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Tanya Reinhart ( he, טניה ריינהרט; July 1943 – March 17, 2007) was an Israeli linguist who wrote frequently on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict Israelis ( he, יִשְׂרָאֵלִים‎, translit=Yīśrāʾēlīm; ar, الإسرائيليين, translit=al-ʾIsrāʾīliyyin) are the Israeli citizenship law, citizens and nationals of the Israel, State of Israel. The country's popul ...
. She contributed columns to the Israeli newspaper '' Yediot Aharonot'' and longer articles to the ''
CounterPunch ''CounterPunch'' is a left-wing online magazine. Content includes a free section published five days a week as well as a subscriber-only area called CounterPunch+, where original articles are published weekly. ''CounterPunch'' is based in the Un ...
'', '' Znet'', and Israeli Indymedia websites.


Biography

Reinhart was born in 1943 in
Haifa Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...
in Mandate Palestine and raised by her mother.
Victoria Brittain Victoria Brittain (born 1942) is a British journalist and author who lived and worked for many years in Africa, the US, and Asia, including 20 years at ''The Guardian'', where she eventually became associate foreign editor. In the 1980s, she wor ...
br>"Tanya Reinhart"
''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
'', 21 March 2007.
She studied philosophy and Hebrew literature at the
Hebrew University The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public university, public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein ...
,
Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
as an undergraduate, where she later received an M.A. in comparative literature and philosophy. In 1976 she obtained a Ph.D. in linguistics from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...
. Her thesis supervisor was
Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...
. She was active in the Communist Youth League, following in the steps of her mother. Reinhart was a professor of
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Ling ...
and literary theory at Tel-Aviv University. She taught at MIT,
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, and the University of Paris, and was also a guest lecturer at
Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist Jam ...
. She maintained links with
Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...
for 15 years. After losing her position at Tel Aviv University, a move she attributed to bureaucratic harassment, she decided to leave Israel. Before her death she also said that Israel's attack on Lebanon in 2006 and on the Gaza Strip also influenced her decision. On settling in the United States she was offered a teaching appointment as Global Distinguished Professor at
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...
(NYU). She died of a stroke in her sleep on March 17, 2007, in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. She was 63 years old. Reinhart was married to the Hebrew-language poet Aharon Shabtai, and is buried in Israel.


Professional work

Reinhart specialized in the interface and relations between meaning and context, syntax and sound systems.
Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...
has described her contributions to the field of
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Ling ...
as "original and highly influential," particularly regarding "syntactic structure and operations, referential dependence, principles of lexical semantics and their implications for syntactic organization, unified approaches to cross-linguistic semantic interpretation of complex structures that appear superficially to vary widely, the theory of stress and intonation, efficient parsing systems, the interaction of internal computations with thought and sensorimotor systems, optimal design as a core principle of language, and much else."Noam Chomsky
"In Memory of Tanya Reinhart"
18 March 2007
Reinhart's academic work also extended well beyond linguistics, to that of literary theory, mass media, propaganda, and other core elements of intellectual culture. Chomsky has noted Reinhart's activism was not limited to words and that she was often on "the front line of direct resistance to intolerable actions, an organizer and a participant, a stance that one cannot respect too highly." Commenting on her death, he wrote that Reinhart would be remembered "not only as a resolute and honorable defender of the rights of Palestinians, but also as one of those who have struggled to defend the moral integrity of her own Israeli society, and its hope for decent survival."


