Dear Friends and
Readers,
Throughout his year-and-half battle with cancer, Prof. Barry Rubin, founder
of Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center—today the Rubin Center—continued to write and
analyze events in the region and across the globe. When he could no longer
type, he dictated. Even from his hospital bed, while hooked up to an IV
dispensing chemo, he struggled to get the words out, publishing his final
article just two weeks before his untimely death.
In his final days, he
was very much occupied with the future of the Rubin (GLORIA)
Center. It was his dream that the center would continue on the path he
had set.
“My approach,” he once remarked, “…is to ignore the Western scholarly literature and to examine the facts on the ground.” He stressed that events “should be approached as objectively as possible with an honest attempt to be accurate, to produce evidence proving one’s assertions, and to follow where the facts lead.”
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| "The great thing about being alive is that every day amazing things happen to startle, entertain, and bemuse you. The great thing about being alive and studying the Middle East is that these things happen just about every hour." –Prof. Barry Rubin |
As a non-profit organization, Rubin Center content is offered free of charge
Click here to make your tax-deductible donation from
the U.S., Canada, Israel, or the UK. Your contribution is vital to our ability to continue
making this otherwise inaccessible information available to you!
For nearly two decades,
the Rubin Center’s exclusive frontline reporting has brought you breaking stories,
analysis, and research. Rubin researchers have reported from areas inaccessible
to most researchers and journalists, often risking their lives to bring you the
most accurate and up-to-date analysis.
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| Rubin Associate Seth Frantzman’s reporting from the frontline in Mosul, Iraq (Photo credit: Seth Frantzman) |
Rubin Center
achievements:
- Revealing the Islamic State's use of chemical weapons
- Creation of a unique archive of over 1,000 Islamic State documents by Rubin Fellow Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi and exposing the inner workings of the organization
- Rubin Center Director Dr. Jonathan Spyer one of the only Western correspondents to report from both the regime and rebels sides during the Syrian civil war
- Reporting and collecting material in Mosul, Iraq, during and after its liberation from the Islamic State, published in major media outlets
- Rubin Associate Alex Grinberg identifying and analyzing threats and statements in the Iranian media relating to its crisis with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, then picked up by major global media
- Rubin Fellow Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi's testimony before Congress and the British Parliament on the topic of Syria and the Islamic State
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| Syrian Reconciliation Affairs Minister Ali Khaidar addresses a foreign delegation in Damascus, April 2017. Jonathan Spyer can be seen on the left. (Source: Jonathan Spyer) |
Prof. Rubin was a
pioneer in the field of Middle East research. He established The
Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) in 1996, at a time when
internet publications were not yet developed. MERIA, which produced
high-quality articles on the region, was one of the first open-access, online
Middle East journals and has always been offered free of charge.
Prof. Rubin believed in efficiency and accessibility.
He noted, “The money spent on a single
conference or on a print journal could probably fund a journal or other online
project for one or two years.” In one of his final projects, "Free Books," he offered 13 of his books online at no cost.
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| Among the titles featured in the Free Books project |
The Rubin Center has been completely self-funded,
receiving no financial assistance from the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC)
Herzliya. As a non-profit organization, the center has always operated on a
very modest budget-- investing its time and money in frontline
reporting and research.
Prof. Rubin also believed
in encouraging talented young scholars and invested a great deal in helping those
who were unrecognized develop and grow. The Rubin Fellowship program was founded
in 2014 in his memory. Our first Rubin Fellow, Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, is now a
renowned expert sought out by government officials and whose work has been
published in major media outlets.
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| Rubin Fellow Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi |
Many more promising young researchers have joined the Rubin Center since,
including Dr. Seth J. Frantzman, Dave McAvoy, Sarit Zehavi, Neri Zilber, and
Aynur Bashirova.
In our final
conversations with Prof. Rubin, he urged us to continue the research.
If you value our work, please make a tax-deductible
contribution today. In doing so, you would be supporting groundbreaking
research, promising young scholars, and Barry Rubin’s legacy.
If we do not receive funding, the Rubin
Center will be closing its doors at the end of December 2017.
As a non-profit organization, Rubin Center content is offered free of charge
Click here to make your tax-deductible donation from the U.S., Canada, Israel, or the UK. Your contribution is vital to our ability to continue making this otherwise inaccessible information available to you!
Yours,
Judith Colp Rubin, Honorary President
Dr. Jonathan Spyer, Director
Yeru Chernilovsky, Director of Management/Publications
Rubin Fellow, Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi