David Shulman | |
|---|---|
 David Shulman, 2008 | |
| Born | (1949-01-13)13 January 1949 (age 76) |
| Education | PhD |
| Alma mater | University of London |
| Occupation(s) | Indologist poet peace activist literary critic cultural anthropologist |
| Spouse | Eileen Shulman (née Lendman) |
| Children | Eviatar Mishael Edan |
David Dean Shulman (born January 13, 1949) is an IsraeliIndologist,poet andpeace activist, known for his work on thehistory of religion inSouth India, Indianpoetics,TamilIslam,Dravidian linguistics, andCarnatic music. Bilingual in Hebrew and English, he has masteredSanskrit,Tamil,Hindi, andTelugu, and readsGreek,Russian,French,German,Persian,Arabic andMalayalam. He was formerlyProfessor ofIndian Studies andComparative Religion at theHebrew University,Jerusalem, and professor in the now defunct Department of Indian,Iranian andArmenian Studies.[1][2] Presently he holds a chair asRenee Lang Professor ofHumanistic Studies at theHebrew University in Jerusalem. He has been a member of theIsrael Academy of Sciences and Humanities since 1988.
A published poet inHebrew, Shulman is also active as aliterary critic andcultural anthropologist. He has authored or co-authored more than 20 books on various subjects ranging fromtemplemyths and temple poems to essays that cover the wide spectrum of the cultural history of South India.[3]
Shulman is a peace activist and a founding member of the joint Israeli-Palestininian movementTa'ayush. In 2007 he published the book "Dark Hope: Working for Peace in Israel and Palestine" which concludes the years of his volunteering activity in the movement. Shulman is a winner of theIsrael Prize for 2016. He announced that he would donate his 75,000 shekel prize toTa'ayush, an Israeli organization that provides support to Palestinian residents in the Hebron area.[4]
In 1967, on graduating from Waterloohigh school, he won aNational Merit Scholarship, andemigrated to Israel, where he enrolled atHebrew University of Jerusalem. He graduated in 1971 with aB.A. degree inIslamic History, specializing inArabic. His interest in Indian studies was inspired by a friend, the English economic historianDaniel Sperber, and later by thephilologist, and expert inSemitic languages,Chaim Rabin.[3] He served in theIsrael Defense Forces, and was called up to serve in theIsraeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982: the medic skills he learned during his army service have proved useful in treating Palestinians injured by settler violence.[5]
He gained his doctorate in Tamil and Sanskrit, with a dissertation on 'The Mythology of the Tamil Saiva Talapuranam' (which involved field work inTamil Nadu) at theSchool of Oriental and African Studies,University of London (1972–1976) underJohn Ralston Marr . He was appointed instructor, thenlecturer in thedepartment ofIndian Studies and Comparative Religion at Hebrew University, and became a full professor in 1985. He was aMacArthur Fellow from 1987 to 1992.
In 1988, he was elected member of theIsrael Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He was later elected to theAmerican Philosophical Society in 2015.[6] He wasDirector of theJerusalem Institute of Advanced Studies for six years (1992–1998). He actively supports theClay Sanskrit Library, for which he is preparing, with Yigal Bronner, a forthcoming volume.[7] He has served as a Humanities jury member for theInfosys Prize from 2019.[8]
Shulman is a founding member of the joint Israeli-Palestinian 'Life-in-Common' orTa'ayush grass-roots movement for non-violence.[9] He is convinced that unless 'both sides win the war, both sides will lose it.'[5] Shulman's view on the conflict has been described as without illusions, and he expresses an awareness of the moral failings of both sides:
This conflict is not awar of the sons of light with the sons of darkness; both sides are dark, both are given to organized violence and terror, and both resort constantly to self-righteous justification and a litany of victimization, the bread-and-butter of ethnic conflict. My concern is with the darkness on my side.[5]
Though he sees himself as a 'moral witness' to misdeeds of the 'intricate machine',[10] Shulman shies from the limelight, admitting to an aversion to the idea of heroes, and gives interviews only reluctantly.[11][12]
More recently he has been active as a leader of international campaigns to defend the Palestinians under threat of eviction from such villages asSusya in theSouth Hebron Hills,[13] and especially fromSilwan, where they are at risk of losing their homes as a result of the pressure on the area to have it rezoned for Israeli archaeological digs, in particular those promoted by theElad association.[14][15][16]
In 2007, he published a book-length account, entitledDark Hope: Working for Peace in Israel and Palestine, of his years working, and often clashing with police andsettlers, to deliver food and medical supplies to Palestinian villages, while building peace in theWest Bank. The distinguished Israeli novelistA. B. Yehoshua 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.[17]
Emily Bazelon, member of theYale Law Faculty and senior editor atSlate Magazine cited it as one of the best books of 2007.[18] In an extensive review of the book in theNew York Review of Books, IsraeliphilosopherAvishai Margalit cites the following passage to illustrate Shulman's position:
Israel, like any other society, has violent,sociopathic 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 likeChavat Maon,Itamar,Tapuach, andHebron, 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 theland and of the Jews' exclusive right to it.[19][20]
Shulman's book addresses here what he calls a 'moralconundrum': 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 contains the 'seeds of self-righteous terror' he observed among settlers. He finds within himself an intersection ofhope,faith andempathy, 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'[21] against what he regards as 'pure, rarefied, unadulterated, unreasoning, uncontainable human evil'. He does not excuse Arabs in the book,[22] 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'.[23] Writing of efforts by theIDF and members of hard-core settlements atSusya,Ma'on,Carmel and elsewhere who, having settled on Palestinian land in the hills south ofHebron, endeavour to evict the local people in the manykhirbehs of a region where several thousand pacific Palestinian herders and farmers dwell in rock caves and live a 'unique life' of biblical colour,[24] 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.[25]
The "Bitter Landscapes of Palestine" was written by David Shulman in 2024. The author narrates the lives of Palestinians living in theWest Bank. He describes the confrontation between Palestinian shepherds and farmers with Jewish settlers and soldiers. He narrates daily challenges such as the destruction of houses and the expulsion of Palestinians from their land. In this book, an attempt has been made to convey to the reader the sense of the endangered Palestinian lifestyle.[26]
Shulman is married to Eileen Shulman (née Eileen Lendman) and has three sons, Eviatar, Mishael, and Edan.
Aside from numerous scholarly articles, Shulman is the author, co-author or editor ofthe following books.
He has edited and co-edited several books
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