Political activism

Reinhart was an outspoken critic both of Israel's invasion and occupation of Lebanon and its occupation of the Palestinian territories after 1967, the latter of which she came to regard as worse than
Apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
. She was active in organizing solidarity campaigns with her Palestinian colleagues at Bir Zeit University. Her position was that Israel should abandon the
West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
and Gaza:
Israel should withdraw immediately from the territories occupied in 1967. The bulk of Israeli settlers (150,000 of them) are concentrated in the big settlement blocks in the center of the West bank. These areas cannot be evacuated over night. But the rest of the land (about 90%–96% of the West bank and the whole of the Gaza strip) can be evacuated immediately. Many of the residents of the isolated Israeli settlements that are scattered in these areas are speaking openly in the Israeli media about their wish to leave. It is only necessary to offer them reasonable compensation for the property they will be leaving behind. The rest — the hard-core "land redemptions" fanatics — are a negligible minority that will have to accept the will of the majority.
Reinhart pointed out that immediate withdrawal would still leave under debate between six and ten percent of the West Bank with the large settlement blocks, as well as the issues of Jerusalem and the right of return, and maintains that these should be the subject of "serious peace negotiations". In 2002, Reinhart was heavily criticized in Israel for signing a European petition calling for a moratorium on European support of Israeli academia in protest of Israel's Palestinian policies. She expressed sympathy and understanding for her colleagues who opposed such measures but insisted that:
It is not easy for an Israeli academic to support the calls for boycott of Israeli academic institutions these days. Like any other segment of the Israeli society, the universities are paying the price of Israel's war against the Palestinians, with severe budget cuts and deteriorating research conditions. A freeze of the EU funds would, no doubt, make things even tougher. It is therefore understandable that the Israeli academia is mobilising its forces to attack any such boycott attempt. Understandable, but not just.
The same year, she also published a book, ''Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948'', in which she analyzed what she saw as the breakdown during the preceding three years of constructive engagement over the Palestinian issue and the hardening of the Israeli position. Reinhart gave the 2006 Edward Said Memorial Lecture at
Adelaide University The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on ...
. Saying she could no longer live in Israel due to its treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, Reinhart moved to New York in December 2006. Tanya Reinhart was married to Israeli poet and translator Aharon Shabtai. Reinhardt was an anti-Zionist and was considered more radical in her political views than many other left-wing activists.Prof Tania Reinhardt, linguist and activist, dies in New York
''Yediot Aharonot'', March 19, 2007. The description is that of
Uri Avnery Uri Avnery ( he, אורי אבנרי, also transliterated Uri Avneri; 10 September 1923 – 20 August 2018) was an Israeli writer, politician, and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement. A member of the Irgun as a teenager, Avnery sat for t ...
.


Further reading

*''Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948'', New York: Seven Stories Press, cop. 2002. - *


Selected publications in linguistics

*1976. ''The Syntactic Domain of Anaphora''. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT. *1981. "Definite NP-anaphora and c-command domains". ''Linguistic Inquiry'' 12:605-635. *1983. ''Anaphora and Semantic Interpretation''. London: Croom Helm. *1993. "Reflexivity" (with Eric Reuland). ''Linguistic Inquiry'' 24:657-720. *1993. "The innateness of binding and coreference" (with Yosef Grodzinsky). ''Linguistic Inquiry'' 24:69-101. *1995. "Interface strategies". ''OTS Working Papers in Linguistics''. *1997. "Quantifier scope: how labor is divided between QR and choice functions". ''Linguistics and Philosophy'' 20:335-397. *1998. "Scrambling and the PF interface" (with Ad Neeleman). In: W. Cobler & M. Butt (eds.), ''Projecting from the Lexicon''. Stanford: CSLI. *1998. "Wh-in-situ in the framework of the minimalist program". ''Natural Language Semantics''. *2000. "Strategies of anaphora resolution". In: H. Bennis, M. Everaert & E. Reuland (eds.), ''Interface Strategies''. *2002. "The Theta System: An overview". ''Theoretical Linguistics'' 28:229-290. *2006. ''Interface Strategies: Reference-set Computation''. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.


References


External links


Reinhart's homepage
(Utrecht)
Date-ordered list of Reinhart's political publications

Book info

Interview
(November 8, 2002)

(May 16, 2003)

(October 5, 2006)

(April 2006) * ttps://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/23/world/middleeast/23reinhart.html Obituary in the New York Times(23 March 2007) {{DEFAULTSORT:Reinhart, Tanya 1944 births 2007 deaths Duke University faculty Israeli journalists Linguists from Israel Jewish linguists Jewish Israeli writers Post-Zionists Syntacticians Tel Aviv University faculty Israeli activists Israeli women activists People from Haifa Women linguists 20th-century linguists 20th-century journalists Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni