Israeli Arab appointed dean of university for first time
Professor Majid Al-Haj has been appointed Dean of Research at the University of Haifa – the first Arab citizen to hold such a position at an Israeli u
By DAVID RUDGE
Professor Majid Al-Haj has been appointed Dean of Research at the University of Haifa the first Arab citizen to hold such a position at an Israeli university.
Al-Haj, a senior member of the university’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology, was appointed by the University Senate to the post, which he will hold for the next three years.
He has held several other senior positions, including being the first Arab member of the Council of Higher Education, on which he served from 1995-2001.
Al-Haj has published more than 40 scholarly articles, as well as a number of books. The latter included Education, Empowerment, and Control: The Case of the Arabs in Israel, which was published in 1995, as well as a book on the mass Russian Jewish immigration to Israel in the 1990’s.
He was a member of the central committee of the Israel Sociological Society and chaired the committee for the advancement of higher education among Arabs in Israel.
Friends and acquaintances noted that Al-Haj, a resident of Shfaram in the Galilee who is married with four children, was a leading light in efforts to promote educational services for Arab citizens in all parts of the country.