Just when you think the controversy about the "Zionism" article in Gale's _Encyclopedia of Race and Racism_ might subside, here comes John H. Moore, editor of that infamous publication. Dr. Moore wrote to my personal email account last weekend.
"I understand that you are somehow "investigating" me for possible anti-Semitic opinions." He included an updated vita and let me know that his bone fides included membership in the DNC and ACLU and that his teaching covers "Holocaust, Naziism, and the Ku Klux Klan." In response, I explained that my "investigation" was first an exercise in name authority, trying to determine which of several possible JH Moores was the editor of the Gale encyclopedia. (There was some uncertainty since none of the candidates I identified used "Hartwell" or included the editorial contribution in their vitae.) I continued ... "A secondary, but very important, focus was to try to understand how you chose to include that particular article on Zionism in an academic encyclopedia. It was so sloppy from a scholarly perspective and so obviously a political attack piece, not a work of academic writing, that I assumed an editor who chose to include it would have a history of activity against Israel or Jews. I see a lot of this, where ideology trumps scholarly considerations and those with an axe to grind give editorial space or a place on the dais to those with similar views regardless of academic merit. Given my assessment of the "Zionism" article, I thought I might find a clue in your vita. That you don't have such a history only begs the question, What went wrong?" Here is the gist of Dr. Moore's response: "I'm not sure anything "went wrong." The general areas for topics were divided among Associate Editors, one of whom recommended Dr. Ignatiev. As you saw from my vita, I have no special knowledge of Israel or Zionism. From his vita I noted that Dr. Ignatiev had a doctorate from Harvard and was well published, and on that basis I invited him to submit the article. " Although people have objected to Dr. Ignatiev's political persspective, I haven't yet heard that he committed any "errors of fact" in his article. I can understand if people object to his selection of facts, but that is a problem faced by all of our authors. I never knew Dr. Ignatiev before I spoke with him on the phone about writing the article, and there certainly was no conspiracy between me and him, or anyone else, to "slip in" an article unfairly critical of Zionism. " As I have said before, my criterion for "racism" is that if a portion of a population are identified by ancestry for discrimination in a political system, that is racism. Ignatiev's article indicated that this was the case concerning Palestinians in Israel, thus I approved the article for publication. If you have references for sources to refute his allegations, I would be glad to hear of them." This last note copied Helene Potter (there are diacritical marks missing from her first name), Director of Publishing, Macmillan Gale, Cengage Learning. I took advantage and included Ms. Potter in my reply. After contemplating Dr Moore's defense of the "Zionism" article I came to two conclusions: 1) that he is so embedded in self-rationalization of his actions -- for instance, the fact that he chooses to ignore the substantial body of criticism of "errors of fact" leveled at his work -- that there is no point in trying to convince him otherwise and 2) therefore, Gale's editorial offices is where this fight needs to take place. I do not believe Gale will repudiate the article, probably at the risk of damaging their reputation. However, Gale's editors have all but openly admitted their editorial error in this case. In a phone conversation last fall with Jay Flynn, Gale's VP for social science publications, he told me that Ignatiev was not their first choice for the article and was not sure what sort of vetting had taken place before he was approved. Mr Flynn also noted the complexity and difficulty of editing an encyclopedia and how mistakes slip in. Gale has also publicly acknowledged that singling out Israel and Zionism lacked balance and they've offered to include alternative articles. Ms. Potter repeated this in a note to me: "we are commissioning a suite of entries on the topic of nationalism and ethnicity." I do not expect that we will get any further concessions from Gale. But I do hope that we can prevent this happening again. Gale needs to hear loud and clear that failing to apply the highest editorial and scholarly standards and giving space to such overt bias in their texts is not acceptable. References: http://web.anthro.ufl.edu/faculty/Moore.shtml http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg11031.html http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg11340.html -- Lee Jaffe Assessment & Planning Jewish Studies Librarian 3366 McHenry Library University of California 1156 High Street Santa Cruz, California 95064 831.459.3297 [email protected] http://library.ucsc.edu/ Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: Hasafran @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
