Hebraization of Palestinian place names

Hebraization (or Judaization) of Palestinian place names refers to the replacement of Arabic-language place names with Hebrew-language place names throughout different periods: under the British Mandatory Palestine regime; after the establishment of Israel following the 1948 Palestinian exodus and 1948 Arab–Israeli War; and subsequently in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in 1967.[2][3] A 1992 study counted c.2,780 historical locations whose names were Hebraized, including 340 villages and towns, 1,000 Khirbat (ruins), 560 wadis and rivers, 380 springs, 198 mountains and hills, 50 caves, 28 castles and palaces, and 14 pools and lakes.[4]

1948 index of the 1:20,000 Survey of Palestine maps, with contemporary overwriting for a number of place names
1870s map
1940s map
modern map
1940s with modern overlay map
1870s map
1940s map
modern map
1940s with modern overlay map
Two examples of Hebraization of Palestinian towns depopulated in 1948. In the first, Bayt Jibrin became Beit Guvrin, in the second Salama became Kfar Shalem.
Street signs for Mevo Dotan and Afula. Afula was a Palestinian town sold by the Sursock family to the American Zion Commonwealth in the 1920s; the Hebrew name follows the Arabic, which means "beans".[1]

Many of the place names surviving in the Palestinian dialect of Arabic are considered by scholars to preserve the original ancient or biblical name.[5][6] In some instances of modern Hebraization, the traditional Palestinian Arabic place name was preserved in the modern Hebrew, despite there being a different Hebrew tradition regarding the name, as in the case of Banias, and where, in classical Hebrew writings, the place is called Paneas.[7] Municipal direction sign-posts and maps produced by state-run agencies will often note the traditional Hebrew name and the traditional Arabic name alongside each other, such as "Nablus / Shechem" and "Silwan / Shiloach", inter alia.[8] In certain areas of Israel, particularly mixed Jewish–Arab cities, there is a growing trend to restore the original Arabic street names which were Hebraized after 1948,[9][10]

In 1925, the Directorate of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) established The Names Committee for the Settlements, with the intent of giving names to the new Jewish settlements established on lands purchased by the JNF.[11] The Jewish National Council (JNC), for their part, met in parley in late 1931, in order to make its recommendations known to the British government in Mandatory Palestine, by suggesting emendations to a book published by the British colonial office in Palestine in which it outlined a set of standards used when referencing place names transliterated from Arabic and Hebrew into English, or from Arabic into Hebrew, and from Hebrew into Arabic, based on the country's ancient toponymy.[12] Many of the same proposals made by the JNC were later implemented, beginning in 1949 (Committee for Geographical Names) and later following 1951, when Yeshayahu Press (a member of the JNC) established the Government Naming Committee.[13]

Early history
Biblical Researches in Palestine
PEF Survey of Palestine
In the 19th century, the contemporary Palestinian Arabic toponyms were used to identify ancient locations. These two examples were the most notable lists created during the period.[14]

Many of the place names surviving in the Palestinian dialect of Arabic can be traced to Aramaic, the major language spoken by the predominantly Christian peasantry[15] in that region at the time of the advent of Islam.[16]

C. R. Conder (1848–1910) of the Palestine Exploration Fund was among the first to recognize the importance of analyzing Arabic place names in order to determine a site's more ancient Hebrew name. Conder's contribution was unique in that he did not eradicate the Arabic place names in his Survey of Western Palestine maps, but preserved their names intact, rather than attribute a site to a dubious identification.[17] In his memoirs, he mentions that the Hebrew and Arabic traditions of place names are often consonant with each other:

The names of the old towns and villages mentioned in the Bible remain for the most part almost unchanged... The fact that each name was carefully recorded in Arabic letters made it possible to compare with the Hebrew in a scientific and scholarly manner... When the Hebrew and the Arabic are shown to contain the same radicals, the same gutturals, and often the same meanings, we have a truly reliable comparison... We have now recovered more than three-quarters of the Bible names, and are thus able to say with confidence that the Bible topography is a genuine and actual topography, the work of Hebrews familiar with the country.[18]

First modern Hebraization efforts

Modern Hebraization efforts began from the time in the First Aliyah in 1880.[19] In the early 1920s, the HeHalutz youth movement began a Hebraization program for newly established settlements in Mandatory Palestine.[20] These names, however, were applied only to sites purchased by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), as they had no sway over the names of other sites in Palestine.

Seeing that directional signposts were frequently inscribed only in the Arabic language with their English transliterations (excluding their equivalent Hebrew names), the Jewish community in Palestine, led by prominent Zionists such as David Yellin, tried to influence the naming process initiated by the Royal Geographical Society's (RGS's) Permanent Committee on Geographical Names,[19][21] so as to make the naming more inclusive.[22] Despite these efforts, well-known cities and geographical places, such as Jerusalem, Jericho, Nablus, Hebron, the Jordan River, etc. carried names in both Hebrew and Arabic writing (e.g. Jerusalem / Al Quds / Yerushalayim and Hebron / Al Khalil / Ḥevron),[23] but lesser-known classical Jewish sites of antiquity (e.g. Jish / Gush Halab; Beisan /Beit She'an; Shefar-amr / Shefarʻam; Kafr 'Inan / Kefar Hananiah; Beit Jibrin / Beit Gubrin, etc.) remained inscribed after their Arabic names, without change or addition.[24][25][22] The main objection to adding additional spellings for ancient Hebrew toponymy was the fear that it would cause confusion to the postal service, when long accustomed names were given new names, as well as be totally at variance with the names already inscribed on maps. Therefore, British officials sought to ensure unified forms of place names.[26]

One of the motivating factors behind members of the Yishuv to apply Hebrew names to old Arabic names, despite attempts to the contrary by the RGS Committee for Names,[22] was the belief by historical geographers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, that many Arabic place names were mere "corruptions" of older Hebrew names[27] (e.g. Khirbet Shifat = Yodfat; Khirbet Tibneh = Timnah;[28][29] Lifta = Nephtoah;[30] Jabal al-Fureidis = Herodis, et al.). At other times, the history of assigning the "restored Hebrew name" to a site has been fraught with errors and confusion, as in the case of the ruin ʻIrâq el-Menshiyeh, situated where Kiryat Gat now stands. Initially, it was given the name Tel Gath, based on Albright's identification of the site with the biblical Gath. When this was found to be a misnomer, its name was changed to Tel Erani, which, too, was found to be an erroneous designation for what was thought to be the old namesake for the site.[31]

According to Professor Virginia Tilley, "[a] body of scientific, linguistic, literary, historical, and biblical authorities was invented to foster impressions of Jewish belonging and natural rights in a Jewish homeland reproduced from a special Jewish right to this land, which clearly has been occupied, through the millennia, by many peoples."[32]

As early as 1920, a Hebrew sub-committee was established by the British government in Palestine with the aim of advising the government on the English transcript of names of localities and in determining the form of the Hebrew names for official use by the government.[21]

JNF Naming Committee

In 1925, the Jewish National Fund established the Names Committee for the Settlements, led directly by the head of the JNF, Menachem Ussishkin.[33]

Meron Benvenisti writes that the Arabic geographical names upset the new Jewish community, for example on 22 April 1941 the Emeq Zevulun Settlements Committee wrote to the head office of the JNF:[34]

Such names as the following are displayed in all their glory: Karbassa, al- Sheikh Shamali, Abu Sursuq, Bustan al-Shamali – all of them names that the JNF has no interest in immortalizing in the Z'vulun Valley.... We recommend to you that you send a circular letter to all of the settlements located on JNF land in the Z'vulun Valley and its immediate vicinity and warn them against continuing the above-mentioned practice [i.e., the use of] old maps that, from various points of view, are dangerous to use.

Between 1925 and 1948, the JNF Naming Committee gave names to 215 Jewish communities in Palestine.[19] Although sweeping changes had come over the names of old geographic sites, a record of their old names is preserved on the old maps.[35]

Arabic language preeminence

By 1931, the destinational listings at post offices, signs at train stations and place names listed in the telephone directory, had removed any mention in Hebrew of "Shechem" (Nablus), "Nazareth," and "Naḥal Sorek" (Wadi es-Sarar), which aroused the concern of the Jewish National Council that the British Government of Palestine was being prejudicial towards its Jewish citizens.[36] Naḥal Sorek, was a major route and thoroughfare when commuting by train from Jerusalem to Hartuv.

1949: Committee for the Designation of Place-Names in the Negev

In late 1949, after the 1947–1949 Palestine war, the new Israeli government created the Committee for the Designation of Place-Names in the Negev Region, a group of nine scholars whose job was to assign Hebrew names to towns, mountains, valleys, springs, roads, etc., in the Negev region.[37] Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion had decided on the importance of renaming in the area earlier in the year, writing in his diary in July: "We must give Hebrew names to these places – ancient names, if there are, and if not, new ones!";[38] he subsequently established the committee's objectives with a letter to the chairman of the committee:[37]

We are obliged to remove the Arabic names for reasons of state. Just as we do not recognize the Arabs' political proprietorship of the land, so also do we not recognize their spiritual proprietorship and their names.

In the Negev, 333 of the 533 new names which the committee decided upon were transliterations of, or otherwise similar-sounding to, the Arabic names.[39] According to Bevenisti, some members of the committee had objected to the eradication of Arabic place names, but in many cases they were overruled by political and nationalistic considerations.[39]

1951: Governmental Naming Committee

In March 1951, the JNF committee and the Negev committee were merged to cover all of Israel.[40] The new merged committee stated their belief that the "Judaization of the geographical names in our country [is] a vital issue".[40] The work was ongoing as of 1960; in February 1960 the director of the Survey of Israel, Yosef Elster, wrote that "We have ascertained that the replacement of Arabic names with Hebrew ones is not yet complete. The committee must quickly fill in what is missing, especially the names of ruins."[41] In April 1951, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and Dr. Benjamin Maisler were appointed to the Government Naming Committee.[42]

Between 1920 and 1990, the different committees had set Hebrew names for some 7,000 natural elements in the country, of which more than 5,000 were geographical place names, several hundred were names of historical sites, and over a thousand were names given to new settlements.[43] Vilnay has noted that, since the 19th century, biblical words, expressions and phrases have provided names for many urban and rural settlements and neighborhoods in Modern Israel.[44]

While the names of many newer Jewish settlements had replaced the names of older Arab villages and ruins (e.g. Khirbet Jurfah becoming Roglit;[45][46] Allar becoming Mata; al-Tira becoming Kfar Halutzim, which is now Bareket, etc.), leaving no traces of their former designations, Benvenisti has shown that the memorial of these ancient places had not been utterly lost through hegemonic practices:

Approximately one-quarter of the 584 Arab villages that were standing in the 1980s, had names whose origins were ancient – biblical, Hellenistic, or Aramaic.[47]

Today, the Israeli Government Naming Committee discourages giving a name to a new settlement if its name cannot be shown to be connected in some way to the immediate area or region. Still, it is the only authorized arbiter of names, whether the name has a historical connection to the site or not.[48][49]

In certain areas of Israel, particularly mixed Jewish–Arab cities, there is a growing trend to restore the original Arabic street names which were Hebraized after 1948.[9][10]

See also

Citations
  1. Masalha, Nur (15 August 2018). Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History. Zed Books. ISBN 978-1-78699-275-8. APPROPRIATION, HYBRIDISATION AND INDIGENISATION: THE APPROPRIATION OF PALESTINE PLACE NAMES BY EUROPEAN ZIONIST SETTLERS... From Palestinian Fuleh to Jewish Afula... The etymology of the Zionist settler toponym Afula is derived from the name of the Palestinian Arab village al‐Fuleh, which in 1226 Arab geographer Yaqut al‐Hamawi mentioned as being a town in the prov‐ ince of Jund Filastin. The Arabic toponym al‐Fuleh is derived from the word ful, for fava beans, which are among the oldest food plant in the Middle East and were widely cultivated by local Palestinians in Marj Ibn ‘Amer.
  2. Noga Kadman (7 September 2015). "Naming and Mapping the Depopulated Village Sites". Erased from Space and Consciousness: Israel and the Depopulated Palestinian Villages of 1948. Indiana University Press. pp. 91–. ISBN 978-0-253-01682-9.
  3. Benvenisti 2000, p. 11.
  4. Study by Palestinian geographer Shukri Arraf (1992), "The Palestinian locations between two eras/maps" (Arabic). Kufur Qari’: Matba’at, Al-Shuruq Al-Arabiya; quoted in Amara 2017, p. 106
  5. Rainey, 1978, p.230: “What surprised western scholars and explorers the most was the amazing degree to which biblical names were still preserved in the Arabic toponymy of Palestine”
  6. Rainey, 1978, p.231: “In the majority of cases, a Greek or Latin name assigned by Hellenistic or Roman authorities enjoyed an existence only in official and literary circles while the Semitic- speaking populace continued to use the Hebrew or Aramaic original. The latter comes back into public use with the Arab conquest. The Arabic names Ludd, Beisan, and Saffurieh, representing original Lod, Bet Se’an and Sippori, leave no hint concerning their imposing Greco-Roman names, viz., Diospolis, Scythopolis, and Diocaesarea, respectively”
  7. Vilnay, Zev (1954), p. 135 (section 9). Cf. Targum Shir HaShirim 5:4; etc. The reason for the hard-sounding "b" in the Arabic pronunciation of Banias has to do with the fact that, in the Arabic language, there is no hard "p" sound; the "p" being replaced by "b".
  8. Sign welcoming visitors to Siloam (Shiloach), printed both in Hebrew and Arabic with traditional names, B'Tselem, 16 September 2014
  9. Rekhess (2014). "The Arab Minority in Israel: Reconsidering the "1948 Paradigm"". Israel Studies. 19 (2): 187–217. doi:10.2979/israelstudies.19.2.187. JSTOR 10.2979/israelstudies.19.2.187. A new trend that has become particularly popular in recent years in mixed Jewish-Arab cities, is attempts to restore original Arabic street names, “Hebraized” after 1948
  10. Ofer Aderet (29 July 2011). "A stir over sign language: A recently discovered trove of documents from the 1950s reveals a nasty battle in Jerusalem over the hebraization of street and neighborhood names. This campaign is still raging today". Haaretz. Retrieved 18 December 2011.
  11. Ettinger, Y. (25 August 1925). "Determining the Names of the Settlements acquired by the Jewish National Fund" (in Hebrew). Davar.
  12. Maisler et al. 1932, pp. 3-5 (Preface) "Just as they write in Hebrew 'Shechem' rather than Nablus; 'Ḥevron' rather than al-Khalil; 'Yerushalayim' rather than al-Quds, so, too, it is necessary to write [in Hebrew] 'Dor' instead of Ṭanṭūrah; 'Adoraim' instead of Dūra; 'ʻAin Ganim' instead of Jenin; 'Naḥal Sorek' instead of Wadi eṣ-Ṣarār, etc."
  13. "State of Israel Records", Collection of Publications, no. 277 (PDF) (in Hebrew), Jerusalem: Government of Israel, 1953, p. 630, The names of the settlements were mostly determined at different times by the 'Names Committee for the Settlements,' under the auspices of the Jewish National Fund (est. 1925), while [other] names were added by the Government Naming Committee.
  14. Rainey, 1978, p.231
  15. Nur Masalha,Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History, Zed Books 2018 ISBN 978-1-786-99275-8p.46:'Latin remained the official language of the government in the 6th century, whereas the prevalent language of merchants, farmers, seamen and ordinary citizens was Greek. Also, Aramaic -closely related to Arabic - was a prevalent language among the (predominantly Christian) Palestinian peasantry which constituted the majority of population in the country. . Greek, however, became the lingua franca of late Byzantine Palestine, shortly before the advent of Islam. Consequently, the Hellenisation of Palestinian toponyms was not uncommon in Late Antiquity. A well known example of Hellenisation from Late Antiquity is the work of the 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and translator Josephus who spoke Aramaic and Greek and who became a Roman citizen. Both he and Greco-Roman Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria used the toponym Palestine . .He listed local Palestinian toponyms and rendered them familiar to Graeco-Roman audiences. . Medieval Muslims and modern Palestinians preserved Greco-Roman toponyms such as Nablus (Greek: Neapolis/Νεάπολις), Palestine, Qaysariah (Caesaria/Καισάρεια), but not Philadelphia.'
  16. Mila Neishtadt. 'The Lexical Substrate of Aramaic in Palestinian Arabic,' in Aaron Butts (ed.) Semitic Languages in Contact, BRILL 2015 pp.281-282:'As in other cases of language shift, the supplanting language (Arabic) was not left untouched by the supplanted language (Aramaic) and the existence of an Aramaic substrate in Syro-Palestinian colloquial Arabic has been widely accepted. The influence of the Aramaic substrate is especially evidence in many Palestinian place names, and in the vocabularies of traditional life and industrials: agriculture, flora, fauna, food, tools, utensils etc.'
  17. Hopkins, I.W.J. (1968), p. 34. Quote: "Conder collected the current Arabic names for the places on his [P.E.F.] maps, which on the face of it makes them appear to be less useful, compared with Jacotin's [map]. In fact, this makes the P.E.F. map even more useful as evidence of the current Arab place name, and the sheets are not cluttered up with doubtful identifications. The Arabic name is often a corruption of the ancient name and this fact has helped enormously in locating Biblical, Classical and Byzantine sites."
  18. Conder, Major C. R. (n.d.), pp. 218–219
  19. Fields, Gary (5 September 2017). Enclosure: Palestinian Landscapes in a Historical Mirror. Univ of California Press. p. 222. ISBN 978-0-520-29104-1.
  20. Boaz Neumann (2011). Land and Desire in Early Zionism. UPNE. p. 167. ISBN 978-1-58465-968-6.
  21. Bitan 1992, p. 366.
  22. Maisler et al. 1932, pp. 3-5 (Preface).
  23. Adler, Elkan Nathan (2014), pp. 225, et al.
  24. Gleichen, Edward, ed. (1925). Quote: (Preface) "The following List of Names in Palestine, having been submitted through H.M. Secretary of State for the Colonies to the High Commissioner, and referred by him for correction to special Arabic and Hebrew subcommittees, is now published by the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official use."
  25. British Colonial Office in Palestine (1931), pp. 1, 13, 37, 52, 54–56, 59, 65. Quote: (p. 2) "The list of geographical names has presented many difficulties. Many place names in Palestine are of Arabic origin while others are of Hebrew, Phoenician, Greek, Latin, or Frankish ancestry –– to mention only the most important sources –– but, as most places are inhabited by Arabic-speaking people, local usage has given them names in Arabicised forms or in colloquial Arabic. To adopt the colloquial forms in transliterating names was not considered consistent with the end in view, and as a general rule an effort has been made to put the names in as literary a garb as possible. In most names of Arabic origin this was comparatively easy; but in some the Arab experts recommended the retention of forms not usually admitted in Arabic grammatical word construction."
  26. Gleichen, Edward (1920), p. 309
  27. Benvenisti, M. (2000), pp. 47–48. Quote: "The Arab conquerors who colonized the land following the conquest of 638 C.E. settled among its Jewish, Samaritan, and Christian natives. They easily assimilated the Hebrew-Aramaic geographical and topographical names, and, their language being closely related to the Semitic languages spoken there, they made only slight changes in spelling and pronunciation. They had no difficulty finding Arabic forms for names such as Ashkelon –– which they transformed into Asqalan –– Beit Horon to Beit Ghur, Beersheba to Bir Saba'a, and Eilat to Aila."
  28. Clermont-Ganneau (1896), pp. 67–68, 214, where he wrote: (p. 214) "Tibneh, 'chopped straw', one would swear was Arabic, but it is beyond a doubt that it is the name of the town Timnah, brought into that shape by one of those popular etymologies which are as dear to the peasantry of Palestine as to those of our European countries." On pp. 67–68 he wrote: "One has to beware, however, of these appellations that appear to be of purely Arabic origin, they are often ancient Hebrew names converted by a process of popular etymology into words familiar to the Arabs. In many cases slight phonetic changes assist the process. These , by the bye, are not arbitrary, but are subject to real laws. Thus, for instance, the name of the Bible town of Thimnah has become in fellâh speech Tibneh, 'chopped straw'."
  29. Robinson, E. (1860), p. 17. See alao John William McGarvey (1829–1911) who quotes Conder on the linguistic evidence of the name, saying that, in Arabic, "the substitution of B for M is so common (as in Tibneh for Timnah)..." See: McGarvey, 2002, pp. 246-247; cf. Palmer, E.H. (1881), p. 330, s.v. Tibna
  30. Kampffmeyer, Georg (1892), p. 38 (section 15)
  31. Press 2014, pp. 181–182.
  32. Tilley (2005), p. 190
  33. Benvenisti 2000, p. 26.
  34. Benvenisti 2000, p. 30.
  35. A British Mandate map, contained at the National Library of Israel (Eran Laor Cartographic Collection, Jaffa: Survey of Palestine 1928 – 1947, "Palestine" (Pal 1157)); an Ottoman period map, the Palestine Exploration Fund Map, published by the Israel Antiquities Authority SWP web-site, and which is chiefly studied by archaeologists and historical geographers when trying to determine what Arabic place names are representative of ancient Hebrew toponymy. Other online maps include: George A. Smathers Libraries: Survey of Palestine map; The Palestine Exploration Fund Maps, published by The Digital Archaeological Atlas of the Holy Land; McMaster University - Digitalised maps of Palestine / Israel; 1944 Map of Palestine, published by the National Library of Israel.
  36. Maisler et al. 1932, p. 6.
  37. Benvenisti 2000, p. 12.
  38. Nur Masalha (9 August 2012). The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory. Zed Books Ltd. pp. 72–. ISBN 978-1-84813-973-2.
  39. Benvenisti 2000, p. 17.
  40. Benvenisti 2000, p. 24.
  41. Benvenisti 2000, p. 40.
  42. "State of Israel Records", Collection of Publications, no. 152 (PDF) (in Hebrew), Jerusalem: Government of Israel, 1951, p. 845
  43. Bitan 1992, p. 367.
  44. Vilnay 1983, p. Abstract.
  45. In the Survey of Western Palestine (Arabic and English Name Lists), London 1881, p. 307, E.H. Palmer describes the site Khŭrbet Jurfa as "the ruin of the perpendicular bank (cut out by the torrent in the débris of a valley)."
  46. Avner, Rina (2006). "Rogelit". Hadashot Arkheologiyot: Excavations and Surveys in Israel. Israel Antiquities Authority. 118.
  47. Benvenisti 2000, p. 49.
  48. Bitan 1992, p. 369.
  49. In the case of Kiryat Sefer (now Modi'in), a name rejected by the Committee in 1994 on grounds that the biblical Kiryat Sefer was located elsewhere, or in the case of Neveh Tzuf, which name was rejected by the Committee (HCJ 146/81) for Halamish, on grounds that a "historical name is not to be copied elsewhere," these names were decided strictly by the Committee, based on Government Statute No. 258 of March 8, 1951, in which it gave to the Government Naming Committee the sole responsibility for the naming of settlements. This decision states that the aforesaid Committee will act in the Prime Minister's Office and that its decisions will be binding upon state institutions: "The committee is the only competent body for determining names for various localities and sites, including intersections, interchanges, tourist sites, nature and landscape, industrial and employment sites and the like in the State of Israel." The Committee's decisions are made in its plenary and published in "Records".

General bibliography
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