PART 8:THEY DARE TO SPEAK OUT PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS CONFRONT ISRAEL'S LOBBY.

THEY DARE TO SPEAK OUT
PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS 
CONFRONT ISRAEL'S LOBBY 
by Paul Findley


CHAPTER 8 

Tucson: Case Study in Intimidation 

In November 1980, Sheila Scoville, outreach coordinator at the University of Arizona's Near Eastern Center, was visited in her office by a short, balding man in his late forties. His immediate purpose was to borrow a book, but as he left he remarked: "I understand you are running a pro-Arab propaganda network." 

The man was Boris Kozolchyk, a law professor at the University of Arizona and vice-chair of the Community Relations Committee of the Tucson Jewish Community Council. Kozolchyk's remark signaled the beginning of a three-year attack against the Near Eastern Center that would culminate in the barring of outreach materials from local public schools and the resignation of the center's director. The attack, orchestrated by local Jewish community leaders, succeeded despite the finding of a panel of nationally known Middle East scholars that charges of anti-Israel bias in the program were groundless. 

The details of Tucson's long ordeal constitute a noteworthy case study of the unrelenting commitment and resourcefulness of pro-Israel activists at the community level. 

The Near Eastern Center, devoted to increasing knowledge and understanding of the Middle East, is one of only eleven such facilities in the United States which receive federal funding. To qualify for federal support, each of these centers must devote a portion of its resources to "outreach" and educational programs for the local community. These may take the form of films, public lectures, information and consultation services, seminars for businessmen, or curriculum development for the public schools. 

Sheila Scoville had been coordinating these outreach activities for the University of Arizona for four years when the Tucson Jewish Community Council began making its complaints. With a Ph.D. in Middle East history from UCLA, she was well qualified for the job and had made the Tucson outreach program one of the most active programs in the country. Scoville, a petite blond in her late thirties, had also co-founded the Middle East Outreach Council, the coordinating body for the eleven Middle East outreach programs in the United States. 

In February 1981, Kozolchyk and three other representatives of the Tucson Jewish Community Council (T.J.C.C) contacted William Dever, chairman of the Oriental Studies Department of which the Near Eastern Center is a part. They told Dever that in their opinion both Scoville and Near Eastern Center Director Ludwig Adamec had an "anti-Israeli bias which called into question their objectivity about the Middle East." Dever said that the authority for the outreach program rested with the federal government, which provided most of the funds. He suggested that the group form an official committee and gave them, in his own words, "carte blanche" to check out any of the Near Eastern Center's outreach materials. He even said that he would "personally remove" from the library shelves any materials which the Tucson Jewish Community Council found offensive. In a later meeting which Adamec attended, the director of the Near Eastern Center responded: "We do not have anything inflammatory or propagandistic. You tell me which books you find that way. I'll look at them, and if I agree I'll tell Sheila to throw them in the wastepaper basket." But Kozolchyk and the others rejected this offer. Their aims were more ambitious. 

Following Dever's advice, the T.J.C.C formed a committee of four women who called themselves "concerned teachers." (Only two of them were actually teachers, both at the private Tucson Hebrew Academy.) Dever then introduced the group to Sheila Scoville and told her to provide them whatever help they required in conducting their investigation. 

Among the four women were Carol Karsch, co-chair of the T.J.C.C Community Relations Committee and wife of the president of Tucson's largest conservative synagogue. Karsch was to join Kozolchyk as a major figure in the attack against the outreach program. The group first met with Scoville and "grilled" her, as she recalls it, about her activities. They asked for a copy of her mailing list and for the names of teachers who had checked out materials from the library. Then the group, permitted to enter the Near Eastern Center after hours, set to work collecting and reviewing library materials. By May, the four women had prepared a "preliminary report." 

Instead of returning to Dever with their findings, the T.J.C.C committee complained directly to the U.S. Department of Education. Carol Karsch wrote the letter to Washington, attaching to it the group's report. The report questioned the use of federal funds to promote outreach "in an area so inherently complex and conflictive [sic] as Middle East studies." 

The report strongly suggested that the ultimate aim of the T.J.C.C was to shut down the outreach program altogether: 

Even if numerous materials were added objectively portraying Israel and her interests, coupled with the removal of objectionable and propagandistic material regarding the Arab viewpoint, the problem would still exist. 

It is the outreach function per se (and not the implementation by any specific institution) which ought to be addressed. 

The Department of Education replied to the T.J.C.C that it was not responsible for the content or scholarly quality of the outreach material, which was the responsibility of the university. 

Accordingly, the T.J.C.C again focused on the university. A delegation from the council visited the office of university president John Schaefer and complained to him of the anti-Israeli bias they perceived in the outreach materials. After assuring the group that all such materials must conform to university standards, Schaefer referred the matter to Dean Paul Rosenblatt of the Liberal Arts College. Rosenblatt arranged a meeting on October 5, 1981, between representatives of the T.J.C.C and members of the Oriental Studies Department faculty. Sheila Scoville was not invited. At that meeting the new head of the Oriental Studies Department, Robert Gimello, suggested that the T.J.C.C "document more specifically" its concerns so that his department could provide a response. At the same time, Gimello agreed to set up an ad hoc committee within the Oriental Studies Department to review the outreach program. 

The T.J.C.C seized this opportunity and, armed with additional library materials, set to work on its report. None of those who reviewed the materials had any academic credentials in the Middle East field. On March 19, 1982, it presented a document of nearly one hundred pages to the university. It included reviews of fifteen Near Eastern Center publications, eight books, five pamphlets and bibliographies, and two teachers' guides. The report objected to one book's reference to Palestine as "the traditional homeland of the Arabs" and another description of the Palestine Liberation Organization as "the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people." It faulted a map for failing to designate Jerusalem as the capital of Israel-even though, of course, not even the United States recognizes it as such-and cited "the pervasive theme throughout most materials that Jews are interlopers in an area that rightfully belongs to the Arabs." 

Among the twelve appendices to the report was a "memorandum of law" prepared by a Tucson attorney, Paul Bartlett. He contended that the outreach center violated the First Amendment to the Constitution as well as eligibility guidelines for federal funds by trying to "eliminate the Israeli point of view from the spectrum of views presented to the public schools and the press regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict." The memorandum contended further that the program violated the constitutional separation of church and state by showing "a religious preference with respect to the Middle East" since it "advances the religion of Islam and consciously belittles the connection between the Jewish religion and the Middle East."

The report was co-authored by Boris Kozolchyk and Carol Karsch, with the help of four volunteers: a rabbi, an agricultural economist who had studied in Israel, and a non-Jewish couple (the husband a lawyer and the wife an elementary school teacher). 

Gimello welcomed the report as a "thoughtful, well-intentioned community response." The ad hoc committee within Gimello's Oriental Studies Department was itself ill-equipped to make a scholarly review of the outreach program, as its five members included a Japanese linguist, an Indian rural anthropologist and Gimello himself, an expert on Buddhism. Of the five committee members, only two had a Middle East background: one a specialist in Arabic literature, and one in Jewish history. Adamec did not participate in the committee's work because he had gone on a six-month sabbatical to Pakistan in January. Sheila Scoville was not consulted. 

After receiving the T.J.C.C report in March, the ad hoc committee met regularly for two months to review the materials it criticized and to try to decide what to do about it. In May, 1982, as the academic year drew to a close with the work still unfinished and several members of the committee due to leave for the summer, the committee adopted an interim response that shocked many: "Pending, and without prejudice to, the final resolution of our deliberations, the Near East Center's outreach program will suspend its distribution of materials to elementary and secondary schools." 

The suspension of the outreach program was an unexpected victory for the T.J.C.C, which named Kozolchyk and Karsch "Man and Woman of the Year" at its annual awards dinner in June. The four volunteers who had helped them were also presented with "Special Recognition" awards for their "scholarly and objective analyses." 

But the victory celebration proved to be premature. When Near East Center Director Ludwig Adamec returned from Pakistan in mid August, he was incensed at the action of the Oriental Studies Department. He dispatched a memo to all department faculty drawing their attention to the T.J.C.C campaign against the outreach program and to the ad hoc committee's action. The T.J.C.C report, he said, was not scholarly and was replete with ad hominem attacks, false issues and innuendo. Adamec said the closing of the outreach program was ill advised, premature and done without the committee's consulting expert opinion: "It is utterly inappropriate that a committee of scholars without expertise in the field" judge the matter. 

Adamec's annoyance increased when he saw the headlines in an early September issue of the student newspaper: "Interim Report: Department Drops Anti-Israel Materials." In a statement to the editor of the student newspaper, Adamec wrote: 

Our center does not contain any "anti-Israel'' materials; it contains books and other items which discuss the Middle East, including Israel..... Our books have been selected on the basis of expert recommendation and it would not be feasible to proceed in a manner different from, let's say, the university library, which does not endorse the material contained on its shelves. 

Naturally, we want to enjoy the friendship and support of all segments of the community in Arizona and therefore we give serious consideration to the concerns of all. I do not think there is any need to make sensational copy about an issue which has now been resolved. 

But the issue was far from resolved. With strong encouragement from Adamec, Gimello prepared a memo reversing the suspension of the Outreach Center and containing the ad hoc committee's "Final Response" to the T.J.C.C report. After acknowledging the right of community groups to comment on and criticize the university's outreach program, the memo stated that the members of the Department of Oriental Studies reserved to themselves the final authority to evaluate the academic merit of any of their programs. The memo took "strong exception" to T.J.C.C personal criticism of Sheila Scoville and Ludwig Adamec and, in particular, "the attribution to them of certain political biases": 

It happens that both scholars deny the accusations in question, but more important than the truth or falsity of the accusations is· the fact that they are irrelevant and out of order. Members of our department are entitled to whatever political views they may choose to hold ••• The university in any free and open society is by design an arena of dispute and contention, and it does not cease to be such an arena when it engages in community outreach ••• For all of these reasons, we have resolved not to close our outreach program. Neither will we discard any of the books we use in that program, or keep them under lock and key, or burn them. 

The memo stressed the need to offer the community a variety of opinions on the Middle East, "a variety with which any citizen must be familiar before he can responsibly, intelligently and freely formulate his own opinions," The ad hoc committee found, however. "in the whole array of the program's holdings, no general pattern of political discrimination and no evidence that political palatability, to any group, has ever been used as a criterion in the selection of materials." 

The T.J.C.C had contended that the materials used in the outreach program, while suitable for use within the university, were inappropriate for use in elementary and secondary schools because younger students lacked the sophistication to understand them. Gimello's memo pointed out that the immediate clientele of the Outreach Center was not the students but their teachers and that the final decisions as to which materials were suitable for their younger charges should be left up to the teachers. 

Carol Karsch then launched a personal attack on William Dever, Gimello's predecessor as head of the Oriental Studies Department. Dever was an archaeologist who had done much digging in Israel. He had returned in August from a year's sabbatical in Israel and was dependent on Israeli goodwill for much of his archaeological research. In late October, three weeks after receiving the department's "Final Response," Karsch told Shalom Paul, a visiting Israeli professor about to return to Tel Aviv, that Dever was no longer a friend of Israel. Karsch told Paul to go back and spread the word so that Dever would "never again dig in Israel." Karsch did not realize that Professor Paul was a close friend of Dever's and had no intention of carrying such a message back to Israel. Instead, he got word back to Dever of his conversation with Karsch before leaving Thcson. 

With this information, Dever sent Mrs. Karsch an angry letter saying, in part: 

I have reason to believe that you (and perhaps others) have attempted to implicate me in charges of: (1) obstructing the Jewish Community Council's "investigation" of this department's outreach program while I was Head; (2) threatening to undermine the Judaic Studies Program if you pursued your investigation; (3) instigating the reopening of the outreach program when I returned from Israel last August; and (4) participating in a deliberate arrangement to keep Jewish faculty from serving on the department's newly-appointed committee to oversee the Near East Center and its outreach program. I have also learned from more than one recent, direct source that I have now been labeled publicly in the Jewish Community as 'anti-Zionist' and even 'antisemitic.' 

Dever denied all of the charges and said that ''far from obstructing your investigation, the record will show that I was both candid and cooperative-which neither you nor other members of your group have been." Noting that his research, professional standing and livelihood had been jeopardized, Dever told Karsch that he considered the attack grounds for legal action and signed his letter: "Awaiting your response, William Dever." 

There was no response. Instead, Carol Karsch and Boris Kozolchyk sent to the university a scathing "Reply to the Department of Oriental Studies' Final Response," calling that document a "smokescreen" and demanding that the department rebut the T.J.C.C charges point by point. Once again, the department agreed to accommodate the T.J.C.C. From December 10 to December 29, 1982, Middle East area faculty drafted a 330-page "Extended and Detailed Response to the Tucson Jewish Community Council's Report on Middle East Outreach at the University of Arizona." The document was presented to the new university president, Henry Koffler, who had succeeded Schaefer in September.

Outside Experts Get Sidetracked 

President Koffler was new to Tucson and was desirous of integrating himself with the community. He had addressed a meeting of Haddasah, the women's Zionist organization, within a few months of his arrival. Instead of endorsing the Oriental Studies Department's report, he decided to bring to Tuscon a panel of Middle East scholars from around the country who would investigate the T.J.C.C charges, review the outreach materials, and serve as arbiters of the dispute. 

Koffler asked the T.J.C.C and the Oriental Studies Department each to present a list of eight scholars. Each side could then veto half of the other side's choices. From the final list of eight scholars Koffler selected four: Richard Frye of Harvard, Carl Brown of Princeton, William Brinner of Berkeley and Nahum Glatzer of Boston University. It was agreed that the four scholars would meet in Tucson from July 29 to August 1, 1983 to examine the charges against the outreach program and to decide whether each item of material contested by the T.J.C.C was "essentially scholarly or essentially propagandistic." 

In the meantime, Koffler ordered the faculty and staff of the Department of Oriental Studies not to speak to the press or to take the matter outside the university. The T.J.C.C, not content to await the decision of the scholars, observed no such discretion. 

First, with the help of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council in New York, the T.J.C.C again brought the matter to the attention of the U.S. Department of Education in Washington. The associate director of the New York organization sent a letter to Edward Elmendorf, assistant secretary for post secondary education, repeating the T.J.C.C's objections to the outreach program. The T.J.C.C sent a copy of its report attacking the program to Elmendorf and to U.S. Representative lames McNulty and U.S. Senator Dennis DeConcini, both of Arizona. In a letter to the DOE, DeConcini said that if the T.J.C.C's charges were correct, "then the federal funding from the Department of Education for this type of project should be terminated immediately." The Senator from Arizona asked in his letter for a complete federal investigation of the charges. 

Responding to the two Congressmen, the Department of Education pointed out that it was federal policy to leave the evaluation of publications and other academic materials to "normal academic channels" and that the impending meeting of the panel of experts "should lead to a mutually satisfactory resolution of this matter." 

When Adamec learned of the steps the T.J.C.C had taken, he sent a letter to President Koffler in which he suggested that Koffler ask the T.J.C.C why it carried its complaint outside the university after agreeing to Koffler's arbitration efforts. Adamec also questioned the motivation for the T.J.C.C action "at a time when our application for [renewal of federal] funding in national competition is being decided." He suggested that "our accusers want to hurt our chances of being selected." 

When, despite these efforts, the center received its federal funding for the following academic year, Senator DeConcini and Representative McNulty wrote jointly to U.S. Secretary of Education Terrence Bell complaining that the "funding cycle had been completed" without the peer review group's being provided with the T.J.C.C report documenting "possible propagandizing through the outreach program." They appealed to Bell, "as the only official who can temporarily halt the funding," to do so and to order the complete investigation that DeConcini had earlier requested. 

Secretary Bell responded to the two Congressmen with a letter stating that "Federal interference would be unwarranted and illegal." Wrote Bell: "Questions of academic freedom as well as of state and local control of education also enter in here." Despite his generally firm position on the matter, Bell did seek to appease the indignant Congressmen by informing them that he would "encourage the university to suspend its dissemination of the contested materials pending the outcome of the local committee proceedings." 

While the T.J.C.C was enlisting the aid of Congress, Ludwig Adamec learned that he was being attacked by Boris Kozolchyk. In a letter to university President Koffler, Adamec charged that Kozolchyk had made "untrue statements about my background and personal life. " In particular, he wrote, Kozolchyk had told members of the university's Department of Judaic Studies that Adamec was "a member of the German Wehrmacht during World War II." He had also told Professor Dever that Adamec had been "arrested as a Nazi." Finally, Kozolchyk claimed that Adamec had, at a public gathering, characterized Israel as a "pirate state." Adamec had in fact been arrested as a teenager by the Nazis for trying to escape into Switzerland from his native Austria. After a year and a half in jail, he was sent to a concentration camp where he remained until the end of the war. In his letter, he simply said that all of the charges were ridiculous and wrote: 

I do not know Dr. Kozolchyk and cannot imagine what is the purpose of these slanderous remarks other than to make me appear unfit to carry out my duties as a professor of Middle East studies and as director of the Near East Center, which I have founded and managed since 1975. 

He asked· that the university's grievance committee reprimand Kozolchyk and require him to desist from his defamatory campaign. 

But Kozolchyk and the T.J.C.C were not to be deterred. Having failed to get satisfaction from Washington, they turned their attention to the local community and, in particular, the local school district. In May 1983, the T.J.C.C delivered a copy of its attack on the outreach program to Jack Murrieta, assistant superintendent of the Tucson Unified School District. In addition, the T.J.C.C made fresh allegations to Murrieta about a new course that Sheila Scoville had taught during the spring semester called "Survey of the Middle East." Without giving the university a chance to respond to the charges, Murrieta sent out a memorandum to the eight high school teachers and librarians who had taken Scoville's course. The memorandum notified the teachers that the school district would not offer salary increase credits for the course "pending investigation" and would not allow textbooks or teaching aids from the course in district classrooms without approval from each teacher's supervisor. 

One of those who received a copy of Murrieta's memorandum was Robert Gimello. The head of the Oriental Studies Department was angered that the school district should take such an action without consulting his department. First of all, the course was new, and had not been included in the original T.J.C.C attack of 1982. Moreover, in a deliberate attempt not to exacerbate the ongoing controversy, Sheila Scoville had avoided the modem period of Middle East history altogether, ending her course with the establishment of Israel in 1948. In a letter to Murrieta, Gimello defended Scoville and refuted the new T.J.C.C allegations: 

There has, in fact, been no discrimination in enrollment; neither the materials used in the course nor the manner of their presentation has been propagandistic in nature; and we are confident that the course violates no federal guidelines. Claims to the contrary are profoundly offensive to us not only because they are untrue but also because they would appear to be part of a concerted attempt to interfere with the free dissemination of information and legitimate scholarly opinion. 

But Murrieta maintained his "lock-out" of the outreach program. The teachers, who had received his memorandum the day after completing the final exam for the course, were enraged and a group of them took the matter to the Arizona Civil Liberties Union. The A.C.L.U agreed with the teachers that the school district action represented "a potential violation of academic freedom rights" and consented to represent them. A.C.L.U Associate Director Helen Mautner met with Murietta and another school district official to discuss the issue. In a letter sent later to the president and other members of the school board, she said she had had the distinct impression that much of her conversation with the school district officials was "full of either deliberate obfuscation on their part or evasiveness." Mautner wrote that she was "dismayed" that the district had taken such action after the employees had finished the course and with what appeared to be "very little attempt to ascertain some facts" or to discuss the matter "with both sides of the controversy." The ACLU decided, nevertheless, to await the judgment of the blue ribbon panel concerning the charges of bias before pressing suit against the district. 

