August 10, 2006 Edmund R. (Ned) Hanauer

Ned's questioning of Israeli and American policies went back to his grandfather, Elias Kaufman of Lake Charles, La.,  who served on the Bpard of Directors of the American Council for Judaism, an anti-Zionist organization which believes that Judaism is a religion, not a nationality. Ned's own prescription for a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, as explained in a 2004 classnote after I interviewed him, was "a two-state settlement," with the Israeli settlements in the West Bank gone, a sharing of Jerusalem and an option for Palestinians to live in Israel, the Palestinian state, the Arab World or elsewhere.

 

In our Class book "Musings," in 1985, Ned acknowledged, "Although I am Jewish, my position did not go down well with much of the Jewish community...Sorry to say, SEARCH remained a voice in the wilderness, and has not received the support we had hoped for. Arab-Americans thought it was too 'balanced' and Jews saw it as anti-Israel." But he never dropped his strong advocacy, writing a newsletter, visiting newspaper editorial boards, speaking at universities, world affairs forums, churches and synagogues.  In a Boston Globe interview in 2004, he declared that the United States "should drop its blanket, one-sided, knee-jerk support of Israel."

 

Ned, who came to Dartmouth from Newton, Mass. and majored in history later received Master's and doctoral degrees in political science at the American University in Washington, D.C, where he wrote his doctoral thesis on "An Analysis of Conflicting Jewish Positions Regarding The Nature And Political Role of American Jews, With Particular Emphasis on Political Zionism." He then taught political science in Germany at the overseas division of the University of Maryland and at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. In the 1980s, he returned to Germany for seven years and again taught and did free-lance journalism.

 

He wrote in  Musings, "Looking back at Hanover, 1956-60, I regret not having made the enduring friendships reflected in the pages of the 1960 Newsletter. It was probably not possible, though, as I was not much of a "Dartmouth type," too reserved and into books...Four years at Dartmouth and I did not take up either skiing or beer. But I enjoyed Dartmouth, and only in retrospect did I decide that I might have been better off at a small, co-ed, more 'intellectually' oriented college."

 

Nonetheless, Ned added, a course he took at Dartmouth on "Imperialism, Colonialism and Nationalism," taught by a Mr. McCormack, a retired foreign service officer, "gave me a life-long opposition to all imperialisms, including the U.S. brand."

 

An obituary provided by the Hanauer family and given to me by his brother, Peter Hanauer of Berkeley, Calif., described Ned, in its opening sentence, as "a life-long peace and human rights activist."

 

Peter also passed along a compilation of tributes to his work and his organization.. There is not space for all of them here, but Joseph C. Harsch, former foreign affairs columnist of the Christian Science Monitor, declared, "For reliable, honest and objective information about the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East, I recommand the publications of SEARCH," Noam Chomsky, professor at MIT, said, "For years, SEARCH has been working constructively to advance (its) goals, a task of great import for the people of the region," and David Riesman, professor emeritus of social sciences at Harvard, "SEARCH is a responsible and reliable source of information and ideas not generally available in the United States."

 

In his spare time, Ned enjoyed gardening, hiking and bird watching.

 

He is survived by his German-born wife of 40 years, the former Renate Lehmann, whom he met in a Frankfurt train station, his brother, who is a member of the Dartmouth Class of 1961, , his niece, Elly, and his nephew, Andy, Class of 2004, and his father, Edmund M. Hanauer, Class of 1931,, of Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.

 

Donations in his memory may be sent to SEARCH, P.O. Box 3452, Framingham, MA 01705-3452