Palestinian Jew

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A Palestinian Jew is a Jewish inhabitant of Palestine throughout the period of 135 CE to the end of the British Mandate. Jews living in the region prior to the establishment of the State of Israel are referred to in Hebrew as "HaYishuv HaYehudi Be'Eretz Yisra'el (The Jewish Community in the Land of Israel). A distinction is drawn between the "Old Yishuv," that is, the pre-existing Jews in the land of Israel, and the "New Yishuv," that is, the newly-arrived Jewish immigrants into pre-state Israel.

Prior to the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, the population of the area comprising modern Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip was not exclusively Muslim. About 20% of the Arabic-speaking population was Christian, and about 11% Jewish.[1][page needed][verification needed] After the modern State of Israel was born, all but a few native Palestinian Jews became citizens of Israel, and the term "Palestinian Jews" largely fell into disuse. The preferred term today in Israel is the abovementioned "Old Yishuv" (in Hebrew היישוב הישן, HaYishuv HaYashan or "The Old Settlement").

"Palestinian Jews" is still used in contexts where it is necessary to distinguish from Muslim or Christian Palestinians who are together termed "Palestinian Arabs" (or for those within what became Israel, Arab citizens of Israel).[citation needed] Jews from Arab lands, who were traditionally of an Arab cultural and linguistic heritage, are today typically not termed Arab Jews, so that today "Palestinian Arab" also implies the exclusion of Palestinian Jews.[citation needed]

Among Arabic-speaking Palestinians there are/were, most numerously, Sunni and Shia Muslims, Druze, Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Christians, Bahá'ís, Samaritans, and Jews.

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[edit] Examples of contemporary usage

Uri Davis, an Israeli citizen, academic, activist and observer-member in the Palestine National Council living in the Arab town of Sakhnin, identifies himself as an "anti-Zionist Palestinian Jew".[2][3]

Davis's use of the term is best exemplified by his explanation that: "I don’t describe myself as a Palestinian Jew, I actually happen to be a Palestinian Jew, I was born in Jerusalem in 1943 in a country called Palestine and the title of my birth certificate is ‘Government of Palestine’. That is neither here nor there, though. It is significant only in a political context in which I am situated, and the political context that is relevant to my work, my advocacy of a critique of Zionism. I’m an anti-Zionist Jew."[3]

[edit] Reference to European Jews as "Palestinians" prior to 1948

European Jews were commonly considered an "Oriental" people in many of their host countries. Thus figures such as Immanuel Kant (18th-century Prussian philosopher) referred to European Jews as "Palestinians living among us."[4] The British Mandate referred to Arab Palestinians and Jewish settlers from Europe alike as "Palestinians," consistent with an Orientalist view of all Jews as Eastern people.[5]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ J. McCarthy (1995). The population of Palestine: population history and statistics of the late Ottoman period and the Mandate. Princeton, N.J.: Darwin Press
  2. ^ Uri Davis. (1995.). Crossing the Border: an autobiography of an anti-Zionist Palestinian Jew.. ISBN 1-86102-002-3. 
  3. ^ a b Kevin Spurgaitis (2004). "Palestinian Jew Speaks Out Against ‘Apartheid State’". Catholic New Times. http://lists.portside.org/cgi-bin/listserv/wa?A2=ind0411c&L=portside&T=0&P=1486. 
  4. ^ Kant, Immanuel (1974): Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. Translated by Mary J. Gregor. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, cited in Chad Alan Goldberg, Politicide Revisited. University of Wisconsin-Madison
  5. ^ Kalmar, Ivan Davidson & Derek Penslar. Orientalism and the Jews; Brandeis 2005
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