Sunday, posted on Barry Rubin’s Facebook page:
Friends,
We felt it important to tell you that Barry has been in a coma since Friday. Thank you for all the warm wishes these past few months, you have all been very thoughtful. Please keep him in your prayers. We will keep you updated.
This morning:
Friends,
To our great sadness, Barry passed away this morning. He was surrounded by his wife and children. Your love, support, and prayers have been greatly appreciated. There will be shiva and a funeral, details to follow soon.
I wrote about Barry’s impact on me this past August as part of a series of my most important intellectual influences:
Barry Rubin is PJ Media’s Middle East editor. For the last least three years, his Rubin Reports blog has served as the roadmap to the Middle East that I rely on the most. Written from the center of the storm in Israel, his typical columns are densely filled with facts and fascinating observations. Perhaps the crucial insight that I’ve gained from trying to keep up with Barry all these years — he tends to publish his loaded analyses very prolifically, not that I’m complaining! — is the depth of complexity to the Middle East. The game is not a chessboard between two sides, and there are rarely easy answers given that there are so many different actors on the field.
But Barry has gone out of his way, dedicated his life really, to trying to help people understand better the chaos in the Middle East. Recently he decided to GIVE AWAY 13 of his books. These titles of his are available in convenient online and downloadable PDF reading. It’s a lifetime’s worth of scholarship in the history and politics of the Middle East:
The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict
Assimilation and Its Discontents
Cauldron of Turmoil
Children of Dolhinov: Our Ancestors and Ourselves
Islamic Fundamentalism in Egyptian Politics
Istanbul Intrigues
The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East
Modern Dictators: Third World Coupmakers, Strongmen, and Populist Tyrants
Paved with Good Intentions: The American Experience and Iran
Secrets of State: The State Department and the Struggle Over U.S. Foreign Policy
The Truth About Syria
Tragedy of the Middle East
(Barry describes this as his favorite of his books that he’s written. Thus it’s the next on my to-read list for him after the one I’ve already started, below.)
Hating America: A History
The first of this haul that I’ve decided to dive into is Hating America: A History, which Barry co-wrote with his wife (a practice Ron Radosh has also engaged in and which I hope to explore with my own wife someday).
As the above list of Barry’s titles shows, he jumps all over the place in trying to understand the many different angles of the Middle East. I confess: foreign policy was what dragged me into leftist activism and then fueled my shift to conservative activism, but it was Barry’s writing above all others that turned me into a full-blown foreign policy geek. Because of him I feel like I could pick up just about any book on a Middle Eastern country, culture or an individual and be interested and excited to learn from it. For that — and for much else — I’ve thanked him privately and now I do so publicly.
Before he died Barry completed two books that are set to be published this year. From Broadside Books on April 1, Adam Bellow’s extraordinary conservative imprint at HarperCollins (publisher of Ben Shapiro’s Primetime Propaganda, Rich Lowry’s Lincoln Unbound, and Dennis Prager’s Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph), comes Barry’s history of ideology in 20th century America: Silent Revolution: How the Left Rose to Political Power and Cultural Dominance. And from Yale University Press, out on February 25, Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East.
My friend Jeff Dunetz at his blog Yid With Lid this morning wrote about how he was similarly taught and inspired by Barry:
Professor Barry Rubin, is more than one of the great intellectual defenders of Israel, he was my teacher and a friend. When we first met, it was Barry who taught me to change from being a frothing at the mouth lunatic to a thoughtful commentator. He taught me to discern the quality of information coming from the trash. In 2009 when I was leading the charge against Chas Freeman’s nomination to a key Obama National security spot, It was Barry Rubin giving me advice on future steps.
Barry was a consummate teacher. When he first took Ill, he made all of his scholarly books available for free online because he wanted people to be able to learn from him even after he was gone.
You can read Barry’s last two PJ Media posts, from January 21, here:
Why the Arab/Muslim World Is Trapped
Imagine All the People Living in Islamist Hegemony: Why Lennon and Dylan Know All About Islamist Hegemony
Did you know Barry? Do you have any memories to share about how he or his words touched your life? Please send me an email: DaveSwindlePJM [@] Gmail.com.
When I’m feeling less like a crushed tin can I’ll write about getting to know Barry over the years, how his writings changed the way I see the world, and how now that he’s gone I will continue to fight his battles for a world where Jew, Muslim, Christian, and people of all faiths live together peacefully in mutual respect and prosperity.
Updates: I’ll be linking to various reflections from colleagues. Here’s Patrick Poole at the PJ Tatler.
Updated 9:33 AM PST: Here’s PJM’s co-founder and editor emeritus Roger L. Simon: Barry Rubin: Conscience of the White City
Updated 12:11 PM PST: A really wonderful piece from Lee Smith at Tablet, hat tip to Yair Rosenberg: Learning from Barry Rubin, A Lifelong Teacher
Updated 3:20 PM PST: Sent along from David Gerstman, who says his own reflections are forthcoming:
Meryl Yourish
Elder of Ziyon
Israelly Cool (and follow the link to the Gettysburg story)
Phillip Smyth
Another follow up from Gerstman:
Dave,
Here’s Barry’s Facebook page from his 01/28/2013 Birthday
https://www.facebook.com/
barry.rubin.75/posts/ 10151373324469801?stream_ref= 10 A year and a week ago we all thought he was out of the woods.
Rick Moran at American Thinker
Updated 3:36 PST:
Ron Radosh: R.I.P.: Remembrances of My Friend Barry Rubin
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