bulletin_board_71_May 2013 Bulletin Board 4/2/13 8:19 PM Page 71 Upcoming Events, Announcements & —Compiled by Andrew Stimson Obituaries Upcoming Events The Committee for Palestinian Rights will host a screening of “Roadmap to Apartheid,” a documentary film exploring the striking parallels between South African and Israeli apartheid, on Sunday, April 28, 2 p.m., at the Miller Branch, Howard County Library Ellicott, Meeting Room 9421, Frederick Rd., Ellicott City, MD 21042. After the film, there will be an audience discussion with author, blogger, political analyst and social activist Laila El-Haddad. For more information e-mail . The Common Bond Institute (CBI) will host the 7th Annual International Conference on Engaging the Other, May 3 to 5, at 5801 Southfield Rd., Detroit, MI 48228. The conference aims to address fear-based belief systems, negative stereotypes, and artificial barriers of distrust that divide people, and will feature a presentation on CBI’s Trauma Recovery Program aiding Refugees in the Middle East. For registration and more information, visit or call (269) 6659393. Join United Palestinian Appeal (UPA) on May 4 for its Spring Walk for Palestine to support Palestine and projects helping needy children, university scholarships and other UPA programs. The walk will begin at 9 a.m. with a sign-in and T-shirt pick-up in Lake Fairfax Park, Reston, VA, and will end at 12 p.m. with snacks and refreshments. For more information, visit . The Jerusalem Fund will host a discussion of her book Fast Times in Palestine: A Love Affair with a Homeless Homeland with author Pamela Olson, May 7, 12:30 to 2 p.m. at the Palestine Center, 2425 Virginia Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20037. For more information visit or call (202) 3381290. The Community House and the Arab American National Museum will present the Michigan Arab Orchestra live in concert with guest vocalists Françoise Atlan and Aboud Agha, on Thursday, May 9, 7 p.m., 380 South Bales St., Birmingham, MI 48009. For tickets and more information visit , program code 13SFP01, or call (248) 644-5832. MAY 2013 The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) will host Palestinian Hopes, Regional Turmoil, a discussion with Noam Chomsky, including special guests Holly Near and the Peace Becomes You Band, on May 8, 7 p.m., at the Paramount Theatre, 2025 Broadway, Oakland, CA. Tickets are $12 to $200, with sales benefitting MECA’s programs for children in Iraq, Lebanon and Occupied Palestine. For more information visit or call (510) 548-0542 ext. 310. The Churches for Middle East Peace Annual Advocacy Conference will be held May 20 and 21, at Edward J. Pryzbyla Center at The Catholic University of America, the Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church and other locations across Washington, DC. To register and for more information visit or e-mail . Announcements The Yemen College of Middle Eastern Studies (YCMES) will host its annual Summer Term Arabic Language & Area Studies Program in Sana’a from June 9 to July 10, July 14 to Aug. 7, and Aug. 25 to Sept. 25. Students can study at YCMES for 5, 10, 15 weeks or more in one of the few remaining places in the world where Arabic is spoken exclusively. The program accepts applicants on a rolling basis, and payments must be received a month before classes begin. To learn more visit . The Summer Institute for Intensive Arabic Language and Culture, hosted each year at the Lebanese American University (Beirut campus), is currently accepting applications for its six-week summer program (June 24 to Aug. 2). Courses include introductory through advanced Arabic and Lebanese dialect. For more information and to apply, visit . Obituaries: Richard Ben Cramer, 62, Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist and author, died Jan. 7 of lung cancer at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center in Baltimore, MD. In 1979, at the age of 28, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his work as the Philadelphia Inquirer’s THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS BulletinBoard Middle East correspondent. Based in Tel Aviv at the time, Cramer was known for his tenacity. While covering Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon, he reportedly walked through a two mile no-man’s-land between the Israeli army and Fatah forces to conduct interviews. He won the Ernie Pyle Award for foreign reporting and an Overseas Press Club Award in 1980 for his writing from Afghanistan. He was perhaps best known for his book What It Takes: The Way to the White House, an extensive profile of the 1988 U.S. presidential campaign. His writing appeared in several publications including, Time, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and Sports Illustrated. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Cramer revisited Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza, and Lebanon and in 2005 produced How Israel Lost: The Four Questions. (See book review in the April 2005 Washington Report, p. 70.) The book received a hostile reception from American supporters of Israel, who labeled its Jewish author an anti-Semite. Later works, such as Peter Beinart’s The Crisis of Zionism and Gershom Gorenberg’s The Unmaking of Israel owed much to Cramer’s bold stand. Christopher van Hollen, 90, former U.S. Foreign Service officer and ambassador to Sri Lanka, died Jan. 30 of complications from Alzheimer’s disease at the Washington Home and Hospice. His long career with the U.S. State Department included postings in India, Pakistan and Turkey; he also served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs during the 1971 Bangladesh war. He was appointed ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives by President Richard Nixon in 1972 and had a purportedly contentious relationship with National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger. After retirement, van Hollen served as vice president of the Middle East Institute from 1988 to 1992 and as editor of The Middle East Journal in 1991 and 1992. He was also a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and director of the American Institute for Islamic Affairs. He was married to Eliza van Hollen, one of the top U.S. government foreign policy and intelligence analysts on Afghanistan and South Asia, who died in 2007. He is survived by three children, including Rep. Chris van Hollen (D-MD), two sisters and five grandchildren. ❑ 71