In Defence of St. Anne's JCR
by anonymous email to imc-oxford list | 18.09.2003 10:56 | Anti-racism | Education | Oxford
In Defence of the Junior Common Room of St. Anne's College, Oxford
University, and other British student bodies, against the implication of
anti-semitism by many parties, including, Dame Ruth Deech, currently the
Principal of St. Anne's College and a Governor of the British Broadcasting
Corporation.
University, and other British student bodies, against the implication of
anti-semitism by many parties, including, Dame Ruth Deech, currently the
Principal of St. Anne's College and a Governor of the British Broadcasting
Corporation.
This is an anonymous letter written by a former undergraduate student of
St. Anne's College, who was a member of the college in the early-to-mid
1980's.
Anonymity has been used as a precaution against potential retaliation by
the college senior body in the event of the author ever requesting to study
there again.
I gained a place at St. Anne's and have no regrets about doing so. I had no
bad interactions with the college authorities. In fact, quite the opposite.
I always had the impression that the Senior Members of St. Anne's did not
carry with them any airs and were not officious or obnoxious in the way
that
some of the Senior Members were of some of the more older, more wealthy,
more male, and more well-known Oxford Colleges.
The fact that St. Anne's was pleasant in that regard is a reflection of its
Senior Members at that time, who included Ruth Deech. Ruth Deech is now the
Principal of the College, a member of the Board of Governors of the British
Broadcasting Corporation, and a Dame (courtesy of Her Most Excellent
Majesty
Elizabeth The Second).
I never studied under Ruth Deech. I remember her as a lady who would smile
at one when one passed her in the corridor. I had the impression that she
was a popular, competent, and demanding tutor. If I had known that she
would
become a British establishment figure, and indeed a Dame, then I would
perhaps have passed her in the corridor in more awe than I did at the time.
As one of the songs in the musical "South Pacific" tells us, there is
nothing like a dame, and indeed there is nothing like a British Dame.
The Junior Common Room of St. Anne's in the early-to-mid 1980's probably
closely reflected in party politics the majority of other British student
bodies: it was left-wing and Labour Party supporters out-numbered
Conservative Party supporters. I can recall the JCR passing motions against
apartheid, the policies of the state of Israel, Value Added Tax on books,
racism, student debt, and other bug-bears of the British student left of
the
time.
When I have looked back at my time at St. Anne's I have never been struck
by
the thought that the politics of the vast majority of the student body were
in any way anti-semitic.
Negativity towards the state of Israel was just a part of the political
agenda of the British student left at the time. The same is true today. It
is driven by a political awareness of current and past political events in
the Middle East. It is not driven by anti-semitism.
The BBC's biography of Ruth Deech can be seen at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/running/governors/ruth_deech.shtml
It describes her as being born in London in 1943 and gives a summary of her
academic career.
Not mentioned in the above biography, nor in the similar notes on the St.
Anne's College web site, nor in the main-stream British press, is that she
is an activist and high profile figure within the British Jewish community,
a staunch Zionist / supporter of the State of Israel, and a strong critic
of the British media coverage of Israel.
At the Board Of Deputies Of British Jews' "Seeing Clearly" First Annual
Conference, 21st June 1998, the closing speaker was Ruth Deech who was
introduced as Principal of St Anne's College. A summary of her speech
(primarily on British Jewish leadership and the role of women) can be found
at:
http://www.bod.org.uk/conf0698.html
".calling herself a product of all the Jewish experiences under discussion
during the conference: holocaust survival; poor Jewish education; a youth
movement; a period in Israel; Hillel and university Jewish studies."
". Mrs Deech stated 'we are all relativists in a multicultural society with
no banner of absolute truth to guide us'. She lamented the assimilation and
anti-Zionism of most Jewish intellectuals who dominate university
syllabuses, with very few notable exceptions who combine academic
distinction with communal involvement."
Dr. Yitzchok Levine, 8/13/2003, at:
http://www.jewishpress.com/news_article.asp?article=2727
quotes her as saying (on the attempted British academic boycott of Israel):
""Speaking to the Jerusalem Post on 19 July, Dame Ruth Deech of St Anne's
College, Oxford, said, 'Sadly, it's almost as if anti-Semitism has been
repressed and not respectable for the last 50 years and that effect has
worn
off. Israel has provided a pretext for people with that sort of feeling.
One
cannot separate anti-Israel from anti-Jewish, when you look at the result:
as soon as Israel is said to behave badly, the retaliation is to bomb a
synagogue, or to attack Jews in the street.' ""
The site:
http://shamash.org/listarchives/top/top.veschanan-fullstudy.2002
adds to the above quote of her:
"One can name so many countries where human rights have been
denied on a systematic basis.. Israel has been singled out for this sort of
action- why no boycott of Zimbawe or Burma?"
Totally Jewish - News Channel at:
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:h9rId0PepnoJ:devweb.totallyjewish.com
/news/stories/+%22ruth+deech%22+arab&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
stated: "Newly-appointed BBC governor Dame Ruth Deech vowed to fight media
bias against Israel as she collected Jewish Care's woman of distinction
accolade last week."
In the above quotes, Ruth Deech, when speaking within the British Jewish
community, and also when speaking to an Israeli newspaper, is always
referenced as being the Principal of St. Anne's College.
An example of the racist facts of life in Israel (in the academic sphere in
this case) can be seen at:
http://www-e.openu.ac.il/
The Open University of Israel (which is based on the British original of
the
same name). The web site is in English, Hebrew, and Russian, but not
Arabic.
The organisational (i.e.the officers and senior members) structure shown on
the same web site shows no apparent Arabs. Nor does the associated web site
for the American Friends of The Open University of Israel. This is despite
the fact that the CIA World Fact Book gives for Israel-proper (i.e. not the
West Bank and O.T.s) "non-Jewish 19.9% (mostly Arab) (1996 est.)". Israeli
Arabs are certainly taught there as students, and indeed some classes are
taught in Arabic, but Arabs have no significant representation in the
senior
body of the university despite making up a fifth of the Israeli citizenry.
There are plenty of Israeli civil rights organisations and their web sites,
run by Jews, Arabs, and sometimes both, which document racist
discrimination
in the funding of Israeli Arab schools for pre-university age students.
Racial discrimination against Israeli Arabs, in economic, educational,
legal, and other spheres, is a basic fact of Israeli life. It is something
that is not publicly criticised by Britsh Jewish leaders.
For Ruth Deech to say "One cannot separate anti-Israel from anti-Jewish"
carries the implication that the Junior Common Room of her own college, and
other British student bodies, are anti-semitic. This is an unfair and
untrue
implication. It is also misleading as regards the state of British society
and its politics when published in an Israeli newspaper. The first thing
that Dame Ruth Deech should say whenever speaking within the British Jewish
community or talking to an Israeli newspaper, is that Israeli Jewish
mistreatment of Arabs is morally wrong.
THAT would be female British Jewish LEADERSHIP.
ANONYMOUS
EX-St. Anne's College, Oxford
St. Anne's College, who was a member of the college in the early-to-mid
1980's.
Anonymity has been used as a precaution against potential retaliation by
the college senior body in the event of the author ever requesting to study
there again.
I gained a place at St. Anne's and have no regrets about doing so. I had no
bad interactions with the college authorities. In fact, quite the opposite.
I always had the impression that the Senior Members of St. Anne's did not
carry with them any airs and were not officious or obnoxious in the way
that
some of the Senior Members were of some of the more older, more wealthy,
more male, and more well-known Oxford Colleges.
The fact that St. Anne's was pleasant in that regard is a reflection of its
Senior Members at that time, who included Ruth Deech. Ruth Deech is now the
Principal of the College, a member of the Board of Governors of the British
Broadcasting Corporation, and a Dame (courtesy of Her Most Excellent
Majesty
Elizabeth The Second).
I never studied under Ruth Deech. I remember her as a lady who would smile
at one when one passed her in the corridor. I had the impression that she
was a popular, competent, and demanding tutor. If I had known that she
would
become a British establishment figure, and indeed a Dame, then I would
perhaps have passed her in the corridor in more awe than I did at the time.
As one of the songs in the musical "South Pacific" tells us, there is
nothing like a dame, and indeed there is nothing like a British Dame.
The Junior Common Room of St. Anne's in the early-to-mid 1980's probably
closely reflected in party politics the majority of other British student
bodies: it was left-wing and Labour Party supporters out-numbered
Conservative Party supporters. I can recall the JCR passing motions against
apartheid, the policies of the state of Israel, Value Added Tax on books,
racism, student debt, and other bug-bears of the British student left of
the
time.
When I have looked back at my time at St. Anne's I have never been struck
by
the thought that the politics of the vast majority of the student body were
in any way anti-semitic.
Negativity towards the state of Israel was just a part of the political
agenda of the British student left at the time. The same is true today. It
is driven by a political awareness of current and past political events in
the Middle East. It is not driven by anti-semitism.
