David Dean Shulman
Encyclopedia
David Dean Shulman is an Indologist and regarded as one of the world’s foremost authorities on the languages of India
. His research embraces many fields, including the history of religion in South India
, Indian poetics
, Tamil
Islam
, Dravidian linguistics
, and Carnatic music
. He is also a published poet
in Hebrew, a literary critic, a cultural anthropologist, and a peace activist
. He was formerly Professor
of Indian Studies
and Comparative Religion
at The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and professor in the Department of Indian, Iran
ian and Armenia
n Studies, and now holds an appointment as Renee Lang Professor of Humanistic Studies
at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has authored or co-authored more than 20 books on various subjects ranging from temple
myths and temple poems to essays that cover the wide spectrum of the cultural history of South India.
Bilingual in Hebrew and English, he has mastered Sanskrit
, Hindi
, Tamil
and Telugu
, and reads Greek
, Russian
, French
, German
, Persian, Arabic and Malayalam. He is married to Eileen Shulman (née
Eileen Lendman) and has three sons, Eviatar, Micheal, and Edan.
, he won a National Merit Scholarship
, and emigrated
to Israel, where he enrolled at Hebrew University. He graduated in 1971 with a B.A. degree
in Islamic History, specializing in Arabic. His interest in Indian studies was inspired by a friend, the English economic historian Daniel Sperber, and later by the philologist, and expert in Semitic languages
, Chaim Rabin
.
He gained his doctorate in Tamil and Sanskrit, with a dissertation on 'The Mythology of the Tamil Saiva Talapuranam', at the School of Oriental and African Studies
, University of London (1972–1976) under John R. Marr, which involved field work in Tamil Nadu
. He was appointed instructor, then lecturer
in the department
of Indian Studies
and Comparative Religion at Hebrew University, and became a full professor in 1985. He was a MacArthur Fellow
from 1987 to 1992. In 1988 he was elected member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
. He was Director of the Jerusalem Institute of Advanced Studies
for six years (1992–1998). He actively supports the Clay Sanskrit Library
, for which he is preparing, with Yigal Bronner, a forthcoming volume.
grass-roots movement for non-violence.
Though he sees himself as a 'moral witness' to misdeeds of the 'intricate machine', Shulman shies from the limelight, admitting to an aversion to the idea of heroes, and gives interviews only reluctantly.
More recently he has been active as a leader of international campaigns to defend the Palestinians under threat of eviction from such villages as Susya
in the South Hebron Hills
, and especially from Silwan
, where they are at risk of being dispossessed of their houses and property by the Elad
, and by archaeologists who wish to raze the area and establish Jewish settlement
and an archaeological zone on what they believe to be the underlying 'City of David'.
, to deliver food and medical supplies to Palestinian villages, while building peace in the West Bank
. The distinguished Israeli novelist A. B. Yehoshua
called it:
Emily Bazelon
, member of the Yale Law Faculty
and senior editor at Slate Magazine
cited it as one of the best books of 2007. In an extensive review of the book in the New York Review of Books, Israeli philosopher Avishai Margalit
cites the following passage to illustrate Shulman's position:
Shulman's book addresses here what he calls a ‘moral conundrum’: how Israel, ‘once a home to utopian idealists and humanists, should have engendered and given free rein to a murderous, also ultimately suicidal, messianism
,’ and asks if the ‘humane heart of the Jewish tradition’ always contain the ‘seeds of self-righteous terror’ he observed among settlers. He finds within himself an intersection of hope
, faith
and empathy
, and ‘the same dark forces that are active among the most predatory of the settlers’, and it is this which provides him with ‘a reason to act’ against what he regards as 'pure, rarefied, unadulterated, unreasoning, uncontainable human evil'. He does not excuse Arabs in the book, but focuses on his own side's culpability, writing: 'I feel responsible for the atrocities committed in my name, by the Israeli half of the story. Let the Palestinians take responsibility for those committed in their name'. Writing of efforts by the IDF
and members of hard-core settlements at Susya
, Ma'on, Carmel and elsewhere who, having settled on Palestinian land in the hills south of Hebron
, endeavour to evict the local people in the many khirbehs of a region where several thousand pacific Palestinian herders and farmers dwell in rock caves and live a 'unique life' of biblical colour, Shulman comments, according to Margalit, that:-
Languages of India
The languages of India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-European languages—Indo-Aryan and the Dravidian languages...
