July 1996, pg. 117

Bulletin Board

Compiled by Janet McMahon

Convenings

The Middle East Institute’s ninth annual summer garden series, “At the Gates of China,” will feature the peoples and cultures of Central Asia, with a concert of uyghur music, July 10; a recitation of excerpts from the Kyrgyz epic Manas, along with a performance of music and folk songs, by Elmira Kochumkulova of the University of Washington, July 17; and a showing of dance costumes from throughout Central Asia by dancer Laurel Gray, with a concluding reception featuring Turkish cuisine, July 24. All events begin at 6 p.m. and are free to MEI members, $7 for nonmembers, at MEI, 1761 N St. NW, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 785-1141.

An exhibit of 30 abstract relief paintings by Iraqi-born artist Hanaa Alwardi focusing on the environment in Iraq and the Gulf region during and after the Gulf war will be on view through July 30 at the HA Art Gallery, 225 W. Main St., 2nd floor, Alhambra, CA 91801, (818) 576-0211. Viewing hours by appointment only.

The 34th Annual Convention of the Syrian Orthodox Archdiocese of the USA and Canada will take place Aug. 8-11 at the Assyrian Orthodox Church of Virgin Mary, 644 Paramus Rd., Paramus, NJ 07652.

Publications

A free sample copy of The Muslim World, an academic journal devoted to the study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, is available from Saima Waheed, Hartford Seminary, 77 Sherman St., Hartford, CT 06105, phone (860) 509-9538, e-mail swaheed@ursa.hartnet.org.

The University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, in conjunction with the University of Texas Press, has made available the Turkish novel Istanbul Boy, Part I, by the late Aziz Nesin, on the Center’s Web site (http://menic.utexas.edu/menic/cmes/pub/iboy/iboy.html). The novel, previously out-of-print, is free for browsing; a fee of $7.50 is requested for downloading or printing the text, with any royalties going to the Aziz Nesin Foundation, an orphanage in Turkey supported by income from the author’s works.

Future electronic publications will include titles from the university’s Modern Middle East Series, as well as dissertations and other new materials. Scholars wishing to inquire or submit works should contact Annes McCann-Baker, the Center’s acquisitions editor [phone (512) 471-3881, fax (512) 471-7834, e-mail annes@uts.cc.utexas.edu] or Ali Hossaine, acquisitions editor at the Press [phone (512) 471-7233, fax (512) 320-0668, e-mail hoss@mail.utexas.edu], both at the University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712.

Deaths

Saba Habachy, an oil industry consultant and former Egyptian government official, died June 9 in Cambridge, England at the age of 98. Born in Egypt, he received his doctorate at the University of Paris, taught criminal law at the University of Cairo, and later served as a judge and as Egypt’s minister of commerce and industry. He moved to New York in 1952, and lived there and in Cairo.

Henry Schwarzschild, a board member of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and prominent civil rights spokesman and death penalty opponent, died June 1 in White Plains, NY of cancer, at the age of 70. Born in Wiesbaden, Germany, he lived in Berlin with his family until they moved to the U.S. in 1939 to escape Hitler’s Germany. He graduated from the City College of New York and, in the 1950s, worked with the International Rescue Committee, the American Committee for Cultural Freedom, and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. From 1964 to 1970, he was executive director of the Lawyers’ Constitutional Defense Committee; he joined the American Civil Liberties Union in 1972 and was director of its Capital Punishment Project for more than 15 years, until his retirement in 1991.

Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, a former president of India, died May 31 of lung cancer and pneumonia in Bangalore at the age of 83. A farmer’s son, he was at the forefront of India’s struggle against British colonial rule and, after independence, served as the chief minister of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh and as speaker of Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of parliament. In 1969 he was the ruling Congress Party’s official nominee for the ceremonial position of president, but was opposed by then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, causing a split in the Congress Party. Sanjiva Reddy’s old-guard supporters formed a faction which later merged with the Janata Party. In 1977, that alliance formed India’s first non-Congress Party government, which then elected Sanjiva Reddy president. Following the completion of his five-year term in 1982, he retired to his farm in southern India and rarely commented on politics.

Emile Habibi, the popular Israeli Arab writer whose acceptance of the 1992 Israel Prize, Israel’s highest cultural award, set off a storm of controversy, died May 3 in a Nazareth hospital of cancer at the age of 73. Born in Haifa in 1922 during the British Mandate period, he remained in his country during and after the Arab-Israeli war and establishment of Israel in 1948. A founder of the Israeli Communist Party, he edited its newspaper and served as a member of the Knesset for two decades, breaking with the party when it opposed the Soviet Union’s reforms of the 1980s and backed the 1991 hard-line coup in Moscow. He began writing fiction in the 1970s and ’80s, and his novels, short stories and plays depicting the conflicts of Palestinians caught between their Arab identity and Israeli citizenship were translated into more than a dozen languages, including Hebrew. The PLO awarded him its top literary honor, the Jerusalem Prize, in 1990. Habibi, who continued to write political articles in Israeli Arab and Palestinian newspapers throughout his career, was a staunch advocate of Israeli-Palestinian coexistence, and defended his acceptance of the Israel Prize by saying, “It is indirect recognition of the Arabs in Israel as a nation…It will help the Arab population in its struggle to strike roots in the land and win equal rights.” In his will, he asked that his tombstone be inscribed, “Emile Habibi—remained in Haifa.”

David Ifshin, a Washington attorney and lobbyist for Jewish causes, died April 30 of cancer at his home in Potomac, MD at the age of 47. Before his 1977 graduation from Stanford University law school, he worked on the staff of the 1972 Democratic National Convention and spent a year living on an Israeli kibbutz. An authority on campaign finance law, he lectured on the subject at Yale University from 1979-82, and served as general counsel of the 1984 Mondale for President campaign and the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign, for which he also served as foreign policy adviser. He had been a board member and general counsel for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee since 1985, and also served on the national law review section of the Anti-Defamation League and the national advisory council of the American Jewish Committee. In 1994 he was a presidential delegate to the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian accord in Cairo.