Meanwhile, arrangements for the blue ribbon panel proceeded, growing more complex with each letter exchanged between President Koffler and the T.J.C.C. The list of items which the T.J.C.C wanted the panel to cover included: the outreach materials themselves and their "networking" among outreach coordinators, the choice of emphasis in their presentation and distribution, their effect on children, foreign government and oil company sponsorship, the perception of university endorsement, Scoville's workshop for teachers and her new survey course, the funding, administration and supervision of the outreach program, and the Department of Oriental Studies' defense of the program. 

Koffler decided, with the agreement of the T.J.C.C, that the panel would deal only with some of the items. The university would then carry out a separate investigation of the others. 

On July 15, the University of Arizona controversy finally broke into the public domain. Once again, breaking its word of keeping the matter private, the T.J.C.C had given copies of its report to the local press. Articles appeared simultaneously in the two major Tucson dailies, while a local television program carried interviews with Carol Karsch of the T.J.C.C, Sylvia Campoy of the Tucson Unified School District, and A.C.L.U official Helen Mautner. Meanwhile, the department's response to the now public charges against it remained, as ever, under virtual lock and key. Moreover, under orders from President Koffler not to speak to the press, Gimello, Adamec and Scoville could neither answer reporters' questions nor appear on television programs. 

The newspapers quoted liberally from the T.J.C.C report, including its contention that "a national effort linking corporate and Arab interests was promoting the dissemination of [outreach] materials" and that "the vast majority of materials evinced, to varying degrees, an unmistakable bias and inaccuracy." Carol Karsch informed television viewers of the program's "systematic exclusion of materials on Israel" and said that the outreach program and Department of Oriental Studies were "in the position of being an advocate for one side of a difficult, complex political issue." 

The morning the story hit the press, Sheila Scoville received a number of phone calls from newspaper and television reporters, all wanting the department's side of the controversy. "But I couldn't say anything," recalled Scoville later, lamenting the gag rule imposed by President Koffler. Robert Gimello felt similarly frustrated and finally wrote a long letter to Koffler. He said that one of the several reporters whom he had dodged throughout the day had finally managed to reach him late at night ."It was clear from what the reporter told me-as it is from the article in this morning's Star-that he had in his possession documents of T.J.C.C authorship," wrote Gimello. 

The chairman of the Oriental Studies Department had fended off the reporter's questions "even to the point of not answering when he asked about whether or not we had ever formally replied to the T.J.C.C's report." Wrote Gimello: 

I did feel it necessary, however, to make the one brief and entirely unelaborated observation that the Department of Oriental Studies does not believe that its Middle East Outreach Program reflects the anti-Israeli, pro-Arab bias that has been alleged • • • particularly in view of the fact that the reporter had at his disposal the whole array of T.J.C.C charges and arguments. 

Gimello said that his department had sought to abide by the ground rules relating to the adjudication panel and had refrained from public argument with the T.J.C.C. "The T.J.C.C, however, has not done the same," he wrote. " ... This latest press flap seems to me to be only the most recent in a series of bad-faith actions." 

Gimello said the situation was developing to the considerable disadvantage of his department. "The charges against us have been made public in all their detail and in all their scurrilousness. As a result, I suspect that it will be henceforth very difficult for my colleagues and myself to refrain from making statements in our own defense." The fairness and success of the adjudication process, said Gimello, depended on "both sides playing by the rules." Gimello then stated that the T.J.C.C's charges were not only "untrue and profoundly offensive" but that "they threaten to do us real harm." He ended his anguished letter by suggesting that the mere announcement of the panel procedure was not enough and that something had to be said in the department's behalf. Gimello told the university president: "I now think we stand in need of your support." 

While the "gag order" prevented representatives of the Oriental Studies Department from providing some balance to the press coverage, Tucson's two daily papers did find teachers who had taken Scoville's course and were willing to speak in her defense. One teacher said the T.J.C.C charges "smacked of almost an open insult." Another said that the suggestion that the teachers were being given propaganda that later would be distributed to students "sort of made us out to be a bunch of dummies." She said she was "mystified" by the charges. "I keep thinking maybe we're talking about completely different programs. I haven't seen anything like what they're talking about." Describing herself as "pro-Israeli," the teacher said that Scoville's course had concluded with a short video presentation about the forming of Israel which was "very fair, very balanced." 

One of the T.J.C.C's complaints was that maps handed out during the course did not include Israel. Said the teacher: "Of course the map didn't have Israel on it, because the map was of the Ottoman Empire and Israel was not part of the Ottoman Empire." A librarian who had been enrolled in the Middle East course commented: "If somebody can get to the district and get them to do this without even asking a question, that's what I find frightening." 

With the exception of the article reflecting these comments, however, the press coverage of the controversy just two weeks before the panel of experts was to meet presented the Near Eastern Center in a damaging light. Moreover, the interviews with Carol Karsch made it clear that the T.J.C.C had now totally gone back on its promise to abide by the decision of the blue ribbon panel. In a statement published in the Arizona Star, Karsch said of the committee of scholars: "We absolutely have not agreed to a committee, period." 

Gimello was stunned by Karsch's statement. He told reporters: "I thought we had the agreement with the president of the council some months ago, and if they say there has been no agreement, that comes as something of a surprise to me." In fact, Karsch's statement contradicted assurances given earlier to President Koffler and documented in a letter Koffler wrote to Representative McNulty on April 18: "I persuaded both the department and the council to agree to the rulings of an outside panel of experts," said the letter. 

By July 19, it was clear that the T.J.C.C had managed to persuade Koffler to redefine the panel's mandate. In a joint statement with T.J.C.C President Sol Tobin, Koffler said that the panel was simply one "part of a thorough fact-finding process," and would not make a binding decision but would merely "advise the university concerning the work of the outreach program." 

The four scholars finally met in closed-door sessions from July 29 to August 1. The panel members heard representatives of the T.J.C.C present their charges and then, in a separate hearing, members of the Near Eastern Center defended the outreach program. The scholars drafted their report and transmitted it to President Koffler. They were not allowed to keep copies of it themselves, nor were any copies distributed. 

Then came the bombshell: President Koffler refused to release the panel's report. Instead he appointed, with the approval of the Tucson Jewish Community Council, a University of Arizona law professor named Charles Ares to conduct the "second phase" of the university's investigation. The panel's report would not be released, said the president, until the second phase of the review was completed. 

Scoville, Adamec and Gimello, prevented from seeing the panel's report which they expected would vindicate them, were now asked to cooperate in Ares's wide-ranging investigation of all the T.J.C.C charges not covered by the panel. These included the funding, administration and supervision of the outreach program; allegations of bias and enrollment irregularities surrounding Sheila Scoville's Middle East survey course; and the question of whether the "Extended Response" of the Department of Oriental Studies had been fully endorsed by all department faculty. 