. His research embraces many fields, including the history of religion in South India
South India
South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
, Indian poetics
Poetics
Aristotle's Poetics is the earliest-surviving work of dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory...
, Tamil
Tamil people
Tamil people , also called Tamils or Tamilians, are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka. Historic and post 15th century emigrant communities are also found across the world, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Australia, Canada,...
Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, Dravidian linguistics
Dravidian languages
The Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...
, and Carnatic music
Carnatic music
Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu...
. He is also a published poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
in Hebrew, a literary critic, a cultural anthropologist, and a peace activist
Peace activist
This list of peace activists includes people who proactively advocate diplomatic, non-military resolution of political disputes, usually through nonviolent means.A peace activist is an activist of the peace movement.*Jane Addams*Martti Ahtisaari...
. He was formerly Professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of Indian Studies
Indology
Indology is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent , and as such is a subset of Asian studies....
and Comparative Religion
Comparative religion
Comparative religion is a field of religious studies that analyzes the similarities and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the world's religions...
at The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and professor in the Department of Indian, Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian and Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
n Studies, and now holds an appointment as Renee Lang Professor of Humanistic Studies
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has authored or co-authored more than 20 books on various subjects ranging from temple
Temple
A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...
myths and temple poems to essays that cover the wide spectrum of the cultural history of South India.
Bilingual in Hebrew and English, he has mastered Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
, Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
and Telugu
Telugu language
Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...
, and reads Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Persian, Arabic and Malayalam. He is married to Eileen Shulman (née
Married and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
Eileen Lendman) and has three sons, Eviatar, Micheal, and Edan.
Life and work
In 1967, on graduating from Waterloo high schoolHigh school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
, he won a National Merit Scholarship
National Merit Scholarship Program
The National Merit Scholarship Program is a United States academic scholarship competition for recognition and college scholarships administered by National Merit Scholarship Corporation , a privately funded, not-for-profit organization. The program began in 1955...
, and emigrated
Aaliyah
Aaliyah Dana Haughton , who performed under the mononym Aaliyah , was an American R&B recording artist, actress and model. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in Detroit, Michigan. At the age of 10, she appeared on the television show Star Search and performed in concert alongside...
to Israel, where he enrolled at Hebrew University. He graduated in 1971 with a B.A. degree
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in Islamic History, specializing in Arabic. His interest in Indian studies was inspired by a friend, the English economic historian Daniel Sperber, and later by the philologist, and expert in Semitic languages
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
, Chaim Rabin
Chaim Menachem Rabin
Chaim Menachem Rabin was an Israeli professor of Hebrew and Semitic languages.Chaim Rabin was born in Giessen, Germany, 22 November 1915, the son of Israel and Martel Rabin. He studied first at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1933-1934. He then studied in England, at the School of Oriental...
.
He gained his doctorate in Tamil and Sanskrit, with a dissertation on 'The Mythology of the Tamil Saiva Talapuranam', at the School of Oriental and African Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies
The School of Oriental and African Studies is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London...
, University of London (1972–1976) under John R. Marr, which involved field work in Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
. He was appointed instructor, then lecturer
Lecturer
Lecturer is an academic rank. In the United Kingdom, lecturer is a position at a university or similar institution, often held by academics in their early career stages, who lead research groups and supervise research students, as well as teach...
in the department
Academic department
An academic department is a division of a university or school faculty devoted to a particular academic discipline. This article covers United States usage at the university level....
of Indian Studies
Indology
Indology is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent , and as such is a subset of Asian studies....
and Comparative Religion at Hebrew University, and became a full professor in 1985. He was a MacArthur Fellow
MacArthur Fellows Program
The MacArthur Fellows Program or MacArthur Fellowship is an award given by the John D. and Catherine T...
from 1987 to 1992. In 1988 he was elected member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, based in Jerusalem, was set up in 1961 by the State of Israel to foster contact between scholars from the sciences and humanities in Israel, to advise the government on research projects of national importance, and to promote excellence. It comprises...
. He was Director of the Jerusalem Institute of Advanced Studies
Some Institutes for Advanced Study
The Some Institutes for Advanced Study consortium organizes ten "institutes for advanced study" founded on the same principles as the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, which is also one of the members.- Overview :...
for six years (1992–1998). He actively supports the Clay Sanskrit Library
Clay Sanskrit Library
The Clay Sanskrit Library is a series of books published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation. Each work features the text in its original language on the left-hand page, with its English translation on the right...
, for which he is preparing, with Yigal Bronner, a forthcoming volume.
Peace activist
Shulman is a peace activist, and member of the joint Israeli-Palestininian 'Life-in-Common' or Ta'ayushTa'ayush
Ta'ayush is a grassroots non-violent organization established in the fall of 2000, by Gadi Algazy and a group of Palestinians and Jewish citizens of Israel. It describes itself as "a grassroots movement of Arabs and Jews working to break down the walls of racism and segregation by constructing a...
grass-roots movement for non-violence.
Though he sees himself as a 'moral witness' to misdeeds of the 'intricate machine', Shulman shies from the limelight, admitting to an aversion to the idea of heroes, and gives interviews only reluctantly.
More recently he has been active as a leader of international campaigns to defend the Palestinians under threat of eviction from such villages as Susya
Susya
Susya refers to the site of an ancient village of the biblical Judea, in the southern Hebron Hills of the West Bank that has come to light in recent archeological investigations, to a Palestinian village settled in the 1830s, and to a religious communal Israeli settlement, under the jurisdiction...
in the South Hebron Hills
Judean Mountains
The Judaean Mountains, ;, also Judaean Hills and Hebron Hills is a mountain range in Israel and the West Bank where Jerusalem and several other biblical cities are located. The mountains reach a height of 1,000 m.-Geography:...
, and especially from Silwan
Silwan
Silwan or Wadi Hilweh is a predominantly Palestinian village adjacent to the Old City of Jerusalem. In recent years a small Jewish minority of 40 families has settled in the area. The village is located in East Jerusalem, an area occupied by Jordan from 1948 until the 1967 Six-day War and by Israel...
, where they are at risk of being dispossessed of their houses and property by the Elad
Ir David Foundation
Ir David Foundation or the Elad Association is an Jerusalem-based, Israeli association which aims to strengthen the Jewish connection to Jerusalem and renew the Jewish community in the City of David, which is part of the village of Silwan...
, and by archaeologists who wish to raze the area and establish Jewish settlement
Judaization of Jerusalem
The Judaization of Jerusalem refers to the actions that Israel has sought to transform the physical and demographic landscape of Jerusalem to correspond with a vision of a united and fundamentally Jewish Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty...
and an archaeological zone on what they believe to be the underlying 'City of David'.
Dark Hope
In 2007, he published a book-length account, entitled Dark Hope: Working for Peace in Israel and Palestine, of his years working, and often clashing with police and settlersIsraeli settlement
An Israeli settlement is a Jewish civilian community built on land that was captured by Israel from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and is considered occupied territory by the international community. Such settlements currently exist in the West Bank...
, to deliver food and medical supplies to Palestinian villages, while building peace in the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
. The distinguished Israeli novelist A. B. Yehoshua
A. B. Yehoshua
Abraham B. Yehoshua is an Israeli novelist, essayist, and playwright. His pen name is A. B. Yehoshua.-Biography:...
called it:
One of the most fascinating and moving accounts of Israeli-Palestinian attempts to help, indeed to save, human beings suffering under the burden of occupation and terror. Anyone who is pained and troubled by what is happening in the Holy Land should read this human document, which indeed offers a certain dark hope.
