Judea Pearl was notified of his son’s death Feb. 21, 2002.
One week later, the Pearl family’s plan to establish the
Daniel Pearl Foundation was under way.
“I felt obliged to continue his life’s work, and we
were urged to do so by thousands of people that wrote to us,”
Pearl said, a UCLA computer science professor and president of the
Daniel Pearl Foundation.
Today marks the second anniversary of Daniel’s kidnapping
in Karachi, Pakistan, where he was eventually killed by his
captors. Daniel was working as a reporter for the Wall Street
Journal on a story about the Islamic militant underground.
The captors, members of a group that called itself the National
Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty, initially
claimed Pearl was a CIA agent and later an agent for Mossad, the
Israeli intelligence agency. Federal officials and Daniel’s
colleagues denied these allegations.
After his death, Daniel became a symbol of understanding and
friendship between people of different cultures , Pearl said.
“He practiced dialogue and bridge-building on a daily
basis. … He talked to strangers, rabbis and mullahs. He talked to
carpet weavers and pearl-divers. He talked to rulers and peasants,
and he turned them into friends, and he told us about them … and
made us familiar with their lives,” Pearl said.
The Daniel Pearl Foundation’s mission is to continue
Daniel’s commitment to intercultural understanding, tolerance
and dialogue.
Judea Pearl said his involvement has made it hard to separate
his personal life from his position as president of the
foundation.
“I feel the duty to do whatever I can to seek revenge and
this is my revenge: to fight the hate that took Daniel’s
life,” he said.
“It is my passion, it is my commitment, and I will do
anything I can,” Pearl added.
He said he had no previous plans or dreams before Daniel’s
death to head an organization dealing with intercultural
relationships and philanthropic causes.
“It is all new to me, but I am learning fast,” he
said.
The Daniel Pearl Foundation uses music and journalism ““
two fields Daniel enjoyed ““ to promote toleranc#e, said
Marianne Scott, director of the foundation. Daniel played the
violin and mandolin.
“Wherever (Daniel) went, he went with an instrument on his
shoulder,” Pearl said.
One way the foundation has found to promote intercultural
tolerance is by its launch of Music Day, when individual artists,
symphony orchestras and student bands dedicate their concerts to
Daniel Pearl. Concerts take place around Oct. 10, Daniel’s
birthday.
The Music Day in 2003 consisted of 230 concerts in 29 countries,
as performances dealt with the theme “Harmony for
Humanity.”
Programs organized by the foundation also employ journalism as
an avenue to promote intercultural understanding, as Daniel
did.
A graduate of Stanford University, Daniel co-founded a campus
newspaper titled the Stanford Commentary. Daniel strove for
journalistic accuracy, polishing his work repeatedly, Pearl
said.
“For Daniel, a sentence had to sing,” he said.
One way the foundation utilizes journalism is with the Daniel
Pearl Fellowship. This year, two mid-career journalists from the
Middle East will work in a U.S. newsroom as fellows.
These foreign journalists have the opportunity to understand how
the U.S. press works, and continue Daniel’s work, Scott
said.
The foundation also will focus on a youth writing project aimed
at student journalism this year.
Pearl also will take part in a series of public dialogues with
Akbar Ahmed, a professor of Islamic studies at the American
University in Washington, D.C. The foundation promotes these
dialogues, the first of which took place in Pittsburgh.
The dialogues are aimed at highlighting commonality between Jews
and Muslims through discussion of issues relevant to both
religions, and encouraging similar discussions in other
communities, Pearl said.
The foundation also established the annual Daniel Pearl Memorial
Lecture at UCLA. Speakers include journalists, policy makers or
scholars. On Feb. 4, Daniel Schorr, a journalist with National
Public Radio, will deliver the lecture.
In addition, Pearl and his wife Ruth edited a book published
this week, titled “I Am Jewish.” The book, inspired by
Daniel’s last words, consists of essays written by Jews
answering the question, “When you say, “˜I am
Jewish,’ what do you mean?”
“It mainly is part of the general concern to fight the
ideology that took Daniel’s life,” Pearl said.
“The murderers tried to instill fear and shame and
confusion among Daniel’s peers, Jews and non-Jews alike, and
we would like to empower them with clarity and purpose, the same
clarity and purpose Danny had as to who he was and what he stood
for,” Pearl said.