SPME Faculty Profile: Gary Leisman: Member SPME BDS Task Force

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I am a neuroscientist interested in rehabilitation and consciousness from the vantage point of neurobiology and systems theory. I was educated in Medicine, Neurosciences, and Biomedical Engineering in the UK and in the United States. I have held Professorships in Rehabilitation Neuropsychology at Leeds Metropolitan University in the UK and at the University of Haifa in Israel-simultaneously. I am currently the Director of the F. R. Carrick Institute for Clinical Ergonomics, Rehabilitation, and Applied Neuroscience (C.E.R.A.N.). My research since the early 1970s has promoted consciousness as a scientifically tractable problem, and had argued that consciousness can be approached using the modern tools of neurobiology and understood by mechanisms of theoretical physics. I have also been examining mechanisms of self-organizing systems in the brain and nervous system for cognitive function exemplified by my work in human memory, and nervous system optimization applied to movement and gait, cognition, autism, and coma recovery. I am working with our affiliated laboratories in Israel, England, Cuba, Belgium and elsewhere.

So far there seems to be no strong motivation for active involvement in SPME. However, I am British by birth and my family originates from Jerusalem way before the twinkle in Herzl’s eye and certainly before the advent of modern Zionism in all of its flavors. I hold dual nationality and possess both British (EU) and Israeli passports. I also have simultaneously held faculty positions at both UK and Israeli universities. This is where the trouble started. As we all remember the numerous attempts to create academic boycotts of Israeli academics (I being one), it would have been really hard to boycott me, a British national who is also an Israeli national, who was also a member of universities in each country. My re-reading of the Declaration of the Rights of Man of which the United Kingdom was a signatory and which made clear reference to the free flow of scientific ideas, I noted had apparently no bearing on those of us from the “apartheid” Jewish State. I did wonder at the time why these same individuals had no issue with Pakistan and India, with they also having had a former British presence and their partition being decided along religious lines (not ethnic).

I figured that there were not many explanations for this kind of behavior and all were cynical.

What through me over the top in turning me into an activist for academic rights in my country (certainly not the UK) and around the globe was oddly enough something that happened in Israel. I was given the opportunity to edit a special issue of an esteemed scientific journal on the topic of Computational Neuroscience and its potential clinical application: in English, Physics and Math attempting to explain the working of functions such as memory. Sounds innocuous enough! Well, I had invited an Israeli colleague of mine to participate and he responded affirmatively. When he later asked for a copy of the ‘Instructions for Authors” page and a best mailing address, I gave him my then address at one of the universities being boycotted at the time. As the address was on the West Bank, this gentleman decided to write to the editor in chief of the journal to state that while the idea of this project was wonderful, he could not participate as the university sponsoring the project was attempting to legitimatize an illegal occupation with science. While physics math and the neuroscience of human memory have nothing to do with the politics of the West Bank of the Jordan River, a high ranking official of my then university demanded that I debate this guy on television. When I indicated that it would be a cold day in hell before I did so, I was then threatened.

That is when I stopped thought about all of this and then some and came to a conclusion that there are an awful lot of people playing games with the free flow of ideas everywhere and this needs to stop. There is a burgeoning lack of respect for ideas coming from students, faculty, and administrators alike that are represented in the instant issue of course but also in non-related issues. We have seen what happened to the universities of Nazi Germany and Austria and the former Soviet Union. We have seen academic psychiatrists commit political subversives to mental institutions and that list goes on.

We are all enraptured with the concept of “the land of the free” a beautiful idea. Do remember that the USA gave a particular read to its Declaration of Independence, slavery, separate but equal, the St. Louis attempting to dock in US ports sending Jews back to meet their end from where they were attempting to escape. Without this turning into a diatribe, the point for me was an awakening of needing to stop the tyranny of left and right politics and to protect the free flow of ideas in academe at all costs everywhere, but for me, starting at home.

SPME Faculty Profile: Gary Leisman: Member SPME BDS Task Force

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SPME

Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) is not-for-profit [501 (C) (3)], grass-roots community of scholars who have united to promote honest, fact-based, and civil discourse, especially in regard to Middle East issues. We believe that ethnic, national, and religious hatreds, including anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism, have no place in our institutions, disciplines, and communities. We employ academic means to address these issues.

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