Emily Bazelon
Emily Bazelon
Emily Bazelon is an American journalist, senior editor for online magazine Slate, and a senior research fellow at Yale Law School. Her work as a writer focuses on law, abortion, and family issues.-Journalism career:...
, member of the Yale Law Faculty
Yale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
and senior editor at Slate Magazine
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
cited it as one of the best books of 2007. In an extensive review of the book in the New York Review of Books, Israeli philosopher Avishai Margalit
Avishai Margalit
Avishai Margalit is the George F. Kennan Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and Professor Emeritus in Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.-Biography:Avishai Margalit grew up in Jerusalem. He was educated in Jerusalem and did his army service in the airborne...
cites the following passage to illustrate Shulman's position:
Israel, like any other society, has violent, sociopathic
PsychopathyPsychopathy is a mental disorder characterized primarily by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness. Psychopaths are highly prone to antisocial behavior and abusive treatment of others, and are very disproportionately responsible for violent crime...
elements. What is unusual about the last four decades in Israel is that many destructive individuals have found a haven, complete with ideological legitimation, within the settlement enterprise. Here, in places like Chavat Maon, Itamar, TapuachKfar TapuachKfar Tapuach is an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, founded in 1978. It sits astride one of the major traffic junctions in the West Bank. The executive director of the village council is Yisrael Blunder. As of December 2007, it had 800 residents...
, and HebronHebronHebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
, they have, in effect, unfettered freedom to terrorize the local Palestinian population: to attack, shoot, injure, sometimes kill - all in the name of the alleged sanctity of the land and of the Jews' exclusive right to it.
Shulman's book addresses here what he calls a ‘moral conundrum’: how Israel, ‘once a home to utopian idealists and humanists, should have engendered and given free rein to a murderous, also ultimately suicidal, messianism
Messianism
Messianism is the belief in a messiah, a savior or redeemer. Many religions have a messiah concept, including the Jewish Messiah, the Christian Christ, the Muslim Mahdi and Isa , the Buddhist Maitreya, the Hindu Kalki and the Zoroastrian Saoshyant...
,’ and asks if the ‘humane heart of the Jewish tradition’ always contain the ‘seeds of self-righteous terror’ he observed among settlers. He finds within himself an intersection of hope
Hope
Hope is the emotional state which promotes the belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. It is the "feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best" or the act of "look[ing] forward to with desire and reasonable confidence" or...
, faith
Faith
Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...
and empathy
Empathy
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
, and ‘the same dark forces that are active among the most predatory of the settlers’, and it is this which provides him with ‘a reason to act’ against what he regards as 'pure, rarefied, unadulterated, unreasoning, uncontainable human evil'. He does not excuse Arabs in the book, but focuses on his own side's culpability, writing: 'I feel responsible for the atrocities committed in my name, by the Israeli half of the story. Let the Palestinians take responsibility for those committed in their name'. Writing of efforts by the IDF
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
and members of hard-core settlements at Susya
Susya
Susya refers to the site of an ancient village of the biblical Judea, in the southern Hebron Hills of the West Bank that has come to light in recent archeological investigations, to a Palestinian village settled in the 1830s, and to a religious communal Israeli settlement, under the jurisdiction...
, Ma'on, Carmel and elsewhere who, having settled on Palestinian land in the hills south of Hebron
Hebron
Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
, endeavour to evict the local people in the many khirbehs of a region where several thousand pacific Palestinian herders and farmers dwell in rock caves and live a 'unique life' of biblical colour, Shulman comments, according to Margalit, that:-
Nothing but malice drives this campaign to uproot the few thousand cave dwellers with their babies and lambs. They have hurt nobody. They were never a security threat. They led peaceful, if somewhat impoverished lives until the settlers came. Since then, there has been no peace. They are tormented, terrified, incredulous. As am I.