Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August/September 2018, pp. 73
Compiled by Amin Gharad
Joel Kovel, 81, an activist-scholar, psychiatrist, and the intellectual father of ecosocialism, died April 30 of pneumonia and autoimmune encephalitis in Manhattan, NY. Born in Brooklyn to Jewish immigrants, Kovel studied medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons after his undergraduate studies at Yale. His ideological journey led him through Freudian and later “Marxist psychoanalysis,” and eventually the abandonment of psychiatric practice entirely. Kovel waded into controversy early in his career after penning White Racism: A Psychohistory. In it, he diagnosed racism—varied in its manifestations as it may be—as endemic to Western societies and deeply embedded within its civilizational fabric. From 1977 through 1983, he also directed resident training in psychiatry at Albert Einstein Medical School.
His life was marked by his passionate agitation against what he saw as the evils of capitalism, imperialism, and Zionism—from his activism against the Vietnam War in the ’60s, to his sharp critique of Zionism in works such as Overcoming Zionism. His life also saw a foray into the political arena when he ran as the Green Party candidate for New York’s U.S. Senate seat in 1998, and for the party’s presidential nomination in 2000.
Later in life Kovel would convert to Christianity and was baptized in the Anglican church, carrying within him an abiding admiration for the tradition of liberation theology. Kovel’s last published work, The Lost Traveller’s Dream, is a memoir tracking his political, spiritual, and personal journeys and storied life of activism and scholarship. He is survived by his wife, three children, a brother and nine grandchildren.
Daniel Cohen, 82, died May 6 in Cape May, NJ of sepsis. A prolific author and activist, Cohen devoted himself to the cause of seeking justice for the victims of the Lockerbie bombing. Born and raised in Chicago, Cohen pursued journalism studies at the University of Illinois before embarking upon a writing career during which he penned close to 200 works—most for children and teens.
He and his wife, Susan Cohen, also a writer, are perhaps most famously known for their activism and writing in the wake of the death of their daughter, Theodora Cohen, in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Then 20-year-old Theodora, their only child, was killed along with 269 others over Lockerbie, Scotland in an attack many, including the Cohens, saw as an act of Libyan state-sponsored terrorism. Unsatisfied with the conviction of the single Libyan national sentenced for the attack, the couple wrote a book, Pan Am 103: The Bombing, the Betrayals, and a Bereaved Family’s Search for Justice, detailing the investigations into the attack and the travails of their family and the families of other victims in its wake. The Cohens rose to become relentless voices and symbols for the bereaved families, agitating unwaveringly for authorities to further their investigations of the fateful attack, and to pursue justice for those slain. Daniel Cohen is survived by his wife and a sister, Jean Cohen.
Maya Jribi, 58, died May 19 of cancer in Radès, Tunisia. A longtime opposition figure in the eras of Habib Bourguiba and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Jribi left an indelible mark on the Tunisian political landscape. Born in Bou Arada and raised in Radès, Jribi went on to study at the University of Sfax where she first began her political activism. Upon leaving university life—after stints in factory work, journalism, and working with UNICEF—she soon joined forces with Ahmed Najib Chebbi to establish the Progressive Socialist Rally later rebranded as the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP). In 2006 she would go on to succeed Chebbi to lead the PDP, and became the first female leader of a political party in Tunisia’s modern history. A year on, she found herself again by Chebbi’s side as they embarked upon a hunger strike to protest the Ben Ali government, taking a significant toll on her health. A feminist, outspoken in her progressive commitments, Jribi spearheaded secular opposition to the establishment of Islamic laws within the public sphere and within Tunisia’s new constitution post-revolution. She encouraged the Ennahda Party to renounce political Islam in 2016. Prior to her retirement from politics in 2017, Jribi kept an arduous schedule and seemed omnipresent on the political and activist scene, earning her the nickname “Maya the Bee.” She credited her parents for this rigor, who instilled in her the mindset that she was owed nothing by the world she did not struggle to earn.
Adel Mahmoud, 76, died in Manhattan June 11 of a brain hemorrhage at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital. The Egyptian-American physician, expert in infectious diseases, and pioneer in global public health is credited with developing a number of life-saving vaccines. Microsoft Founder and philanthropist Bill Gates described Dr. Mahmoud as “one of the greatest vaccine creators of our time,” and responsible for saving the lives of countless children around the world.
Dr. Mahmoud received his medical training from the University of Cairo. After a brief period of political activism on campus under then-Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, Mahmoud soon committed himself fully to medicine and went on to pursue doctoral studies in the UK. In 1973 he traveled to the U.S. where he assumed a post as a postdoctoral researcher at Case Western Reserve University, eventually rising to chair its Department of Medicine through 1998. That year he took the helm at Merck Vaccines, and would be central in developing life-saving vaccines such as the rotavirus vaccine for potentially fatal diarrhea in young children, as well as the HPV vaccine capable of preventing a number of cancers including, most notably, cervical cancer. To those who knew him, he was not only a brilliant mind and gifted leader in his field, but a bubbly soul of profound warmth who endeared himself to colleagues, students and friends alike. He is survived by his wife of 25 years, Dr. Sally Hodder; sister, Dr. Olfat Abdelfattah; and his brother, Dr. Mahmoud Abdelfattah.
