American Israeli scholar Clinton Bailey, the Middle Eastern nomads, contributed to the delinquent culture of the Bedwin Traditional Study and Doctrine, and at the home of Jerusalem on January 5 at Jerusalem's home. Died. He was 88 years old.
According to his son Michael, the cause was heart failure.
Buffalo, Buffalo, has recorded the story of the Negeb Desert and the Sinai Peninsula in southern Israel, the wisdom, wisdom of the elder, wisdom, rituals, and tribal stories. He traveled to the desert Bedwin, a jeep, and sometimes joined their camel and tape recorder on their backs, joined their migration for several weeks, creating a record of culture that was hardly left in characters.
At that time, the mission was urgent because the Bedwin society, which was mostly illocused, was on the brink of rapid changes. The modern borders, government regulations, and urbanization began to invade their nomating life, and the modern world has rapidly rushed with the emergence of transistor radio, cars and mobile phones.
“I decided to capture the culture,” said Dr. Bailey in an interview in 2021, donating a 350 -hour speech tape, a large amount of prints and slide archives to the Israeli National Library. “I understand that it has already begun to disappear.”
In the statement, his collection said, “It is a treasure of the ancient culture that has been transmitted verbally, is now irreplaceable, and obtained through the young generation of Bedwin, which grew up in touch with the modern era. I can't. “
Dr. Bailey is respected by many tribes, and they believe they have preserved ancient traditions. Former publisher Daham Alianne, a former publisher in the town of Bedwin in Negeb, said that Dr. Bailey had done a very sacred job, especially in collecting poems.
“This will be stored forever,” he said. “Probably my kids will want to return to their history someday. There are records now.”
Dr. Bailey also defended Bedwin's rights, which had been trapped in unresolved land disputes with the Israeli government since its founding. Few Bedwin had documents and certificates proving land ownership.
Dr. Bailey's life seems to have been shaped mainly by his curiosity and accidental encounter.
On April 24, 1936, he was born as the second son of Benjamin Glaser and Edna Graser, a Jewish immigrant from Russia, as an Irwin Graser. Benjamin Graser, a successful businessman, started with a single gasoline pump and eventually owned a gas station chain in a buffalo.
After the Korean War, Irwin Graser, who worked in the U.S. Navy, met a rabbi on board and was introduced to the Rabbi Jewish literature in East Europe. This led to the Nobel Prize -winning Polish -born Jewish American writer and Idish in New York.
After studying sculptures in Norway for one year, he returned to the United States to study Idish at Jessiba University, but eventually learned Hebrew in northern New York. So he met his first Israelites, a member of the joint farm or Kibutz. He moved to Israel in 1958, ten years after the establishment of the Jewish nation.
I met Maya Odinan in 1959 and got married. Currently born in Chernovitz, part of Ukraine, she came to Israel as a child.
After acquiring a bachelor's degree of politics and the Middle East Research at a Hebrew University in Jerusalem, he spent a year in an Arabic village in a Galilee hill in northern Israel, taught English, and studied colloquial Arabic. He returned to the United States, obtained a doctorate in the Middle East research at the University of Colombia, and returned to Israel in 1967.
At one point in the 1960s, he changed his name to Clinton Bailey. This was attached to the intersection of Buffalo's Clinton Street and Bailey Avenue, one of his father's service station. According to his son, Michael, this change was preparing for a trip to Pakistan, probably to avoid seeming Jews in Islamic countries, but the real reason is not clear. And added. Dr. Bailey was also known in Israel in Hebrew's name, or nicknamed itk.
One day unemployed and wandering in Tel Avib, Dr. Bailey met Pola Benglion, a leader, near the house of David Benglion, the founding of Israel. They began to speak and she invited him to tea.
The accidental encounter led to the friendship with the Benglion tribe, proving Dr. Bailey's formation. Benglion has helped to secure English teaching in the Negev Desert Riti and Sde Bokel Academy. The Bengryon later retired in Sde Bokel and lived in a spacious but slightly simple hut. Dr. Bailey sometimes accompanied an old politician walking around Kibuts.
When I was jogging alone, I met Bedwin's shepherd and started talking. They invited him to their tents. He felt that they were persuasive in their stories, that is, in the desert, reminiscent of the Bible. “It was a survival story going back 4,500 years ago,” he said.
After the 1967 war, Israel dominating the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, he became able to access tribes farther away. He moved to Jerusalem in 1975.
In the 1980s, Dr. Bailey frequently visited the southern Lebanon, where Israel was occupied by Israel as an Arab problem advisor to the Israel Defense Defense. He has encouraged the Israeli government to take similar measures with the focus on building a relationship with the local Islamic Shiers. But instead, Israel has led an alliance with the Christian Lebanon militia organization, which led the Lebanon government at the time.
The partnership with the Christian milities brought one of the darkest moments in Israel. At that time, Israel was involved in a massacre at Sabra and Shatina's Palestinian refugee camp by Christian Fangsian militia. Soon, the Shiite Lebanon militia organization, Hizvola, will emerge as a painful enemy in Israel.
Dr. Bailey wrote four books on Bedwin's poems, proverbs, and laws, and recently wrote the Bedwin Culture in the Bible, published by the Yale University Publishing Bureau in 2018. He also taught the Middle East politics and Bedwin culture for many years in the 2018 Trinity College. Heartford, Connecticut
In addition to Michael Bailey, he has his wife and his three sons Daniel, Benjamin, Ariel, and nine grandchildren.
In 2016, Dr. Bailey, 80 years old, found a new kind of celebrity. In 1968 he interviewed his friend Benglion for three days, recorded his life, background, and the birth of a Jewish state. Later, the movie was lost for decades and was almost forgotten.
The film was re -discovered by chance, and the silente archive was saved in another archive of Negebu, and it became the basis of the acclaimed documentary Benglion, Epilogue.
In an interview, five years before his death, Benglion provided an unusual, vivid and rich analysis of his life work. The documentary has been sympathetic to Israel, who had been aware of a more humble leader, showing more politicians as a politician.
The simplicity of Ben Grion's hut in Sde Bokel was a “statement,” he said to the New York Times at the time, adding “I think Ben Grion did not want the benefits of power.” Ta.
The simple life of the desert has also attracted Dr. Bedwin. He occasionally talked about how he suddenly appeared to visit the tribes to convey the way of Bedwin to his friends who are accustomed to the material world. Since hospitality was culturally obligatory, we had tea from here until we could provide meals, and eggs were procured here.
They themselves had little material supplies, but did not consider this difficult. “Bedwin will wake up in the morning without having anything in the morning, and if you get something before going to bed, you will be lucky,” said Dr. Beyrey.
