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Avukah Avukah is the second context for this exploration of the link between Harris's nature and beliefs and the kind of thinker Chomsky was to become. It serves as a kind of critical connection both between Harris and Chomsky and between Chomsky's present values and views and those held by others earlier in this century. Avukah was around before Harris came onto the scene, but he had an important impact on the Pennsylvania chapter, and many other chapters in North America, beginning in about 1933. Harris's singular leadership made the University of Pennsylvania Avukah particularly fascinating and somewhat unusual. Willie Segal, who was the president of the McGill University Avukah during this period, notes that "there is a developmental distinction to be made between Avukah and the Zellig Harris group, the latter evolving out of the former" (24 Apr. 1995). Due to his magnetic personality and his appeal as an intellectual, Harris's contribution to Avukah led to a surge of activity at the Pennsylvania branch. Some remarkable people became involved, including Kurt Blumenfeld, a spokesperson for many German Jewish intellectuals, and a confidant of Hannah Arendt's. Arthur Rosenberg, the German historian, also joined forces with the group, as did Seymour Melman, wholater produced extremely forward-looking work on the military-industrial complex and social responsibility as well as on worker self-management. Documentation concerning Avukah and its activities has all but disappeared (except for that contained in the Jewish section of the New York Public Library, a gift from Seymour Melman), and even those who have chronicled American Zionism or libertarian movements have apparently forgotten its existence, so I have relied heavily upon firsthand accounts. In a letter concerning my biographical research, Chomsky said, "it would be interesting to dig up the history of Avukah, far more interesting than writing about me, in fact." I am, in a sense, following his suggestion, not simply because the subject has intrinsic interest, but because it bears in direct ways upon an understanding of Noam Chomsky.