Tribute to Zalman Amit 1934-2024

by Larry Haiven

Independent Jewish Voices Canada has lost a dear friend, valuable member and respected campaigner in Zalman Amit, aged 90, who died at his home in Kingsburg, Nova Scotia, on 5 October, 2024, His daughter Vered said he died shortly after spending time in his woodturning workshop practising his beloved craft. Soon after retiring from an international career as an esteemed researcher and professor of psychology, he took his first instruction in woodturning. His talent grew and matured quickly and his many finely-created works were displayed at the artists’ co-operative Peer Gallery in historic Lunenburg.

His life as a worker, student and teacher and a loyal and generous friend made him a valuable comrade to activists for and seekers of a just peace in Israel-Palestine. He knew the history, followed the present, and had well-developed and articulate views of the future. Born in Palestine, he knew and understood the history and people involved in that history, due to his years on a Kibbutz, stints in the Israeli Defence Forces. Since moving to Canada in the late 1960s, he followed Israel-Palestine affairs and activities closely. And he travelled extensively in Israel each year. He knew and worked with many political and peace activists there, and maintained lifelong relationships.

Not only an assiduous historical researcher with a formidable memory, he had the advantage of having known and lived through extensive periods of Israel’s history.

Zalman was also an authoritative member of the Nova Scotia arts community who insisted that art was inherently political. When famed painter Tom Forestall in 2013 exhibited a series of watercolours of Israel/Palestine he painted on a trip sponsored by the Atlantic Jewish Council, Zalman went on radio to denounce Forestall’s naivete in using his art to normalise the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Zalman was born in 1934 in Palestine and grew up and spent his formative years in Kibbutz HaKook, in the Galilee, part of the Labour Zionist movement Dror. His father fought in the Spanish Civil War, in the British army in WWII and later in the Israeli forces. Zalman later aggressively rejected Zionism and turned his many talents to debunking that ideology, but his youth was spent imbibing a particularly intense secular socialistic Zionistic ethos. Labour was a key part of that philosophy, but it was determinedly Jewish labour. Moreover, despite its high-minded ideals, as Nur Masalha has written, “Labor Zionism dominated political Zionism (and later the Israeli state) in the period from 1930-1977. Essential to mainstream Labor Zionist strategies of the mid-1930s, especially from 1936 onwards, was the doctrine of pursuing ‘maximum land with a minimal number of Arabs’ in a projected Jewish state.”

So fundamental was Zalman’s eventual shift away from the cause of Israel that he was denounced by the infamous “Canary Mission” a fanatical right wing, pro-Israel organization devoted to doxxing critics of Zionism. Among a page of details, they summarize: “Zalman Amit has demonized Israel in his writing and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.”

A veritable youthful cowboy, Zalman was involved in the activities of the kibbutz as it turned its focus to cattle-raising. He liked to recount the following story, told to his Halifax friends Herb Gamberg and Jim Guild, illustrating the anti-Palestinian racism inherent in the movement:

“At one time, [the kibbutz] received some cattle which were so new to their experience that they had to look for some outside expert to help deal with them. It so happened that there was an Arab (not called Palestinians then or now) who was quite knowledgeable about handling these new animals. He came to the kibbutz and in a short time, fixed any of the problems and prepared the kibbutzniks for all future management of the new cattle. Before the Palestinian left the kibbutz, he asked if he might join the kibbutz as a member. He was a married man with children and all those who had worked with him liked him very much and were delighted with the idea of him joining them. When they approached the kibbutz leadership with the idea the application was rejected on the grounds that Arabs were not allowed to join a Jewish kibbutz. This rejection was accepted without question by those members who had supported him.”

His youthful cattle-raising combined with his love of archaeology ensured he spent a lot of time outdoors. Once on a “dig” he was confronted by renowned Israeli soldier/politician Moshe Dayan, whose penchant for filching antiquities was well-known. Zalman told the general that the objects were protected by Israeli law. Dayan demurred but later found a way to get his pick of the findings.

