Prof. Miriam Elman – 5th Anniversary at Legal Insurrection
A legal insurrectionist at heart, and a superstar in the fight against antisemitism, particularly on campuses.
September 17, 2014, changed my life forever.
I gave a speech in Syracuse, NY, for the Jewish Federation of Central New York about the anti-Israel movement on campus. I can’t find a video or audio of the appearance, but I remember one thing in particular.
At a small dinner prior to the speech, I met Miriam Elman, an Associate Professor at Syracuse University with an impressive scholarly history.
Little did I know that I was breaking bread with a future legal insurrectionist, and a future superstar in the fight against anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, particularly on campuses.
We kept in touch, and on November 9, 2014, at my urging, Miriam submitted a guest post regarding her effort to stop the Syracuse U. Faculty Senate from passing a resolution supporting Steven Salaita, the noxious anti-Israel academic, Syracuse Univ. Faculty Senate Tables Pro-Salaita Resolution…Again.
That first post would lead to over 150 more posts by Miriam at Legal Insurrection in the ensuing years. Someone with an already impressive academic and scholarly body of work was able to join the fight at a more political and activist level.
I’ll take credit for “forcing” her to get on Facebook:
Miriam’s research published at Legal Insurrection is widely used and cited. It’s hard to pick and choose among the many topics Miriam has covered. Miriam’s reporting on her trip to Israel, and the people she met about whom she’d also written, includes links to many of the topics she covered about the history of the conflict.
[Elman with Arnold Roth | Jerusalem, July 2018]
- Jewish Voice for Peace – “Jew Washing” the anti-Israel movement
- Jewish Voice for Peace can’t seem to stay away from Alison Weir
- Anti-Israel activists hijack Passover, turn it into Palestinian liberation event
- Anti-Israel ‘Jewish Voice for Peace’ Funding Network Revealed
- Jewish Voice for Peace hijacks High Holidays for anti-Israel messaging
- “Jewish Voice for Peace” Hijacks Chanukah for Anti-Israel Messaging
- Jewish Voice for Peace Passover Haggadah: “Next Year in al-Quds!”
- With “Deadly Exchange” Campaign, Jewish Voice for Peace moves from enabling to promoting antisemitism
- Jewish Voice for Peace doubles-down on antisemitic “Deadly Exchange” Campaign
- Rockefeller Brothers Fund finances Jewish Voice for Peace as it launches new anti-Israel campaign
- Anti-Semitic campaign to blame Jews and Israel for U.S. police practices towards minorities shifts into overdrive
Miriam, a former Lone Soldier in the IDF, also documented aspects of Israel’s military history not frequently covered:
- 1948 – How American Jewish Pilots Helped Win Israel’s War of Independence
- RIP American Marine Lou Lenart: Israel’s 1948 War Hero
- A Wing and a Prayer: American WWII Aviators Who Flew For Israel
- Jerusalem Reunited 1967: Three Israeli Soldiers, One Iconic Photo
- Jerusalem Day 2017 – Movie “In Our Hands” Brings Liberation of Jerusalem to Life
- RIP American Navy Pilot Mitchell Flint: Israel’s 1948 War Hero
Miriam’s day-by-day “real time” series recounting of the 6-Day War is a must read:
- 50th Anniversary of Six-Day War: The Eve of War
- Six-Day War Day 1 – War Begins
- Six-Day War Day 2 — At the Gates of Jerusalem’s Old City
- Six-Day War Day 3 — “The Temple Mount is in Our Hands”
- Six-Day War Day 4 — Egypt and Jordan Defeated
- Six-Day War Day 5 — Golan Heights are Captured
- Six-Day War Day 6 — War Ends
I didn’t start drafting this post intending to catalog Miriam’s posts, but as I started, I realized there is so much good stuff, I felt compelled to provide links for people who may be relatively new around here.
Throughout the years, the recognition of Miriam’s work continued to rise. In 2018, Miriam was named to Algemeiner’s top 100 people “positively influencing Jewish life”:
An associate professor of political science and security studies at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, Miriam Elman is a regular contributor to the influential blogLegal Insurrection on topics concerning Israel and the BDS movement. Her books include Jerusalem: Conflict and Cooperation in a Contested City (2014) and her op-eds have been published by Haaretz, The Post-Standard and other outlets. Elman is also an editorial board member of the journals International Security, Foreign Policy Analysis and Political Research Quarterly. She serves as a member of the Council of Scholars of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), a leading pro-Israel organization among higher education professionals.
In February 2019, Miriam was appointed Executive Director of Academic Engagement Network, a group of several hundred “American university and college faculty and staff formed for the purposes of opposing the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, standing for academic freedom and freedom of expression, and supporting education and robust conversation about Israel in the academy. AEN also opposes antisemitism where it appears on campus.”
Miriam now spends her time helping build the AEN network, and giving speeches and generally mixing it up with the bad guys and gals in ways that would make you proud.
The time commitment Miriam’s work for AEN requires has meant Miriam also has taken a hiatus from posting at Legal Insurrection. But Miriam still contributes frequently to our Morning Insurrection daily newsletter, so sign up if you still want to read her.
Miriam took a particularly legal insurrectionist move last spring in leading a takedown of how anti-Israel academics in Israel Studies (yes, really) have hijacked the language. The issue of Word Crimes in the Journal of Israel Studies met with a sustained backlash from the those exposed, as we documented in Word Crimes: Left-wing Israel Studies faculty try to silence scholars deemed too pro-Israel.
But enough about what Miriam has done, and more about who she is.
Miriam is one of the nicest people you can ever meet. I’m proud to count Miriam not only as a colleague, but as a friend.
I’m counting the days until Miriam’s gig at AEN is over, so she can return to Legal Insurrection.
——————–
Our prior Author 5-year Anniversary posts:
New Neo (fka Neo-Neocon)
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Miriam. I am pleased to meet you. p
Prof. Elman, keep up your outstanding work. To state the obvious, it matters!
Miriam actually thinks things through.
I hope you write for many more years. Keep up the excellent work fighting for freedom.
FYI everyone:
It’s bad enough what’s spreading in front of us (the likes of Little Greta Hitler), but this is the kind of hate spreading under the radar because of the left’s ENORMOUS hate campaign:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/a7PTDaA8sbik/
Working on reading every one of your fascinating articles. Thank you for your work.
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men (and women) to do nothing.
It is good to see what you contribute in the fight. May your assistance continue for many, many years.
Yasher Koach!
I’d like to go to Jerusalem. But I don’t know if the Israelis will allow me in.
I hear Jews have standards. I know they won’t let me date their daughters.
With that out of the way, nice to meet you.
I won’t be able to get the surgery until January. Which means I will be on heavy pain meds until then. Which means sometimes I will be something of a chatty Kathy.
Ron White, comedian, on one of his public intoxication arrests.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30869.I_Had_the_Right_to_Remain_Silent_But_I_Didn_t_Have_the_Ability
I have not worked all the way through the daily history of the six day war but it’s an interesting read.
I might have left the impression I’ve found Prof. Elman’s writing “work.” It’s been a pleasure. If not for the constraints of time I’d have consumed all of it.
If you have to get paid to do it, it’s called work. If nobody has to pay you to do it, it’s called fun.
If it is so much fun you’ll pay someone else to do it with you, it’s called sex.
Only the USN would have a fighter squadron called the “Pukin’ Dogs.”
https://av8rstuff.com/f18pg34vfa143.html
And in a just world it would be “VF” and not “VFA” but we don’t life in a just world.
I was over at the Yad Vashem website reading about a
… a Greek woman.
https://www.jns.org/greek-woman-reunited-with-siblings-she-saved-during-holocaust-and-their-40-descendants/
It’s altogether too simple for me to wonder why this happened at all. From my 21st century sofa. What has my sofa ever done to prepare me to face what these people faced? I like to think my nieces and nephews (I don’t have children) wouldn’t sit on their hands while their friends and neighbors are led away to a slaughter.
But I have never lifted a finger to try and stop it. Have you? I’d feel faintly ridiculous. And I bet most Jews would; it’s not a gentile thing. Because right now there is nothing that needs stopping, and acting as if there were marks you as a nutcase.
The Bible says Noah was a righteous man for “his generations.” Wise. One of the most risible characteristics of this generation is their utter lack of empathy. Like they’ve achieved the pinnacle of moral character. History will not be kind to them, but then as far as they’re concerned history doesn’t exist.
I want to be precise.
Genesis 6:9 This is the account of Noah and his family.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people OF HIS TIME, and he walked faithfully with God.
Empathy consists of the ability to put one’s self into the shoes of another. I am capable of it. The SJWs are not.
Hope you show up for the BBQ. I’ll be slaughtering a few thousand bison for the feast. In ten years. Just after the squirrels die off and the world ends due to global warming.
Miss Molly.
http://www.flying-tigers.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/su1-VF-111-F-14A-Tomcat-1-1.jpg
I couldn’t fly one of these. But I could work the mighty, mighty AWG-9 radar. And, therefore, the AIM-54 Phoenix. Probably the most powerful weapon the USN ever gave to radar intercept officers.
Which explains why the Navy never did it again.
Now VF-111 has been reduced to this.
https://airshowkeywest.com/index.php/vfc-111/
“VFC-111 ‘Sun Downers’ U.S. Navy Reserve Adversary Squadron”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=R6-LDKl3FOs&feature=emb_logo
I would provide the link, but stop me if I’m wrong. The Copyright on the Bible has run out. Lawyers? Need an opinion.
USAF combat controller, the sand box.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/USAF_CCT_Bart_Decker_on_horseback_in_Afghanistan_2001.png
SSGT Cole Condiff will be missed.
The toughest weathermen are in the Air Force.
I don’t know if I’m saying much of anything.
https://www.military.com/special-operations/air-force-special-operations-weatherman.html
I ran into these guys in Korea. I was like, “Really? You’re kidding me, right?”
No, they weren’t kidding me.
“No, of course I’m not afraid of snakes.”
Famous last words. White Beach, Okinawa. Me and the SEALs.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3d/Habushu.jpg/1200px-Habushu.jpg
Most intel types have a, “My three days with the SEALs” story that is self congratulatory. Like “You know, I could have been a SEAL.”
Not me. They went through Hell Week and I didn’t.
Oh. Right. To finish the thought, you’ve never really been drunk until the snake rises out of the jug and talks to you.
The other day I was wondering if there is such a thing as a male or female brain. There is.
It means I’m not supposed to care because even if I had emotions, I couldn’t remember them, and even if I could I’m not interested in said emotions.
Anybody up for a steak?
The female brain has a larger hippocampus. Which is part of the brain that remembers things. The male brain has 7% more grey matter. Grey matter being the task and problem oriented centers of the brain. Females have 10% more white matter, which is the connective tissue of the brain that links the problem solving grey matter centers to each other.
Also, the female brain typically has speech centers in both hemispheres whereas the male brain usually has speech centers only in the left hemisphere.
So basically I don’t care and I can’t be made to talk.
Prof. Elman is an impressive lady. I wish I had more to offer than, you know what? When I’m out hunting I can turn myself into a tree.
Well, that’s not nothing. Especially if it’s the difference between making meat and not making meat.
You need to get your own blog, or lay off the bottle.
Yes I have been thinking of getting my own blog. But in all honesty I rarely think I have anything interesting to say.
And, really, it is the illegal narcotics that are the problem (just kidding, officers).
If I had been drinking, I would have passed out hours ago.
Did I miss something, Obie?
https://www.amazon.com/Right-Remain-Silent-Didnt-Ability/dp/0525949615
“I Had the Right to Remain Silent…But I Didn’t Have the Ability Hardcover – June 6, 2006”
I believe I already mentioned the prescription pain killers.
I am so bad looking forward to the hip replacement surgery in January. And I want everyone to know it. If the good professor wants to ban me, perhaps temporarily, maybe permanently, I will grit my teeth and bear it.
Like I’m doing with everything else.
The prescriptions just keep me awake. Which has to cause hell for everyone else around me. I would drink, but the doctors tell me that would cause liver or maybe kidney failure.
Now, how many of you are now rooting for organ failure? I know I am.
Oh, and today is Veteran’s Day. Yeah, me! I suck less today.
https://whatisthedatetoday.com/images/federalholidays/veteransday2019.png
Maybe I don’t actually want to kill myself. I accidentally called my girlfriend. Who is lethal. And I did everything to kill my phone up to and including shutting it down.
This, right there, represents at least a vestigial survival instinct.
“Holy mother of all that is holy, I’m going to wake her up! How do I silence this thing?”
Please call someone who can help you with your questions
You don’t find the whole life thing funny? I couldn’t have drilled holes for months at a time in the Indian Ocean if I didn’t have something to laugh about.
If it is appropriate, happy Armistice Day. That’s not funny. I’ve never been more ashamed to be an officer. SOMEBODY was giving the troops orders. And somebody should have stood up.
Fun fact: The red zone, or zone rouge s’il vous plait, remains a thing 100 years on.
Happy Veterans Day Arminius!
For me it will always be Armistice Day. I am a veteran. I don’t need a day. I’m alive. I have all the days.
Sorry for the earlier. I never regularly took aspirin. Now I’m on what I consider heavy pain meds because, I won’t describe bone-on-bone pain. So I had just popped some pills and I was having an epiphany. The interconnectedness of the universe had been laid bare to me, and I wanted to tell everyone about it.
I’m over it. Mostly because the drugs have worn off. But one thing that does linger is relevant. I want to do what I can to return any discussion to Prof. Elman’s work. My contribution will be to the subject of the Golan heights.
And a damn good teacher of young impressionable minds as well.
Congratulations, Professor Elman.
First, a challenge. Find Konigsberg on a map. Here’s a hint; you can’t do it. It’s Kaliningrad now.
http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/549015f66da8118d77ab552a-1041-611/screen%20shot%202014-12-16%20at%206.18.11%20am.png
This is a particularly ugly example of principle of international law given that Stalin was complicit in the partition of Poland.
Then there was this.
https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-two/world-war-two-and-eastern-europe/the-katyn-wood-massacre/
I have a very Italian hatred for tyrants. La Cosa Nostra, this thing of ours. What sparked this secret society? Dictators.
But when pressing a claim per international custom, convention, and treaty, even dictators can make a lawful claim. Nazi Germany DID invade the USSR. So the USSR gets to retain title to Konigsberg. Now Kaliningrad.
The right of conquest is based upon a very simple principle. If you are the aggressor, if you attack another country, and that other country so successfully defends itself that they seize what used to be your territory? You lose. You don’t get to be made whole again.
This is part of the pain that you, as the aggressor, must be made to suffer so you will learn your lesson.
Trump is right (now there is something I couldn’t believe 5 years ago I would ever author). Maybe it’s about damned time we had a real estate developer as president. That real estate rightfully belongs to Israel.
The thing about Israel is that she can’t trade land for peace. She gives up the land, but doesn’t get peace. Israel really should have kept the Sinai.
Once again it’s an example of special rules for the Jews. Josef Stalin, freakin’ JOSEF STALIN, can keep the Konigsberg enclave. But Israel builds an apartment building in East Jerusalem and the world explodes.
OK, was that responsive?
“From the Golan Heights, Syria shelled farms and villages below in northern Israel on a routine basis…”
I thought I should make it clear. I have read Prof. Elman’s work. So I’m quoting from it.
This doesn’t mean I’m not a derelict. But I’m a well read, informed derelict.
Which probably explains why I’m so depressed most of the time.