I’ve been at this since 2003 and one of my biggest complaints, heard much more when I started but still relevant now, is that not enough articulate, knowledgeable people are blogging about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For every Phil Weiss or Muzzlewatch there are ten (or more) Charles Johsnons. Until very recently, almost no academics or policy wonks were blogging on this subject. Now, thankfully we have Mark LeVine and Jerry Haber among others. But there is still a huge skew to the right in the online blog discussion about the conflict. For every Little Green Footballs or Pajamas Media there is a—well, nothing to be frank.
Which leads me to welcome Bernard Avishai to the blog world: baruch ha-ba. It’s probably no accident that he has a new book, The Hebrew Republic, coming out in April and perhaps his publisher advised him to consider blogging. Or maybe he’s been reading Daniel Levy’s excellent, Prospects for Peace and been inspired. Whatever the reason, it’s always great news when someone of Avishai’s stature and commanding intellect enters the blogging ring. We’ll all be the richer for it.
I recently blogged about his incisive column in the Los Angeles Times written with Sami Bahour calling for “tough love” from George Bush toward the Israelis.
Thanks to Alex Stein for alerting me to Avishai’s new blog.
My experience has been that if one assumes that pseudonymous bloggers might be fictional then one is not disappointed when one finds out that they are. Has anyone confirmed that the pseudonymous Jerry Haber is in fact an academic and not a fictional character?
One article he wrote gave me pause. In a posting on Norman Finkelstein the pseudonymous Haber three times spoke of Finkelstein’s “disinvitement.” Now, there is a word disinvestment. And there is a word disinvitation. But there is no such word as disinvitement.
I have a doctorate. So do both my parents. I have spent a significant amount of time around people with doctorates or who were getting doctorates. And I cannot imagine any of us referring to a “disinvitement.”
Not only is Jerry Haber a real person, I know his real name and where he teaches. If you’d read his blog you’d have known that only someone with the academic background he has could write the posts he does. As for coining a new word, you haven’t provided a link to Jerry’s alleged mistake so we can’t confirm for ourselves whether it is real or a fiction you have made up.
I have written this blog since 2003. When you write as many words as I have in a public blog someone will discover at least one awkward phrase or wording that you’d wish you hadn’t written around 3 in the morning when your brain really preferred being asleep. I’m glad you have that doctorate and use it to police those of us who step on the toes of the English language once in a while. But I think the language is strong enough to withstand a few of our mistakes.
Since you asked…
“””Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Oxford Union Brouhaha — Post Mortem
…this is my current take on the disinvitement of Finkelstein and its implications.
…He owes Finkelstein an apology for…offering multiple explanations of the disinvitement…
…But disinvitement at such a late date was scandalous.
“””
http://themagneszionist.blogspot.com/2007/11/oxford-union-brouhaha-post-mortem.html
My observation, for what it’s worth, is that Ivy League graduates who are humanities professors at accredited universities don’t make these kind of errors in English usage. I would certainly be taken aback if I observed if from an Anglophone professor who I knew to exist.
Prof. Haber may exist. If he does I have no interest in knowing who he is. But I wonder how you verified that he is who and what he claims to be.
Well, excuse me Mr. Elitist Snob. You think humanities professors hailing from Ivy League schools don’t make errors of English usage? That is unbelievably condescending and unrealistic as well. Everyone makes mistakes. Maybe Ivy League professors make fewer. But they don’t walk on water.
Besides, this IS a blog we’re talking about. You do realize that, don’t you? He didn’t make this mistake in a learned monograph or writing his disseration. A blog has a different level of polish than other forms of academic discourse. I try to make as few such mistakes as I can here but I assure you I do make them. Despite knowing of your demanding standards I’d be willing to bet you might’ve made a few in yr blog once or twice. It’s human and we all do it. We try not to–but we do.
Jerry Haber & I have exchanged numerous e mails. I know his real name. I know his son’s name. I know where he teaches. I know his Jewish religious convictions. He is a righteous Orthodox Jew. I know where he davens. I think he even told me the town he lives in once. If you think someone like him would engage in deceit then not only are you wrong but you’re–I was going to say something pretty strong, but I thought better of it–let’s just lv. it at that.