A red-head, working out in the blazing Israeli sun, Zalman contracted melanoma, for which he was successfully treated. But his doctors insisted that he shun solar exposure and move to a more appropriate climate. He chose Montreal, Canada.

He came to this country first as a “shaliach” (emissary) of the Dror movement and helped, among other things, to establish summer camps and youth groups. Lacking a full set of high school courses, he was first unable to enroll at McGill University. But he was accepted at a university in Wales, UK, by dint of a Hebrew-reading divinity professor who had read a book Zalman had written on archaeology. The year in Wales got Zalman into McGill, where he gained a bachelor’s degree and then a doctorate in psychology. In 1972, Zalman was hired at what became Montreal’s Concordia University

As academic colleague Peter Shizgal has written summarizing Zalman’s luminous career, he:

…founded the Center for Research in Drug Dependence (CRDD …greatly expanding departmental facilities for behavioural and neurobiological research on laboratory rodents. The CRDD attracted an enthusiastic cohort of student researchers and provided a key impetus for the establishment of our PhD program in 1974…Zalman supervised the research carried out by the first graduate of our PhD program and went on to inspire, guide, and train a legion of postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduates. In 1983, he and three colleagues expanded the CRDD to form our current Centre for the Study of Behavioural Neurobiology. Zalman published well over 200 scientific papers and co-authored six books. The neurochemical and behavioural mechanisms underlying the voluntary intake of drugs such as ethanol, opiates and opioids, and psychomotor stimulants served as the principal focus of his research.

As the years passed, Zalman became more involved in the Israeli “peace movement” but was greatly disappointed as that cause atrophied and outright fascist tendencies in Israel became more and more dominant. His trips to Israel to visit friends and family diminished in his later years.

While still working at Concordia, Zalman and his wife Ann had purchased a historic small house in Kingsburg, near Bridgewater on the south shore of Nova Scotia, where they spent many summers away from Montreal. They became well-known in the Maritime community and, when Zalman retired as Distinguished Professor Emeritus, they took the opportunity to move there permanently. Zalman did an apprenticeship with a skilled woodturner and struck out on his own artistic path in the last 20 years of his life.

In 2011, Zalman teamed up with a family friend, fellow Israeli immigrant to Canada, IJV member, and Nova Scotia resident, Daphna Levit, to write the book Israeli Rejectionism: A Hidden Agenda in the Middle East Peace Process, published by Pluto Press. As the book blurb so aptly puts it, the authors:

…find overwhelming evidence of Israeli rejectionism as the main cause for the failure of peace. They demonstrate that the Israeli leadership has always been against a fairly negotiated peace and have deliberately stalled negotiations for the last 80 years. The motivations behind this rejectionist position have changed, as have the circumstances of the conflict, but the conclusion has remained consistent - peace has not been in the interest of the state of Israel.

The book draws on a wealth of sources - including Hebrew documents and transcripts - to show that it is the Palestinians who lack a viable 'partner for peace'.

How prescient, given the current Israeli violence against its Arab and other neighbours in the region!

Zalman and Daphna did a number of lectures and a book tour across North America; they received much praise from audiences, but also determined pushback from hardliners for the Israeli cause as their thesis directly contradicts that country’s chosen narrative.

As the authors wrote: “Our position is that Israel was never primarily interested in establishing peace with its neighbors unless such a peace was totally on its own terms.”

As with most of his anti-Zionist friends, Zalman was shaken deeply by the events on and after October 7, 2023, feeling that much of what he had predicted about Israel’s persistent failure to establish justice with the Palestinians, had come true.

The last time we saw Zalman was at a rally by Independent Jewish Voices in Halifax on November 1, 2023. He was frail but determined, carrying a sign saying “Not In Our Name.” I thanked him for coming all the way from the South Shore, to which he replied, “How could I not?” Above is a picture of that rally, but it does not, unfortunately, include Zalman. He will have to live in our memories and his memory will be a blessing. A celebration of Zalman’s life is planned, in Lunenburg, in the coming months.