The BBC's biography of Ruth Deech can be seen at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/running/governors/ruth_deech.shtml It describes her as being born in London in 1943 and gives a summary of her
academic career.
Not mentioned in the above biography, nor in the similar notes on the St.
Anne's College web site, nor in the main-stream British press, is that she
is an activist and high profile figure within the British Jewish community,
a staunch Zionist / supporter of the State of Israel, and a strong critic
of the British media coverage of Israel.
At the Board Of Deputies Of British Jews' "Seeing Clearly" First Annual
Conference, 21st June 1998, the closing speaker was Ruth Deech who was
introduced as Principal of St Anne's College. A summary of her speech
(primarily on British Jewish leadership and the role of women) can be found
at:
http://www.bod.org.uk/conf0698.html ".calling herself a product of all the Jewish experiences under discussion
during the conference: holocaust survival; poor Jewish education; a youth
movement; a period in Israel; Hillel and university Jewish studies."
". Mrs Deech stated 'we are all relativists in a multicultural society with
no banner of absolute truth to guide us'. She lamented the assimilation and
anti-Zionism of most Jewish intellectuals who dominate university
syllabuses, with very few notable exceptions who combine academic
distinction with communal involvement."
Dr. Yitzchok Levine, 8/13/2003, at:
http://www.jewishpress.com/news_article.asp?article=2727 quotes her as saying (on the attempted British academic boycott of Israel):
""Speaking to the Jerusalem Post on 19 July, Dame Ruth Deech of St Anne's
College, Oxford, said, 'Sadly, it's almost as if anti-Semitism has been
repressed and not respectable for the last 50 years and that effect has
worn
off. Israel has provided a pretext for people with that sort of feeling.
One
cannot separate anti-Israel from anti-Jewish, when you look at the result:
as soon as Israel is said to behave badly, the retaliation is to bomb a
synagogue, or to attack Jews in the street.' ""
The site:
http://shamash.org/listarchives/top/top.veschanan-fullstudy.2002 adds to the above quote of her:
"One can name so many countries where human rights have been
denied on a systematic basis.. Israel has been singled out for this sort of
action- why no boycott of Zimbawe or Burma?"
Totally Jewish - News Channel at:
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:h9rId0PepnoJ:devweb.totallyjewish.com /news/stories/+%22ruth+deech%22+arab&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
stated: "Newly-appointed BBC governor Dame Ruth Deech vowed to fight media
bias against Israel as she collected Jewish Care's woman of distinction
accolade last week."
In the above quotes, Ruth Deech, when speaking within the British Jewish
community, and also when speaking to an Israeli newspaper, is always
referenced as being the Principal of St. Anne's College.
An example of the racist facts of life in Israel (in the academic sphere in
this case) can be seen at:
http://www-e.openu.ac.il/ The Open University of Israel (which is based on the British original of
the
same name). The web site is in English, Hebrew, and Russian, but not
Arabic.
The organisational (i.e.the officers and senior members) structure shown on
the same web site shows no apparent Arabs. Nor does the associated web site
for the American Friends of The Open University of Israel. This is despite
the fact that the CIA World Fact Book gives for Israel-proper (i.e. not the
West Bank and O.T.s) "non-Jewish 19.9% (mostly Arab) (1996 est.)". Israeli
Arabs are certainly taught there as students, and indeed some classes are
taught in Arabic, but Arabs have no significant representation in the
senior
body of the university despite making up a fifth of the Israeli citizenry.
There are plenty of Israeli civil rights organisations and their web sites,
run by Jews, Arabs, and sometimes both, which document racist
discrimination
in the funding of Israeli Arab schools for pre-university age students.
Racial discrimination against Israeli Arabs, in economic, educational,
legal, and other spheres, is a basic fact of Israeli life. It is something
that is not publicly criticised by Britsh Jewish leaders.
For Ruth Deech to say "One cannot separate anti-Israel from anti-Jewish"
carries the implication that the Junior Common Room of her own college, and
other British student bodies, are anti-semitic. This is an unfair and
untrue
implication. It is also misleading as regards the state of British society
and its politics when published in an Israeli newspaper. The first thing
that Dame Ruth Deech should say whenever speaking within the British Jewish
community or talking to an Israeli newspaper, is that Israeli Jewish
mistreatment of Arabs is morally wrong.
THAT would be female British Jewish LEADERSHIP.
ANONYMOUS
EX-St. Anne's College, Oxford
by anonymous email to imc-oxford list
