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Hebrew UniversityDebauchery Spreading in the Hebrew University Department of SociologyLast week the Hebrew University's own ethics and discipline committee suspended Ben-Ari for two years from teaching and from receiving his salary, and slapped his wrists in some other ways, like freezing some of his research funds. After this, and 8 years after the original complaints, the Hebrew University has also asked the state Prosecution to reopen their investigation of Ben-Ari. And just hours later, Haaretz breaks the scoop of the Aran Affair.... What did Aran do? Well, he sexually harassed one of his female students, and the harassment was so bad that the Hebrew University itself agree to pay 38,000 NIS (around $10,000) in hush money to buy off the student and prevent her from going public and filing criminal charges against Aran.
Debauchery Spreading in the Hebrew University Department of Sociology The Department of Sociology at the Hebrew University has been in the headlines of the front pages of the Israeli media nonstop in recent days. The department is not only the worst academic disgrace at the Hebrew University, but it rivals the Department of Political Science at Ben Gurion University for the coveted title of the worst academic disgrace in all of Israel. What has just emerged is the newest outrage from the Department of Sociology there, the Aran Affair. This is all a bit ironic because the Hebrew University long was home to the leading department of sociology in Israel, with the great sociological thinkers of the 1950s and 1960s, the pioneers of sociological thought (Eisenstadt, Lissak, and others). But by the 1970s the department was being hijacked by Marxists and far-leftist lunatics. It became home to the late Baruch Kimmerling, a shallow Marxist anti-Zionist fanatic, who fabricated an entire history of the "Palestinian nation," while cheering on Arab suicide bombers and mass murderers. Kimmerling became the symbol of Hebrew University sociological (pseudo-) thinking. Now even Kimmerling has been over-shadowed by the current SWAT team of leftist sexual predator "academics" leading the Hebrew University sociology department. You will recall that the Department of Sociology at the Hebrew University sponsored, approved, and even gave a grand honors prize to the MA student who wrote her thesis about how the absence of rape of Arab women by Israeli soldiers proves that the Jews are vile racists. Her thesis advisor for that was Prof. Eyal Ben-Ari. Starting 8 years ago, the very same Ben-Ari was accused by a series of his female students of molesting them, raping them, extorting them into having sex with him, and penalizing them (such as by withdrawing research fund) if they failed to provide him with what once would be called their "favors." For years the Hebrew University stonewalled and circled their wagons around Ben-Ari, pressuring the students in question to drop their charges, pressuring the police and prosecution not to indict him. Last week the Hebrew University's own ethics and discipline committee suspended Ben-Ari for two years from teaching and from receiving his salary, and slapped his wrists in some other ways, like freezing some of his research funds. After this, and 8 years after the original complaints, the Hebrew University has also asked the state Prosecution to reopen their investigation of Ben-Ari. And just hours later, Haaretz breaks the scoop of the Aran Affair. Before filling you in, let us note the frequent reoccurrence of the nexus of radical leftism in academia with misogyny and molestation of women. Predatory sexual harassment and leftwing politics seem so closely linked in Israel these days that it is almost like that Frank Sinatra song about love and marriage, where you can't have one without the other. The very same people who build academic careers out of posturing their "ethical concern, caring and moral sensitivity" in the form of promoting the leftist agenda in and out of the classroom seem to be the first ones to stalk, molest and sexually harass their students. In the now notorious case of Ben-Ari, he even invented an entire "scientific theory" that serves to justify his debauchery = rape is a form of egalitarianism while absence of rape proves racism. Let us introduce you to Gideon Aran, the latest leftist-cum-lecher to emerge from the department of Sociology at the Hebrew University. He is listed here: http://sociology.huji.ac.il/academic%20staff-eng.html#ga right next to Ben-Ari. Aran claims to be some sort of sociological maven in the sociology of religion, but most of the material by him that I have seen is simply vulgar smearing of religious Jews. Aran considers religious Jews to be fanatics, barbarians. Some of his "academic" work consists of denunciations of settlers as religious fanatics, those he calls "Jewish-Zionist fundamentalists." His denunciation of "Jewish zealotry," by which he seems to mean Zionists and those who observe Jewish religious practices, is his obsession. He has penned a book entitled "Jewish Zealotry." Here is an example of his "thinking:" http://kennedy.byu.edu/events/pdfs/aran_2mar11.pdf . Here you can find an imaginary "dialogue" between women that Aran published as a piece of supposed academic research: http://gas.sagepub.com/content/9/1/60 (note the obsession with "deconstruction"). Naturally