Avraham Oz

[Denis Salter]

      Dear Colleagues, Judith Butler has asked me to circulate this information. Apologies for any
      cross-postings.--Denis Salter.






      Dear Colleagues,   As you know, Avraham Oz is a strong peace activist in Israel who has consistently directed theatre productions which bring Israeli Jews and Arabs together as actors, writers, directors, and stage directors. He writes periodic articles about the violence committed by Israeli troops, and most recently put on a production alternately in Arabic and Hebrew with his company, the Haifa University Theatre Company.  Apparently, the fact of an Arab-language version of the play put the administrators over the edge, and they have now called for his resignation as director and threatened to put the company under suspension and receivership.  Please help me oppose this.  Oz is a courageous activist and a brilliant director, offering a model of cultural coalition at a time and in a place where there are all too few signs of this.


      -Judith Butler


      Please sign and circulate and return your signature and identifying title to performative2003 at yahoo.com.  


      If you wish to write directly to these administrators, their addresses are: 
       
      Professor Aaron Ben-Zeev, Rector, University of Haifa 
      Fax +972-4-8342101, email: benzeev at research.haifa.ac.il 
      Professor Yossi Ben-Artzi, Dean of Humanities 
      Fax +972-4-8240128, email yossiho at research.haifa.ac.il 










      Professor Aron Ben-Zeev, Rector, University of Haifa 
      Professor Yossi Ben-Artzi, Dean of Humanities




              We are a group of writers, scholars, and individuals associated with the theatre, who are writing to express our strong opposition to the suspension of  Haifa University Theatre Company's productions for political reasons.  This  unexpected  closure can only be understood as a political opposition to the Israeli-Arab cooperative productions that have garnered  international respect for the company. 
              We write as well to protest the removal of Professor Avraham Oz as the Director of the Haifa University Theatre Company.  The company has long had a reputation as a model of Israeli-Arab cooperation, and has assumed a stellar international reputation under the stewardship of Professor Oz.  We call upon the University to support Avraham Oz in his current position, and to honor the extraordinarily fine work that he has accomplished there.  From our perspective, it would seem that Professor Oz is being punished for his political views, or for the fact that theatre sometimes foregrounds issues that have complex political meanings, where participation has brought Arabs and Jews together.  We oppose the effort at political censorship constituted by your acts. 
              These acts can only be understood as political opposition to the Israeli-Arab cooperative productions and for the fact that he chose to put some productions on in Arabic as well as in Hebrew. We call upon you to recognize the important work of this company and reinstate the director, empowering him to run the theatre and its highly valued work as he has. This course of action could only be a credit to you and the University of Haifa, and restore faith abroad that Israeli educational and cultural institutions can and do still embody principles of intellectual and artistic freedom. 


". . . From the point of view of a villager in Afghanistan whose family has died in a bombing raid, a villager who has probably never heard of the World Trade Centre, the distinctions between what the US forces are doing and what was done on 11 September [2001] will be academic."--Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, in Writing in the Dust.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Denis Salter
Professor of Theatre
McGill University
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