Facts About Palestine: The Language Of Indigenous Jews in Ottoman Palestine Wasn’t Hebrew
Judy Kupferman offers some interesting history here. Though she doesn’t claim to be an expert on the subject, she has some interesting information to offer.
She states “I recently translated a book about the teaching of Arabic in Hebrew schools at the start of the 20th century. The Jewish children had classes in four languages: Hebrew, Turkish (the language of the official bureaucracy which they would need to know), Arabic, and the language of whatever organization was funding the school (German or French).
There was an argument about whether to teach spoken or literary Arabic. It was concluded that literary Arabic should be taught because the children picked up spoken Arabic from other kids on the street.
This was specifically decided regarding the Reali School in Haifa, from which I concluded that the kids there spoke Hebrew and also picked up some Arabic. (by the way, protocols of these meetings by teachers and school principals were in Hebrew, so the adults too obviously spoke Hebrew.)
Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the father of modern Hebrew moved to Ottoman Palestine in 1881 and raised his son to speak only Hebrew. Other children of parents who had come from other countries also spoke their parents’ language (often Yiddish), but Ben Yehuda refused to let his son learn anything but Hebrew. There were also Jews who spoke Arabic who had come from Lebanon and Syria.
In the 1930’s, with the Arab Revolt, and attacks both on Jewish communities, and on Arab communities who were friendly towards Jews, the two populations separated, and children no longer picked up Arabic from the other kids, and it was decided that spoken Arabic should be taught.
The Takeaway
As you can see, Hebrew did not become the primary language for Jews in Palestine until the 1930s.
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Author: Lewis was part of a negotiating team between Israel, The Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S.A. in 2001, concerning the West Bank and Jerusalem
Comment by the author: Please do not assume to know my politics or my point of view concerning the Middle East. My goal here is to present you with facts and let you work out conclusions in your mind. If you are wise, you will use these facts to help you get free of your deeply ingrained cognitive biases.
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