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Prof. David Kushner:
Expert on Turkey Reflects on His Cairo Assignment
Nearly a year after he returned from heading the Israel Academic
Center in Cairo, Focus caught up with Prof. David Kushner to
question the Middle East History scholar about his two-year
experience in Egypt in the light of hindsight and the perspective of
time.
He almost didn’t go, he recalls. It was the year 2001, the Intifada
had broken out, and Israel’s cold peace with Egypt was looking even
chillier. Friends, colleagues, and relatives sent disparate advice;
in the end, he decided that the project was worth retaining, “it was
important not to close doors,” and that he could make a
contribution. “Things could only get better,” he told himself. His
wife, Shimona, went with him to organize the Center’s library, “the
only one of its kind in Egypt as a source of research on Israel and
on Hebrew and Jewish culture.”
“What was possible to do, to continue, we did,” he sums up his stay.
This activity involved assistance to researchers and to students,
the primary reason for the Center’s founding soon after the peace
treaty with Egypt in 1982. Kushner, whose area of expertise is
Turkey, was, in fact, the third University of Haifa scholar to head
the Center. Egypt was supposed to open a comparable center in
Israel, but never did.
The Academic Center is under the auspices of the Israel National
Academy of Sciences. It has nothing to do with the Foreign Ministry,
and perhaps for that reason, Kushner could not be drawn into any
political discussion.
“We gave help, no matter the topic,” he said, making it clear that
this assistance extended to topics that may not have shown Israel in
a good light.
Though there are hundreds of Egyptians who study Hebrew and Hebrew
literature, the first year he headed the Center saw few visitors
because of the repercussions of the Intifada. But the second year,
“I felt some improvement,” he reported. “Even researchers realized
that we had no ulterior motive, but to assist [scholarly endeavors].
And they needed us.”
He organized a regular lecture series, even though many Israeli
lecturers were reluctant to go to Cairo because of the situation.
“Actually,” he related, “what people in Israel heard was much
bleaker than the situation was in reality. I had an Egyptian guard,
but I was free to move around where and when I wanted. I didn’t feel
any enmity.”
It helps, perhaps, that the Center is located in Cairo’s Dokki
section, an upper-middle-class neighborhood. Nevertheless, the
premises were inspected every morning before he entered. These
premises are located on the third floor of a residential building
near the Sheraton Hotel. There is no sign on the outside of the
building, where Yasser Arafat’s brother once lived and a relative of
Egyptian president Hosni Mubaraq still lives, to identify the
Center. Perhaps because of different schedules, he never got to know
any of the residents.
He did, though, gain close connection with several researchers,
despite the fact that both “the universities themselves remained
closed to us.”
“In Egypt,” he remarked, “nothing is done secretly. Some people
didn’t want to be identified as having any association with Israel,
so they didn’t come [in person]. But others did, and there were also
telephone calls for information and help.
“We also interested ‘foreigners’—journalists, members of the
diplomatic corps, heads of Egypt-based foreign research centers—to
take advantage of what the Center offered.” This included, amongst
other things, the library, which Kushner’s wife reorganized and
catalogued and which he had linked to library and other Internets
sites in Israel. Toward the end of his tour of duty, local
attendance picked up considerably, he added.
Boycotted by Egyptian radio and TV, the Israel Academic Center
advertised its lecture series and other activities in some
English-language publications, as well on the U.S. Academic Center’s
Internet site.
“Little by little, the Egyptians learned that we Israelis don’t
bite, that we really want to help. Word gets around, and in the end
we received compliments from Egyptians for what we were doing.
Israel looks a little less ugly to them. I hope this circle [of
those who come to the Center] will widen.”
Asked if he would return to Egypt, Kushner replied: “As a Middle
East researcher, I was very interested in living in that culture. I
found it a very interesting country. Its [archeological] sites, its
history—it was all fascinating. The people are very hospitable. Even
when we identified ourselves as Israelis, they did not hesitate to
act friendly toward us as if the so-called ‘Cold Peace’ did not
exist between our two countries. I would definitely return.”
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In
This Issue:
Prof. Aaron Ben-Ze'ev, a Philosopher, Is
Elected President Says Social Responsibility Should Be a Strategic
Goal for the University
President Hayuth’s Last
Report to Governors: ‘I leave behind me … a University that is well equipped,
financially and academically, to meet the challenges ahead’
Prof. Manfred
Lahnstein Re-Elected Chairman of University’s Board of Governors
Executive
Committee Approves New Vice-Presidents
University Confers
Honorary Doctorate on Lord Jacobs, Sammy Ofer, Prof. Bernard Cohen, and Yitzhak
Ben-Aharon
Jacobs Building
Dedicated
Sammy and Aviva Ofer
Observation Gallery Dedicated
Kluger Building Dedicated
Honorary Fellow
Bestowed on Alex Samuel
Hatter, Fraenkel, and
Recanati Fellowships Awarded
Guy Bar-Oz, a
Zooarcheologist, Awarded Dusty Miller Fellowship
Werner Otto
Fellowships
Beijing and Haifa Cooperate
to Help the Aged Tsinghua University Hosts UH Contingent
Prof. David Kushner:
Expert on Turkey Reflects on His Cairo Assignment
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