According to Scoville, Ares asked her for copies of her correspondence as outreach coordinator and for copies of financial reports, including the accounts of the national Middle East Outreach Council of which she was treasurer. "He also probed into my personal life and moral character," she said, not wishing to elaborate. From Gimello, Ares attempted to discover which professors had written each section of the Oriental Studies Department's written defense. Gimello refused to give Ares the names. But the last straw for Gimello came when Ares began asking questions about the Middle East Studies Association, an international association of Middle East scholars which has been headquartered at the University of Arizona since 1981. Ares's probings into M.E.S.N's financing prompted Gimello to set down in a letter his strong reservations about the scope of Ares's investigation. Gimello wrote to Ares that he could not in good conscience respond to his questions about MESA and wished to explain his reasons, since "I suspect that, through no fault of your own, you do not fully appreciate what it is you are asking." The letter went on: 

Since the inception of this controversy my colleagues and I have been convinced that our critics' charges against the outreach program were a pretext, merely an opening move in an elaborate effort to control and/or stifle other aspects of our Department's and this University's work in Middle East Studies. Kozolchyk and company have repeatedly denied this, but, frankly, we have not believed them. 

Your questions today about MESA serve only to confirm our disbelief..... Questions regarding the presence of MESA at the University of Arizona, including questions about its finances, are entirely outside the legitimate scope of your investigation and even further afield of the proper interests of the T.J.C.C. I really cannot participate in or abet any effort by our critics to expand their calumny beyond what even they themselves had said were its limits. 

Gimello said that he considered the T.J.C.C request for the inclusion of M.E.S.A in the investigation to constitute "an absolutely unjustifiable attempt both to interfere in university affairs and to abridge academic freedom." 

After learning that an attempt had been made to investigate MESA. the organization's executive secretary, Michael Bonine. wrote a letter to President Koffler which contained even stronger language: 

I am very disturbed at the mere fact that Professor Ares has asked about MESA .... I can only surmise that Professor Ares is asking about MESA due to the urging and pressure of his colleague, Dr. Kozolchyk. Certainly, the TJCC would not mind damaging the reputation of MESA and its position at the University of Arizona. 

The charges of the T.J.C.C are irresponsible and its tactics reprehensible: secret tape recordings; vicious slander and innuendos against the director and outreach coordinator; leaks to the press when it serves its purpose; planting of "spies" in classes; .... slander against the previous head of the Department of Oriental Studies; ... and agreeing to an arbitration panel, but then ... putting sufficient pressure on the administration to extend the scope of the inquiry .... 

What is most disturbing about the last point is the fact that the T.J.C.C evidently has sufficient influence and power not only to dictate the agenda but to change the 'rules' as well. 

Adamec cooperated with Ares at first. but balked when the investigation was extended to MESA and to Sheila Scoville's private life. He wrote to Ares. "It has now become nationally known that the T.J.C.C demanded that Dr. Scoville be fired and the Near Eastern Center be closed because of its purported anti-Israel bias." He said that having failed to make the anti-Israel accusations stick, the T.J.C.C was now resorting to a "fishing expedition": 

It seems not to have occurred to you or to the administration of this university that workshops, classes, conferences, seminars and similar academic endeavors are not subject to political scrutiny .... The blue ribbon panel has met, and we know we are vindicated. A continuation of this investigation is harassment and political persecution. 

Meanwhile, the Tucson Unified School District had launched its own investigation of the University of Arizona outreach program. T.U.S.D Compliance Officer Sylvia Campoy, who had been assigned the task, explained to the press: "We have to adhere to Title VI [of the Civil Rights Act]-that we will not allow bias or discrimination on the basis of race, creed or color." Not waiting for the release of the panel's report, the T.U.S.D came out on September 13 with its own findings. Its II-page report, backed up by appendices taken verbatim from the original T.J.C.C attack, stated: "There appears to be a significant bias in the operation of the Near East Center Outreach Program of a decisively anti-Israel and pro-Arab character." The report charged Sheila Scoville with deliberately avoiding the Arab-Israeli conflict by ending her Middle East survey course with the year 1948: "The choice of dates and texts are [sic] indicative of the tendency of the outreach program's intent to exclude information about Israel as compared to the Arab countries. " 

The report claimed that 

In general, the outreach program appears to constitute unauthorized activities within the district which are of a highly political nature .... The danger posed to otherwise harmonious religious or racial relations among teachers, students, and even parents is serious and altogether unnecessary .... T.U.S.D does not tolerate the presentation of biased materials promoting defamation of a culture, race, sex or religion in order to rectify the image of another culture, race, sex or religion. 

While the panel's findings remained a closely-guarded secret, the T.U.S.D report, like the T.J.C.C report which inspired it, was widely quoted in the press. The Arizona Daily Star, ran the headline "Teaching Tools from U.A Near Eastern Center 'Pro-Arab,' T.U.S.D says." The article quoted the report's author, Sylvia Campoy, as saying that Scoville's Middle East survey course was "blatant pro-Arab, subtle anti Israel," and that "the Israeli government apparently was not contacted for materials:' (on the period 600 to 1948, before Israel existed). The Daily Star reporter did not contact the Oriental Studies Department for comment on the T.U.S.D report, mentioning in the 700-word article only that "officials in the Oriental Studies Department have denied charges of bias and propaganda." 

Adamec again wrote an angry letter, this time to the editor of the Daily Star. "I am astonished that you would print these charges without trying to get the 'other side' of the story," he wrote. He asked how a course which dealt with a period prior to the foundation of Israel could be "biased against Israel." He said the texts used in the course were not "oil company or Arab government sources, as implied in your article" and that there was nothing "improper" in reimbursing the teacher's tuition, a common practice at the university's College of Education. Adamec ended his letter with this: 

We realize that at present Middle Eastern studies is a controversial field, and that people with emotional attachment to one or another faction in Israel may try to influence our activities. As an educational institution we cannot allow this to happen. 

These last lines were edited out of the printed version which appeared nine days later. 

The Tucson Citizen wrote a more balanced article a few days later entitled "Charges of Bias in UA Class Called Groundless." The article quoted Gimello as saying he was "astounded" by the T.U.S.D report, while former Oriental Studies Department head William Dever pointed out that Campoy was not qualified to evaluate the program for any sort of bias. Noting the similarities between the T.U.S.D and T.J.C.C reports, Dever said: "It is the same groundless charges repeated word for word with no hard evidence." 

"No Systematic Pattern of Bias" 

On September 23, after nearly two months of suspense, Koffler released the blue ribbon panel's report. The scholars completely vindicated the outreach program. 

The report found "no systematic pattern of bias" in the outreach materials and "no overt policy bias" in their selection, presentation or distribution. On the contrary, "the selection of the material generally showed skill and good will on the part of the coordinator." The scholars said they were convinced that "the outreach activity at the University of Arizona does not attempt to advance the interests of any political group, state, or states. Nor do we see in the Outreach Library evidence of any effort to detract from any political group, state or states." 

As for the use of some foreign government publications and corporation-sponsored material in the outreach program, the panel found that "these materials are appropriate for use with accompanying explanations" of their nature. In reference to the T.J.C.C's claim that the program improperly attempted to rectify the image of Arabs, the panel found that "there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this approach or activity, nor does the panel find anything sinister in efforts to eliminate stereotyping." Charges that books used or statements made in the outreach program were "related to the effort ... of certain Arab states to delegitimize Israel in the family of nations" were, in the panel's view, "completely groundless." 

The panel refuted virtually every charge that the T.J.C.C had made against the outreach program, conceding only that the materials used in the workshop "struck us as being generally superficial and uninspired." They added, "This was because the outreach library from which the selection was made is unfortunately quite limited." The panel, which had been asked to look into the supervision and structure of the outreach program, also said that "better supervision of the selection and presentation of the outreach materials would enhance the program. Responsibility for the program would better rest on a committee than on one individual." The panel's report contained specific recommendations as to how the outreach program might be restructured so as to become a more interdisciplinary program involving more of the faculty. 

Having responded to the issues put before them, the four scholars then turned to the general matter of academic freedom. This section of the report, some five and a half pages long, was a diplomatically worded denunciation of the tactics of the T.J.C.C. It reads in part: 

The T.J.C.C has exercised its right to question the university and the university has responded fully and adequately. The T.J.C.C is entitled to disagree with the university position and to make that disagreement known. To insist, however, that the case can be closed only after the university takes action in line with the T.J.C.C demands is to cross a clearly demarcated line. It is to go beyond the legitimate right to question and to be informed, moving into the illegitimate demand to control and to censor. 

The T.J.C.C has now reached this line. Pressing its demands further can only be seen as an effort to erode university autonomy, as an attack on academic freedom. 

We accept that members of the T.J.C.C do not wish to attack academic freedom, but in our judgment new challenges will be viewed by the public as harassment. And, alas, for all of us-university and community-the public image will be correct. 

The panel report then defended outreach coordinator Sheila Scoville. In another implicit condemnation of the T.J.C.C, the report said that Scoville had been allowed to become "the issue."

This should not have been permitted to happen, and the damage cannot now be easily repaired. An individual possessing the requisite academic credentials and acting as an acknowledged member of the university community has had her integrity called into question. Not her competence but her integrity. We trust all the parties concerned-even if they cannot agree on anything else will accept that this unfortunate situation must be redressed. Academic freedom is meaningless unless it protects the individual whose ideas or whose chosen field of activity may be unpopular in certain quarters. 

Ares's report, to the surprise of those who believed that Ares sided with the T.J.C.C, supported the findings of the blue ribbon panel. It was released the same day as the panel report. First, in Sheila Scoville's Middle East survey course, Ares could find "no evidence that a specific point of view was advocated or that the instructor sought to shape the participants' lesson plans to fit such a point of view." Ares found nothing wrong with reimbursing teachers for the course and no evidence of discrimination in enrollment. Nor did Scoville, as the T.J.C.C had charged, seek to "replace the curricular processes of a School District." Wrote Ares: "On all the evidence available there is no ground to believe that there were any irregularities in the way the course was arranged or taught." 

Nor did Ares find any irregularities in the funding or sponsorship of the outreach program. While some of the center's funding came from oil corporations such as Mobil and Exxon, Ares found nothing untoward in these general purpose grants. As for the question of whether the extended response had been endorsed by all members of the Oriental Studies Department, this aspect of Ares's investigation had been thwarted by Gimello's refusal to release the names of the authors of individual sections of the response. Ares appears to have realized himself the impropriety involved. He wrote: 

There seems no room for doubt that the response has the full support of the Department Faculty. It has been urged that individual members of the faculty be interviewed, presumably to determine whether they agree with every statement of every book review in it. This seems unreasonable. These are mature scholars of natural independence. Without some evidence that the response is not approved at least by a substantial majority of the Department, an effort to cross question them now would be quite destructive. 

Ares then turned his attention to tapes of Scoville's classroom remarks that had been surreptitiously made by a T.J.C.C "plant" who attended her 1982 teachers' workshop. The T.J.C.C had made a partial transcript of the tapes which they claimed showed evidence of Scoville's bias. They were made available to Ares but not to the panel. Ares wrote:

I discuss these cassette tapes for several reasons. (1) The partial transcript has been circulated but was not considered by the panel. (2) A partial transcript is necessarily selective and would not permit an impression of the overall tone of the proceedings. (3) The tapes were made without the prior consent or knowledge of the teacher of the workshop and this implicates academic freedom even in its most minimal dimension .... Despite grave misgivings about listening to tapes made under such circumstances, I ultimately concluded that the harm that would be done to the credibility of the fact-finding process by refusing to listen, would be greater than the increased harm to academic freedom, much of which had already been inflicted in any event. 

Therefore, I listened to the tapes and read the partial transcript after advising Dr. Scoville that she would also have the opportunity to do the same. She has not done so. 

Ares then pronounced his finding: "Listening to the tapes and reading the partial transcript does not undermine the panel's finding that there was no discernible policy bias." 

Despite the refutation of the T.J.C.C's claims in two separate reports, President Koffler's cover letter summarizing their findings seemed calculated to present the T.J.C.C defeat in the best possible light. In the section of his summary entitled "Findings," Koffler leads off as follows: "The Tucson Jewish Community Council was justified in its concern that the outreach program had not had appropriate supervision." In the next sentence, Koffler actually manages to subordinate the major and critical finding of the investigations to what was in effect a crumb thrown out to the T.J.C.C: "Further, while the selection of the material has not been biased, the panel notes that the printed materials are generally superficial and uninspired." Koffler ended his cover letter with a muffled criticism of the T.J.C.C's attack on Scoville: 

Considerable concern by the [Tucson Jewish Community] Council has been expressed about the integrity of the outreach coordinator. The professional reputation of individuals who work in sensitive areas is always subject to an increased risk of criticism. Hence it is incumbent on any critic to take extra care to ensure fairness in rendering judgments which could be both professionally and personally destructive. I therefore believe it is important that I draw special attention to the fact that the panel concluded that no overt policy bias is discernible in the selection and distribution of the materials by the Coordinator. 