Aran is pro-Arab and even pro-suicide bomber. He published an article entitled "The Other Side of Suicide Bombing," from which we learn that he considers suicide bombers to have another side, I guess a sensitive caring and pro-justice side in which legitimate protest against Zionist encroachment is expressed in the form of blowing up school buses. Now, you know what I think of Haaretz, but one thing good that can be said about Haaretz is that they are often willing to bash ultra-leftist anti-Zionist fruitcakes when this serves their feminist inclinations. Haaretz has been at the forefront of "outing" Ben-Ari. And now the feminist big guns at the paper have Gideon Aran in their sites. What did Aran do? Well, he sexually harassed one of his female students, and the harassment was so bad that the Hebrew University itself agree to pay 38,000 NIS (around $10,000) in hush money to buy off the student and prevent her from going public and filing criminal charges against Aran. Payment notwithstanding, the student went public anyhow. She is Ortal Ben-Dayan. She is a proud Sephardic or Oriental Jewish woman who comes from a low-income peripheral area of Israel and is the first in her family to gain college education. She was a sociology student in Aran's courses. She was outraged when Aran repeatedly made snooty comments in class belittling Sephardic or Oriental Jews and she complained to him about those comments. She even published reports in Hebrew on some web sites about how Aran behaved in class. Ironically, those internet postings triggered additional postings by other women at the Hebrew University in the sociology department, and these eventually led to the exposure of the misbehavior of the other predator faculty member, Eyal Ben-Ari. Aran found Ben-Dayan's anger at his nasty anti-Sephardic comments to be endearing, cute, in fact sexually stimulating. He propositioned and had a fling with the student, in violation of strict university governing sexual liaisons between faculty members and students. At some point, Ben-Dayan had enough of the lecher and she dumped him. He continued to "court" her in an aggressive manner and she eventually filed a formal complaint against him with the Sociology Department Chairman Zali Gurevitch. Zali ignored the complain and ignored the repeated submission of additional letters of complaint by Ben-Dayan. Before continuing the story, a side word on Chairman Zali Gurevitch. You will be forgiven if you do not recall this, but Gurevitch, like Ben-Ari, was up to his ears involved in the "Lack of Rape Proves Jews are Racist" atrocity. That thesis was supervised by Ben-Ari, but it was also supported and sponsored by Gurevitch, who funded it when he was director of the "Shaine Center" for research, a center functioning at the Hebrew University. We wonder whether the Shaine family knows how their generosity to the Hebrew University is being misused. Be that as it may, Gurevitch not only endorsed the thesis and its conclusions, while backing Ben-Ari in full. He even recommended the "Lack of Rape is Racism" thesis for a university prize and honors. See this: http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/28129. This is the same Gurevitch who stonewalled the Ben-Dayan letters of complaint about Aran stalking her, and he also backed Ben-Ari and defended him when he was accused of raping and molesting HIS students. Gurevitch was department chair when Ben-Ari charged purchases of vibrators to his sociology research fund, and so evidently approved the purchase! Gurevitch, surprise surprise, is also a leftist. Gurevitch tried to "mediate" between the student and Aran, meaning he tried to convince her to hush it up. Other university officials, including the ombudsman, also tried to hush it up. The university only started taking Ben-Dayan's complaints seriously when she got a militant feminist group to start pressuring the university, the Israel Women's Network. They filed a complaint with the university disciplinary committee, which ended in a plea bargain under which Aran pled to a reduced charge, something like behaving mischievously. The disciplinary committee itself however rejected the plea as too moderate and as a cover-up. It prosecuted Aran anyway, but it agreed to mediation. Meanwhile the university was keeping Aran's identity hush-hush and no one outside the people directly involved knew who the molester was. This week the story was leaked to Haaretz, and Aran's name was made public. It is not clear who leaked. Aran is now on leave at San Francisco State University and he is also teaching a course at Berkeley. Those of you in the Bay Area might want to call him up to get his reaction. Having spent part of my life at Berkeley, I can think of some radical feminists there who could scare a Bushido wrestler and I suggest someone tell them all about Aran!
The Haaretz
scoop on Aran can be read in full in English here:
Hebrew
readers can read more about the story here:
Anyone
wishing to complain to the Hebrew University should go
here: (By the way, in the interests of full disclosure, when I was a young lecturer in Haifa in the 1980s, I dated a woman who was a student in the same university, but she was not my own student nor a student in my own department, and I married her, 26 years ago, before she ever claimed that I harassed her.)
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