Demands for Return of Arabic to University of Haifa Logo
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- Published on Monday, 21 May 2012 12:20
PNN
The Arabic script has been removed from the University of Haifa's logo, leaving only Hebrew and English. The new logo is part of a redesign of the university's 40th anniversary celebrations and it appears on all official university documents. The removal of Arabic script has been noticed by several lecturers.
Arabic and Hebrew are both official languages of Israel. The northern region of Israel, where Haifa is situated, has a higher proportion of Arabic speakers than the rest of the country.
On May 10th a special meeting of the university's Faculty of Humanities was called by Dean Prof. Reuven Snir and came to a unanimous decision to call for the return of the Arabic script to the logo. Snir put the faculty's request in writing to the university's president, Aaron Ben-Ze'ev, but has yet to receive a reply.
The heads of the Arabic, Hebrew and English language departments have all publically called for Ben-Ze'ev to reverse the decision to remove Arabic from the logo.
However, the university has responded by defending the logo change. An official statement said "Like other universities, in official documents the University of Haifa uses a logo in Hebrew only". The statement continued to say that when publications are "directed toward various target audiences, the university permits English or Arabic to be inserted,