The panel's report and Ares's findings together represented a clear vindication of the Near Eastern center and its outreach program. Of all the many and various changes made by the T.J.C.C, only one was sustained. The program would benefit from restructuring and greater supervision. In fact, the Department of Oriental Studies had already reached that conclusion in the spring of 1983 and was only awaiting the panel's recommendations before implementing its own reforms. Beyond these reforms, Koffler wrote, the university proposed to take no further action. 

Interviewed on television after the release of the two reports, Gimello and Adamec expressed their belief that they had been vindicated and that the affair had now been resolved. Carol Karsch also claimed victory in her appearance before the cameras: 

Oh, the report far from vindicates the Near Eastern Center. As a matter of fact, if you read it carefully, it confirms our concern that it was not managed properly .... The presentation of the Middle East, including Israel, must be accurate; it must be fair; and it must be consistent with our American ideals. This has not been the case. It would remain to be seen how the university would prepare to deal with this. [Damn retard DC]

Another spokesman for the T.J.C.C, Mark Kobernic, was quoted on a radio news report as saying: "We certainly don't believe that there's been any sort of vindication of the program in that it should go on in its present form." 

Carol Karsch also wrote a self-congratulatory "analysis" piece for the Jewish weekly Arizona Post. Asserting that "a grave issue has faced the Tucson Jewish community for the past two years, she argued that 

Our research and that of the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee evaluated the materials on Arab-Israeli conflict as biased, propagandistic and having a strong pro-Arab anti-Israel slant. The panel found that the materials were not scholarly and characterized them as "superficial and uninspired," "lacking in depth," and most importantly, often containing a "point of view. " 

This was apparently Karsch's interpretation of the panel's statement which said: "Although certain passages in the works reviewed might be seen as expressing particular points of view, we find no systematic pattern of bias in the works." Karsch continued: [like I said,she is or was a retard DC]

We must not let ourselves get bogged down in a battle of semantics. Whether to call pro-Arab materials 'biased' or to say that they demonstrate a "point of view," the effect remains the same. 

Then came this startling claim: "The major thrust of Dr. Koffler's report was the admission of an overriding need for radical changes in the program." Karsch concluded by again raising the specter of a national anti-Israel conspiracy: 

Our responsibility in Tucson is part of a national challenge to counter a powerful. well-financed effort to promote the Arab cause while attempting to undermine the legitimacy of Israel. The price of Jewish security has always been vigilance. 

Obviously, the battle wasn't over, although by now it had gone on for two years. 

"It Came as a Terrible Surprise" 

Despite the findings of Ares and the blue ribbon panel, the administration of the Tucson Unified School District met on October 14, 1983, and officially adopted the recommendations contained in Sylvia Campoy's anti-outreach report. Interviewed by telephone after the meeting, Campoy said: "We have totally disassociated ourselves from the outreach program." She said that teachers would be denied salary increment credit not only for Scoville's Middle East survey course but also for any future course offered by the outreach program. No materials from the outreach program would be permitted in the classrooms. 

At a T.U.S.D school board meeting a few days later, both Robert Gimello and William Dever criticized Campoy's report, calling it "shoddy, hasty and one-sided." Gimello told the board: "I hope that district policies are not decided on because of uncritical submission to pressure-group tactics." The school board voted to reinstate salary increment credits to the teachers who had taken Sheila Scoville's Middle East survey course on the grounds that taking the credits away retroactively had been unfair. There was no discussion of future policy, however, or of the T.U.S.D administrative decision to ban the outreach materials from classrooms. Merrill Grant, district superintendent, stood behind the decision and so did the school board. 

Nor were the program's continuing headaches confined to the school district. At a faculty senate meeting, also in early October, President Koffler said that while no bias had been found in the outreach program, the panel did find cause for the T.J.C.C allegation that the program had not been properly supervised. In particular, the panel found that the quality of the program had not benefited from faculty participation. For this reason it had been decided to create a board of governors to oversee the center's operations. Koffler repeated the panel's finding that materials used in the outreach program were "superficial and uninspired" and said: ''A report which points to defects in the quality of the work is scarcely a vindication of the center." 

Adamec was enraged. In a letter to all members of the faculty senate, he said he found the accusation that the outreach program had not been properly supervised "insulting": 

I am an expert in Middle East studies with fifteen books to my name and thirty years of experience in the field .... Dr. Scoville's outreach activities have been praised by officials of the Department of Education as being a 'model program' and it is in good part due to the excellent evaluation of our outreach program that we have won funding for ten years in spite of keen national competition. 

Do we need to be supervised, directed, and governed by a board? As long as the board is a consultative body I welcome its creation, even though the Near Eastern Center is the only center at this University for which such 'guidance' is deemed necessary. 

But it soon became clear that the board was to be more than "advisory." In a memo from the university's acting dean, it was specified that the board would give approval for funding requests and expenditures, select and review personnel in the center, "including the director," review the quality of the center's programs and, in particular, the quality of the outreach materials. It would review and even initiate future plans for the center and "oversee and be involved in all policy matters affecting the center." 

The board of governors set up to supervise the center had only one faculty member from the Middle East area core. Meanwhile, the roster of "center faculty" was augmented, in order to increase faculty involvement, to include professors from the South Asia, Near Eastern archaeology, arid lands, anthropology and Judaic studies departments-and all were given equal voting power. 

In Adamec's view, these measures deprived the Near Eastern Center of the autonomy it had previously enjoyed and were indicative of an attempt to nudge him out of his position. On December 5, 1983, Adamec sent to the university's acting dean his letter of resignation. Announcing that he would leave his position at the end of the fall 1984 semester, he wrote: "After almost three years of political attacks from which we were eventually vindicated, the most urgent task you have assigned to your board of governors is yet another review of center 'personnel,' namely the director and the outreach coordinator." After summing up the measures that had been taken, Adamec said, 

There is no need to further detail instances of what may or may not have been intentional harassment and discrimination against the center and its personnel. My work as center director was a labor of love for which I did not receive any compensation; those who want to see someone else in my position will not have long to wait. 

Sheila Scoville stated that under the changed circumstances she would not work for a new director and so would resign as outreach coordinator when Adamec left. It was doubtful whether, with the departure of Adamec and Scoville, the Near Eastern Center would continue to obtain federal funds. Adamec himself predicted its ultimate demise: "I have a pretty good idea that a year from now there may not be any money for the center," he said. 

And so, the Tucson Jewish community was to have its way.Not only had it effectively crippled the outreach program by getting its materials banned from the classrooms of Arizona's largest school district; it had, with the help of President Koffler, brought about the resignation of the two individuals it had targeted from the outset. 

In an interview, William Dever said that when he heard about the T.U.S.D decision. 

