Hebrew Prof Denied Visa

By Carrie McCarthy
Assistant News

Although offered a visiting professorship for the 1998-99 academic year, difficulties in securing a visa have prevented Ilana Wistinetzki, an Israeli citizen, from teaching Hebrew at Wesleyan this semester.

According to Associate Professor and Chair of the Religion Department Jeremy Zwelling, Wistinetzki found out this spring that her visa, which allowed her to teach in the United States, could not be renewed.

Students expressed disappointment when they found out that Wistinetzki would not be teaching.

"She was very challenging, but at the same time I felt like if you didn’t do well but tried hard she appreciated effort," said Jessica Lazarus ’01. "The class was very close to her."

"I was shocked because she had been trying to get all of us to come back for the second year," said Avi Stopper ’01. "I think that it’s a travesty she didn’t get her visa and that it’s the reason she wasn’t able to teach here."

Visiting Instructor of Religion Levana Polate, who taught one advanced Hebrew course last year, was able to take over Wistinetzki’s courses with a few scheduling changes.

"I really like the new professor. I think she’s going to be very effective," Lazarus said.

Polate is also an adjunct professor of Hebrew at Trinity College, so the number of course meetings had to be reduced from three days a week to two in order to accommodate her schedule.

Zwelling said that while some students were able to adjust to the change, the program lost a number of students at the intermediate and advanced levels.

Difficulties are not new to the Hebrew program, which is part of the Religion Department. According to Zwelling, the previous Administration reduced the program’s staff from one full-time professor of literature and one part-time professor of language to only one part-time professor, whose contract must be renewed each year. He added that the current administration has been working to expand the program.

Zwelling said that since Hebrew professors are usually Israeli, it has been difficult to obtain appropriate visas. The program has had three instructors within the past three years. He said that the instructor prior to Wistinetzki gave up in frustration after trying to get the appropriate visa.

While teaching at Wesleyan, Wistinetzki was working toward her Ph.D. in Chinese Language and Literature at Yale. She said that she was able to remain in the US by using her student visa.

According to Zwelling, foreigners wanting to work in the United States need to obtain a certain type of visa called an H1B visa. Currently around 65,000 H1B visas can be issued annually, but Zwelling said that most of these go to industries rather than universities. This ceiling is set periodically by Congress.

Zwelling added that Congress is considering a bill that would add around 25,000 more H1B visas to the current limit. This bill did not get passed in either the spring or summer sessions.

Zwelling said that he expects Congress to reconsider the allotment of H1B visas again in October. If at that time they vote to increase the number of visas, the religion department hopes that Wistinetzki will be able to teach a course on contemporary Israeli literature in translation and a tutorial to the most advanced Hebrew students next semester.

Wistinetzki said that she would like to come back to Wesleyan.

"I do hope it works out," Wistinetzki said. "I enjoyed it very much. It was a very lovely experience. I had very good classes. They did pretty much everything I asked them to do. It is quite a good deal for a professor."