been questions about alleged distortion (failure to even mention existence of the “other side of the story”) of the late 20th century history of Yiddish Studies at Oxford. In the spirit of constructive response, this journal has constructed an in-progress online library of full scan-ins (gratis) of both the academic and literary publishing output, in the Yiddish language, of the Oxford Program in Yiddish. Work is underway on a parallel page providing publications in English, starting with Origins of the Yiddish Language and Dialects of the Yiddish Language.

Posted in In Geveb Watch, Opinion, Yiddish Affairs, Yiddish at Oxford | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on ‘Harvard Crimson’ Report Fails to Mention Abuse of Harvard’s Name for Legitimizing the Campaigns of Academic Exclusion by ‘In Geveb’

Will Joshua Price, Dory Fox and Saul Noam Zaritt Explain their Notion of a Colleague’s “Characteristic Bravado”?

Posted on 20 June 2019 by Defending History

OPINION  |  IN GEVEB WATCH

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In an otherwise fair and objective listing of academic papers (archived here) recently published in the field of Yiddish studies, Joshua Price, Dory Fox and Saul Noam Zarrit label Dovid Katz’s paper on Yiddish normativism (“The Yiddish Conundrum: A Cautionary Tale for Language Revivalism” in the Palgrave Macmillan Handbook of Minority Languages and Communities) with the rather personalized characterization “With characteristic bravado”… They were (or were not?) aware that the paper expresses academic disagreement with a 1970 publication edited by D. Roskies, among others, but of course they would never abuse the In Geveb academic platform to exact retribution on behalf of a current boss. That would be unethical, unacademic, untoward and for the fragile field of Yiddish scholarship rather unbecoming.

Perhaps the three Yiddish scholars woudl then explain why the views and arguments in this paper contain more “bravado” than the other papers that express robust academic views on their august list?

It seems, incidentally, that the same author’s recent paper “Methodology in Yiddish Historical Linguistics” (in Yiddish with English abstract page, in Jewish Identity and Comparative Studies = Medievales 68), reaches a higher level of inadmissibility, that of remaining unreported, unmentioned, stricken from the record in the leading online survey of Yiddish academia. Do the editors of In Geveb somehow fear a robust diversity of academic views in twenty first century American academia? Are young scholars entering the field meant to remain ignorant of diverse views in a small and fragile field? Or perhaps this exclusion from any listing in any part of In Geveb has nothing to do with authors or their views, but is based on the paper having been published in Yiddish. And if so, is that an appropriate policy for an academic publication on Yiddish Studies (see the final part of the introduction to the In Geveb Watch section).

Defending History welcomes replies to all posts published (list of authors to date). This post is part of the In Geveb Watch section.

 

Posted in In Geveb Watch, Media Watch, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Will Joshua Price, Dory Fox and Saul Noam Zaritt Explain their Notion of a Colleague’s “Characteristic Bravado”?