From: rwerman@vms.huji.ac.il (ROBERT WERMAN)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,talk.politics.mideast,soc.culture.turkish
Subject: A Jewish Officer in the Turkish Army, in Iraq, ...
Keywords: Reprinted with Permission
Date: 27 Jan 93 11:23:18 GMT
Organization: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
NNTP-Posting-Host: vms.huji.ac.il
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

From: onomata@black (nissan ephraim)


prof. Robert Werman
Dept. of Neurophysiology
Jerusalem
RWERMAN%HUJIVMS

                                            January 26, 1993

Dear Professor Werman:

For some reason, I got an announcement of your book. Thank you.
Personally, I am a researcher in artificial intelligence, and
came as an oleh from Italy, even though I was born in Tel-Aviv.
I was prompted, by a dept. head in Italy, to send reports
during that period for the newspaper in his city, but of course
I did not get his fax in time. I later started to write
a long report, in Italian, for that newspaper, but it
got longer and longer, I had to tackle thorny issues
in Italian attitudes to this country and this
people, and finally felt there was no reason to devote
time taken from research for editing and typing such
things, as they are just too apart from the experience and
convictions of readers in Italy, to be given heed.
Just think of it: my grandfather (1989-1942), who
graduated from the Military Academy in Constantinople,
where he was a friend and schoolmate of Moshe Sharett,
was one of the officers close to Ataturk and one in the class
that he convinced to overthrow the Sultan (after the humiliating
ceremony in Aia Sophia where a barefoot Sultan had to sign
the surrender to British officers who were in the mosque
with the boots and hunting dogs),
later was one of the Iraqi officers who proclaimed Feisal I
King of Iraq after WW1, and later even established and was the
first director of the Royal Arsenal!  Too efficient work
he did. But it was before Fascistization, and he was a humanitarian.
He had to resign because, a as Jew, he was the object of a libel,
but he was protected by the vertices of the State, as they,
too, had been accused because they had let a Jew attain such a position.
It was in 1935, he was 37, and on that year, a Nazi-backed
coup took place, under the lead of a general who had massacred
the Assyrians in Kurdistan, hailed by nationalists as a hero
(they were pumping unemployed Palestinian teachers into schools,
and these, dutifully, pumped hatred into their pupils, which was
why they had been hired for in the first place), etc. etc.
Around 1950, the only Jewess left in the excellent Music
Conservatorium of Baghdad, and at the Institute of Fine Arts
of which the conservatorium was part, my mother -- who was
not suspected of being Jewish by almost all students,
amonjg which the Neo-Nazis were strong (as in the nearby School
of Law), she had even to take part in demonstrations of those
students! There was a student leader that we happened to meet,
without revealing our identity, at the int'l fair in Milan
in the 1970s. He was suspicious, followed us, even raised
his ears wolf-wise, after we had talked to his good-natured
ever-companion (since then). And: during that demo,
one of the candle-lighters was a mustachioed guy who
probably was Saddam. She remembers this.
I hapen to know, from my synagogue in Beer-Sheva, an old man, over 80,
who used to be the undersecretary for the Telegraph
in Iraq.


He once said that the Takriti clan of Saddam usually held
Nazi demonstrations in Samarra (the city near Takrit),
targeting the Jews. It may well be that Saddam participated
in the demos in Baghdad. Not yet a student, but after
the 1957 Revolution he attended the School of Law (he must
have fancied doing that, for a long time), and lecturing
the docents instead of caring about learning.

All the best,                     (Dr.) Ephraim Nissan
                                        onoma

From: GMP@PSUVM.BITNET

I am forwarding this note from Robert Werman, M.D. of Jerusalem. Dr.
Werman is Professor of Neurophysiology at University of Jerusalem.  He
wrote this book entirely on line during the Gulf War.  The separate
pieces were published in CRTNET.  The entire book was edited on line
and produced through computerized composition.  The narration of
how this is done is included in the book.

To order: call Southern Illinois University Press 618 - 453 - 2281
or write Southern Illinois University Press, P.O. Box 3697,
Carbondale, IL 62901

Date:     Wed,  12 Aug 92 8:29 +0300
From:      <RWERMAN@HUJIVMS>
To:       gmp@psuvm
Subject:  Blurb

_NOTES FROM A SEALED ROOM: AN Israeli View of the Gulf War_
Robert Werman
Introduction by Gerald M. Phillips

Southern Illinois University Press
December ISBN 0-8093-1830-X
224 pages, 6 x 9 inches


       Let me introduce myself.  I am Robert Werman, MD; I was
trained as physician and a clinical neurologist.  I have taught
at Columbia and Indiana Universities, done research at Cambridge
University and in Canada, Mexico and Japan, as well, and I am now
a professor of neurophysiology at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem.  Although I am American born and educated, I have
chosen to join my fate with that of Israel, and I have lived
there with my family since 1967.  I am also the author of two
books of Hebrew poetry.

       I wrote this book during the Gulf War and sent pieces of
it out to my friends to explain the horrors we were suffering
during the Scud attacks.  It also tells what living in Israel is
like for someone brought up in U.S.  The pieces caught on and
were passed from person to person, spread through the email nets
and from individual to individual and some were even printed in
newspapers, so that it soon reached a very large audience
throughout the world, in places as remote as Japan and India, but
particularly in the U.S.

       The book not only contains the original diary entries but
an introduction by Jerry Phillips, my editor and now my friend,
who describes what the impact of the book was on a reader of the
daily diary entries in one of the email nets.  He also also asked
me, later on, to explain the background of many features of the
reports that were not always obvious to an American reader; these
explanations are also included in the book.

       This is a book addressed to my American compatriots to
help you feel closer to us.  I was worried that the material
would not be of interest coming out so late after the war, but
rereading the book now, it seems to me to be even more pertinent
than before, of even greater interest now.