In my view Orthodox Jews are as capable of deceit as anyone. Not more. Not less. The same.
Professors, or those who claim to be professors, engage in deceit all the time. My dad had to fire a professor (who happened to be a religious Jew) who claimed to have a doctorate from a major French university. For some reason years later people got suspicious and contacted the university. It turned out that he did not have the doctorate.
Fraud occurs all the time, and it is even more likely to occur when the person in question is a pseudonymous blogger. If something doesn’t look right it may not be. The point is not that the pseudonymous Haber is a fake. He may be real. But we have no way of knowing if his claimed educational credentials are real.
Now, I’m simply exasperated. I didn’t claim Orthodox Jews are not capable of deceit. I told you that Jerry Haber is an Orthodox Jew who is incapable of deceit. Do you understand the difference bet. those 2 statements? If you choose not to trust Jerry Haber or myself it’s not my problem. Our purpose in life is not to satisfy you.
There is aboslutely nothing wrong with being a pseudonymous blogger. It’s a very common phenomenon in the blog world & quite accepted. Since you’re so familiar with academia you might understand why a professor might want to blog w/o using his/her real name. There are numerous cases in which academic bloggers were denied tenure, denied an interview, denied a job because they wrote something in a blog that got them in hot water. Since Jerry is tenured–that part of it isn’t relevant. But the general principle of protecting oneself is relevant. Writing pseudonymously allows you to be freer than you might otherwise be in yr comments about any number of things including politics, academia, etc. And btw, a number of other readers, fellow academics & friends know Jerry’s real identity as well.
Pls. do give this a rest. While I like Jerry very much I feel awkward being put in a position of having to speak for him. Take it up w. him if you have any further problems.
This has got to be the funniest exchange I have read in a long time.
Thanks, Jonathan, for providing me with much needed comic relief. You may be interested to know that the university that conferred my doctorate monitors its alumni, and after coining the word “disinvitement” (a play on words on disinvestment), I received a note saying that I would receive 2 points on my post doctoral record. (If I get more than 10 points in a given decade, the phd is rescinded.) Since my phd is in the humanities from an Ivy League school, they are very concerned about their reputation, especially among rightwing Jews, who are smarting from the fact that their Middle East Studies program is so “obviously” anti-Israel. (He said, tongue-in-cheek)
As for pseudonyms…I have often thought “Jonathan Mark” may be a persona invented by Norman Finkelstein. He only pops on my blog when Finkelstein is mentioned, and then with a vengeance. What’s the deal about Finkelstein
Jerry Haber
Od davar… I was misdescribed by my friend Richard as a “righteous” orthodox Jew. Please replace “righteous” with its synonym, “politically liberal”
I now think that the pseudonymous Haber is a real person who has a doctorate. That’s not to say he’s the sharpest tool in the shed, but he probably doesn’t think much of me either.
“””What’s the deal about Finkelstein”””
What’s the deal about Diskin? What’s the deal about Dershowitz?
That is what people do on the internet. They snipe at Diskin and Dershowitz…and Finkelstein and Massad. Everyone snipes at everyone else. If you object to my sniping then stop your own.
Gosh, Richard, I hope you’re not upset with me when I’ve written in and corrected your name misspellings. (I would never snivel over an ordinary typo, but I do think it’s important to spell names correctly for various reasons.)
As for Jerry’s “pseudonym”, let me play the Devil’s advocate here for a moment:
Perhaps “The Magnes Zionist” is not so much a “pseudonym” as it is a “stage name”, in much the same way that Bono and Sting are stage names – it adds a bit of mystique to what would otherwise be just a normal identity.
Finally, a word for Mr. Mark: I myself am a technical writer, and I often have a need to coin or use words that are not in the dictionary. One wonders where you got your Ph.D. if you were trained to think so inflexibly.
“””I myself am a technical writer, and I often have a need to coin or use words that are not in the dictionary.”””
UVA, December ’87.
Both Mr. Silverstein and I interpreted the word “disinvitement” as being an error. If the pseudonymous Haber’s coinage of the term was tongue-in-cheek then great, but the putative humor of it escaped us and we both interpreted it as a mistake.
The problem with pseudonyms on the web is that we get arguments from authority based on the say-so of the pseudonymous blogger, and we cannot know if the appeal to the blogger’s authority is valid.
Here in Virginia there was a blogger claiming to be a lawyer and pontificating on details of Virginia law. It turned out the kid was 19. I have dealt with a male UK Holocaust denier who claimed to be an American woman living in the California desert.
Online now there is a Swedish neo-Nazi whose son was evicted from Israel during an attempted visit, who calls himself “Yisroel Shamir” (not his birth or current legal name) and whose Swedish-hosted website says “Greetings From Jaffa, Israel!” This individual calls himself “Israel Shamir.”
There are all kinds of fakers and frauds blogging pseudonymously, and we are well advised to be suspicious of the claims of those who engage in this practice. Now in the specific case of the pseudonymous Haber I think that he probably is, in fact, approximately who he claims to be, with perhaps a little puffery around the edges.
But in the absence of the additional information provided on this blog I was right to be suspicious.
By the way, Sting = Gordon Summer and Bono = Paul Hewson. These people indeed use stage names, but their real identities are known. We don’t have to debate whether Summer and Hewson are real people. We know they are. If Hewson says that his father was Protestant and his mother was Catholic, we could if we wished to verify that.
I could not, however, verify that the pseudonymous Haber has a doctorate or is a professor, even if I wanted to go to the trouble to do so (I don’t.) It is a different situation.
Andy: No, of course not. It IS important to spell names right. Whose name did I misspell?
Jonathan, it’s so much fun for a change to have other people sniping at ea. other rather than me. But as referee of this “fight” I remind you that it was you who sniped first. So you have no right to complain about anyone sniping back.
Not only are you insufferable. You are beyond insufferable. Prove a single instance in which Jerry has inflated (“puffery”) himself, his resume or anything else. I have no idea why you have a bee in yr bonnet about Jerry, a perfectly nice Ivy-educated Jewish boy. Your mania for this subject is a bit odd.
And btw, l’havdil elef havdalot btw. Jerry Haber and Holocaust deniers, 19 yr old VA. bloggers & whoever else Jonathan wants to dig up to prove you can’t trust anyone who uses a pseudonym.
Jerry Haber’s identity IS known. Just not to you.
But I can. Now you can trust my word of not. I couldn’t care less. I do find it amusing though that you claim you don’t want to verify that Jerry has a doctorate, yet you seem to want to bitch & moan on the subject endlessly.
But I’m guessing that even if Jerry revealed his identity to you you’d find something else to complain about.
“””And btw, l’havdil elef havdalot btw. Jerry Haber and Holocaust deniers, 19 yr old VA. bloggers & whoever else Jonathan wants to dig up to prove you can’t trust anyone who uses a pseudonym.”””
This thread has provided additional information which suggests that the pseudonymous Haber is real, even if other pseudonymous bloggers are often fictional characters.
What I found initially bizarre about the pseudonymous Haber was his insistance that there was no reason for Palestinians to give up the demand to settle descendants of Palestinian refugees inside of Israel, combined with a demand that Israel allow 300,000 in and a statement that if the Palestinians resume the intifada (did it end?) then he is not in a position to tell them how to resist oppression.
It certainly sounded as if he accepted that Hamas, Fatah et al would attack Israeli civilians if Israel refuses to allow Palestinians to settle in Israel. I found those views peculiar, his language (“disinivitement”) peculiar and thought that perhaps he was not who he claimed to be. That is why I asked how and if you knew he was real.
Richard, the first two parts of my comment were somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Regarding the first part, I was referring to previous posts containing name misspellings (e.g., “Yigal Amin”, “Bob Livingstone”) that I had commented on. I didn’t mean to imply that you had misspelled any names in the current post – sorry for any misunderstanding.
But let me get back to the “disinvitement” brouhaha for just a moment. Jerry states above that “disinvitement” was not a “mistake” but a deliberate coining on his part; in my book, he has creative license to do this, whether the language prescriptivists out there like it or not.
Neither Silverstein or I objected to coinage of new English words. It happens every year, with or without us, and has been going on for 1200 years.
We both thought that the pseudonymous Haber had made an unintentional mistake in his diction.
Now I know that Haber was just making a funny. There, I just ueed a neologism too: “Funny” as a noun.