I realized we'd been had. [The T.J.C.C] has endless time and devotion and resources and we don't. We're just a few individuals, acting on our own, taking time from our real work to fight this hopeless battle .... What bothers us is we know that is not an isolated case in this community. The local people have been forced into admitting this is part of a much larger national campaign and we know that other Near Eastern centers have been under pressure. They can say 'We did it in Tucson; we can do it to you, too. ' 

Robert Gimello commented: "This has been an education in disillusionment for me. I had been very suspicious of claims that there was interference by a pro-Isareli lobby in many areas of our public life. But having gone through the last two years, I'm now less suspicious. It came as a terrible surprise to me." 

It was no surprise, however, when the Tucson Jewish community singled out for recognition several of the people prominent in the school district's decision. Six months after Sylvia Campoy issued the directive dissociating the school district from the program, she and two members of the board, Eva Bacal and Raul Grijalva, were honored by the Jewish Community Relations Committees. Bacal, like Superintendent Merrill Grant, is prominent in the Jewish community. At the dinner Campoy was recognized for "leadership in ensuring compliance and equal opportunity." Chairing the event was Carol Karsch, who the previous year had been cited as Tucson's Jewish "woman of the year" for her attack on the same program. 

For Campoy the best was yet to come. A month later, the Jewish weekly announced that she would be the guest of the Jewish community in a week-long, expense-paid tour of Israel organized by Karsch with the support of the American Jewish Committee and the local Jewish Community Foundation. 

It is interesting to note that Karsch and others in the Tucson Jewish community became "vigilant" only in 1981, six years after the Near East Center was founded. That was the same year in which the American Jewish Committee, whose assistance to the T.J.C.C Karsch acknowledges, came out with its report entitled "Middle East Centers at Selected American Universities." Written by Gary Schiff, project director for the "Academy for Educational Development," the report asserts that funding by Arab governments or "pro-Arab corporations" exercises "at least a subliminal influence" on students and faculty in Middle East centers "as well as on the nature, content, and outcome of the programs." 

The Schiff report recommends that universities should exercise "close oversight" of outreach programs. For its part, the American Jewish Committee stated in a press release that it intended to follow up the Schiff report by "continuing to monitor the Middle East centers" around the country, by "collecting and evaluating outreach materials in cooperation with local community groups, teachers, professors, etc.," and by "meeting with university officials to discuss oversight mechanisms and review procedures in case problems arise." The Schiff report refers ominously to the "overall attempt to delegitimize the state [of Israel] ... as prelude to its destruction." 

Observers of events in Tucson saw the T.J.C.C campaign as a test case in preparation for similar attacks on other Middle East centers in the United States. The Schiff report and the cooperation between the T.J.C.C and such national organizations as the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith lend credence to this hypothesis. Other federally-funded Middle East area studies centers are at Harvard, Columbia, UCLA, Berkeley, Princeton and New York University (the latter two share a joint program), and at the Universities of Texas, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Utah and Washington. 

The success of the Tucson attack soon served to encourage moves against another outreach program. During the summer of 1982, Charlotte Albright, Middle East outreach coordinator at the University of Washington in Seattle, was visited by Arthur Abramson of the American Jewish Committee. Abramson asked Albright for a report on the activities of the center over the preceding five years. When she refused, he said that similar reports had been requested from the Middle East Outreach Centers in Tucson and Los Angeles and reminded Albright that the Tucson center had been closed down (this was during the four months of the program's suspension). Abramson further claimed that Jonathan Friedlander, the coordinator of the center at UCLA, had provided him with a requested report. When Albright called Friedlander about this, however, he said that no such report had been either requested or provided. Confronted with this information, Abramson said he had Friedlander's report in his files and would show it to Albright. He never did so. [Typical lying P.O.S DC] 

After attending a 1984 conference for outreach coordinators, Sheila Scoville, her own future clouded by the controversy that had swirled around her, was pessimistic: "The other coordinators think they can work with these pressure groups. My experience is you simply cannot. I fear that in the future outreach programs inevitably will take on a political bias and cease to serve educational purposes." 

One striking aspect of the Tucson controversy was the absence of public opposition to the T.J.C.C campaign within the Jewish community. The comments of one Jewish professor at the university throw some light on the reason for the general reluctance of Jews to speak out. 

This professor told Richard Frye, one of the four scholars brought to Tucson to review the T.J.C.C charges, that Karsch and Kozolchyk had the Jewish community "almost in a stranglehold" and "anyone who speaks against them is speaking against the national organization, the policy." The professor said the pressures on him were "terrible." "After all," he told Frye, "we get our funds, our grants, from various Jewish communities •••• What I am telling you is branding me a quisling." 

Another Jewish professor at the university, Jerrold Levy, was interviewed shortly after the school board meeting and asked about the lack of protest from the more liberal elements within Tucson's Jewish community. He said, "I think everybody's a little frightened." Levy had himself sent letters deploring the T.J.C.C attacks to the editors of three newspapers, but none was printed. He explained his daring: 

I don't depend on Jewish funds for my academic work or for my livelihood. It's the people in the professional classes, doctors, lawyers, who feel intimidated. The friends I have within the [Reform] congregation are very, very close to the chest on political matters. I know a professional man who is very liberal, but now that he's got a well-established business, he's not coming out against the T.J.C.C. There are some concerned people who are not saying anything. We're up against a very well-organized group of co-religionists here. There's some fairly good blackballing going on. 

While Levy· said that a lot of people privately disagreed with the T.J.C.C, he also gave another reason for the lack of Jewish voices raised in protest: misinformation. 

I called two older members of the Jewish community whom I really respect and I said, 'What do we do?' And their answer was pretty generally: 'Where there's smoke there's fire. They [the T.J.C.C] wouldn't have started this attack if there hadn't been something going on.' I asked them what they had read. Well, they'd only read the editorials in the [Jewish] Arizona Post. Nothing else. There's a lack of awareness, a lack of facts. The Arizona Post has published some pretty slanted things. 

Levy said he had tried to reason with both Kozolchyk and Karsch. They responded by inviting him to an "educational series" they were holding on why Jews should support Israeli Prime Minister Begin. 

It was a series of evening lectures which were strictly brainwashing. And at the second one I got up during the discussion and told them the facts that they'd got wrong. They had manipulated maps and all kinds of funny things. And they disinvited me from the group. It's that simple. This is not a group that's open to discussion. 

Levy describes the general atmosphere of Tucson in similar terms: 

It's an awful lot like the McCarthy period. And I include not only the Near Eastern Center [controversy] but the whole line taken on Israel. It's an awful lot like Germany in the thirties, too. It's a lot like what we Jews have been yelling about, that we want to be free from. And then who starts doing it again? It's a very scary business.  

to be continued...next
Church and State