Peretz Heaps Slurs Unfairly

As a longtime subscriber to The New Republic, I have always enjoyed reading Martin Peretz, even when I found his positions outrageous, but in the guest commentary in the November 29 Crimson, entitled The Sabotage of the Semitic Museum, Mr. Peretz outdid himself.

I will leave the pros and cons of the committee's decision to reorganize the museum to others. But I feel I must respond to the implied slurs against Dr. Stager.

As the donor of the funds for the Ashkelon excavations in Israel, which Dr. Stager has directed for the past ten years, I have worked very closely with him and come to know him quite well. Neither I nor anyone else who has worked with him detected the slightest whiff of anti-Semitism in Larry's conduct in Israel or in the states. He is, in fact, admired and loved by Israelis from Teddy Kollek to the late Yigael Yadin, who helped Professor Stager obtain the permit to excavate at Ashkelon. Martin Peretz's implied comparison of Larry Stager with President Lowell and his hostility to Jewish students would have been worthy of the late well-known senator from Wisconsin. Marty's creativity is justly known and admired, but never has his imagination soared to greater heights than in the destructive innuendo directed at Professor Stager. As was said to another character assassin--"Have you no shame, Senator?" Leon Levy