Grain & Chaff

Points Norse

Professor James E. Cathey of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures gave a lecture on Old Icelandic at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität in Greifswald, Germany, on Jan. 20 and participated in two days of consultation there having to do with his 1967 doctoral dissertation on the relative diachronic phonology of Old Icelandic. The talk was in connection with a six-year grant in Greifswald on various aspects of Old Icelandic.

Perlmutter honored

Rabbi Saul Perlmutter, executive director of the UMass Amherst Hillel Foundation, was recently honored by the New England Anti-Defamation League for his efforts to combat anti-Semitism and hate. Perlmutter received the ADL's Tischler Confronting Anti-Semitism Award for forging a broad-based coalition of students, faculty and area residents to publicly oppose a rash of anti-Semitic graffiti that appeared in the area last spring. Perlmutter also persuaded then-interim Chancellor Marcellette G. Williams to condemn the graffiti and worked with Hillel student leaders to organize a rally with other student groups, including the Palestinian Action Coalition, Asian Student Association and Black Student Union.

Looking back

Carl Reed, professor emeritus of Art, has published a memoir, "My WW II as I Recall." Reed served as an American Red Cross field director with the 103rd Infantry Division during World War II. General Anthony McAuliffe decorated him for "heroic action behind the enemy lines, which saved the lives of several men." His memoir recounts "tempestuous battle events," as well as Hitler's and the Nazi Party's rise to power and the development of the Holocaust. The self-published book is available by contacting Reed at 80 Gates Road, Eagle Bridge, NY 12057. ... Edwin Gere, professor emeritus of Political Science, has penned an account of the Berlin Airlift in 1948-49. His book, "The Unheralded: Men and Women of the Berlin Blockade and Airlift," focuses on the unsung workers who helped in the international relief effort that brought food, fuel and medical supplies to the German city after it was blockaded by the Soviet Union. An Army Air Force pilot who participated in the airlift, Gere was inspired to write the book after attending 50th anniversary ceremonies in Berlin in 1999. The book is available at the Jeffrey Amherst Bookshop and the Pelham General Store.