Asher (Alan) Arian (1938 - 2010)

It pains me to report the passing of Asher Arian z”l.  Asher was one of the fathers of social science in Israel.  After moving to Israel in 1966, he became the founding chair of the Tel Aviv  University  Department  of  Political  Science.   Later,  he  served  as  Dean  of  Social Sciences at TAU, as well.  In recent years, he taught at both Haifa University and City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center.  He also served as a Senior Research Fellow at the Israel Democracy  Institute,  to  which  he  brought  the  Guttman  Institute  for  Applied  Social  Research (now,  the  Guttman  Center).   The  Guttman  Center,  in  2006,  won  the  Tolerance  Prize  by  the Public Committee of Tolerance, a nonpartisan organization to curtail violence.  In 2005, Arian was  awarded  a  Distinguished  Lifetime  Achievement  Award  by  the  Israel  Political  Science Association.

Asher was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1938. His undergraduate work was at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, and his graduate studies were at Michigan State University. As a researcher, he was one of the initiators of the use of survey research in Israeli political science. His books and articles on Israel spanned nearly half a century. His very first book was Empathy and Ideology: Aspects of Innovative Administration, published in 1966, and edited with Charles Press. He turned then almost exclusively to Israel studies (he did do a book on New York City politics in the 1990s, as well), publishing Ideological Change in Israel, in 1968. His most recent book was Elections in Israel, 2006, which appeared two years ago. The latter was one of a series of books edited by Arian (often with Michal Shamir) on the Israeli elections, starting with the 1973 elections. He also issued a series of reports on Israeli public opinion and national security. Other important books by Arian include Hopes and Fears of Israelis: Consensus in a New Society (with Aaron Antonovsky, 1972); The Choosing People: Voting Behaviour in Israel (1973); Politics in Israel: The Second Generation (1985); Security Threatened: Surveying Israeli Opinion on Peace and War (1995); National Security and Public Opinion in Israel (1988); and Executive Governance in Israel (with David Nachmias, and Ruth Amir, 2002).

A founder and head of the Israeli Political Science Association, Arian was also a key leader in the International Political Science Association. He helped establish the place of Israeli political science in the IPSA. Later, he served as editor of the Association’s prestigious book series.

He will be remembered by many for his mentorship and collegiality. A person of great wit and humour, he encouraged and guided a second generation of Israeli political scientists. I feel very fortunate to have been recruited by Asher for my first job, teaching in the young department at Tel Aviv University. Asher put together in that department a remarkable cadre of young researchers doing innovative and important work. Only a few years older than most of these recruits, Asher nurtured them and served as a senior figure for them, while still in his early thirties, guiding their way in the still raw atmosphere of Israeli academia. For all, he was a true mensch.

This was originally published by the list server group maintained by Association of Israel Studies and is re‐produced by MEI@ND with the permission of the author.

Prof. Joel Migdal is the Robert F. Philip Professor of International Studies at the University of Washington.

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