Tanya Reinhart (; 1943 – 17 March 2007) was an Israeli linguist and political activist. A frequent writer on the

Israeli–Palestinian conflict The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about Territory, land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation ...

, she contributed columns to the Israeli centrist newspaper ''

Yedioth Ahronoth (, ; lit. "Latest News") is an Israeli daily mass market newspaper published in Tel Aviv. Founded in 1939, is Israel's largest paid newspaper by sales and circulation and has been described as "undoubtedly the country's number-one paper."

'' and longer articles to the American left-wing magazines ''

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 ...

'' and ''

ZNetwork ZNetwork, formerly known as Z Communications, is a left-wing activist-oriented media group founded in 1986 by Michael Albert and Lydia Sargent.Max Elbaum''Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che'' London, England, UK; ...

'' and the global open publishing network

Indymedia The Independent Media Center, better known as Indymedia, is an open publishing network of activist journalist collectives that report on political and social issues. Following beginnings during the 1999 Carnival Against Capital and 1999 Seat ...

Biography

Reinhart was born in

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, 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 metropolitan area i ...

in 1943 and was 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 ...

"Tanya Reinhart"
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', 21 March 2007. She studied philosophy and Hebrew literature at the

Hebrew University The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. It is the second-ol ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

as an undergraduate, where she later received an

M.A. A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...

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 university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

. Her thesis supervisor was

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a ...

. 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 language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

and literary theory at

Tel-Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a Public university, public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the university is the center of teaching and ...

. She taught at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, and the University of Paris, and was also a guest lecturer at

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

. She maintained links with

Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; , formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public university, public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2023, it had an enrollment of ...

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 university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

(NYU). She died of a stroke in her sleep on 17 March 2007, in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. 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.

has described her contributions to the field of

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: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

. She was active in organizing solidarity campaigns with her Palestinian colleagues at

Bir Zeit University Birzeit University () is a public university in the West Bank, Palestine, registered by the Palestinian Ministry of Social Affairs as a charitable organization. It is accredited by the Ministry of Higher Education and located in the outskirts o ...

. Her position was that Israel should abandon the

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

and

Gaza Gaza may refer to: Places Palestine * Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea ** Gaza City, a city in the Gaza Strip ** Gaza Governorate, a governorate in the Gaza Strip Mandatory Palestine * Gaza Sub ...

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 the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide is a public university, public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. Its main campus in the Adelaide city centre includes many Sa ...

. 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 Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the Palestine (region) ...

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 (, also transliterated Uri Avneri; 10 September 1923 – 20 August 2018) was a German-born Israeli writer, journalist, politician, and activist, who founded the Gush Shalom peace movement. A member of the Irgun as a teenager and a vet ...

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