122-568: Gilo ( Hebrew : גִּלֹה ) is an Israeli settlement in south-western East Jerusalem , with a population of 30,000, mostly Jewish inhabitants. Although it is located within the Jerusalem Municipality , it is widely considered a settlement, because as one of the five Ring Neighborhoods built by Israel surrounding Jerusalem, it was built on land in the West Bank that was occupied by and effectively annexed to Israel following
244-620: A zāwiya and tomb in Sharafat where all his descendants were buried. The most famous of these were al-Sayyid 'Alī and al-Sayyid Muhammed al-Bahā', considered "pillars" of the Holy Land and its surroundings ( wa-kānā a'mida al-arḍ al-muaqaddasa wa-mā hawlahā ). Mujīr al-Dīn notes that the arrival of Sufis led to the departure of the Christian community, highlighting the institution's role in accelerating Islamization . Under Mamluk rule,
366-685: A Hebrew form. Medieval Hebrew added 6421 words to (Modern) Hebrew. The approximate number of new lexical items in Israeli is 17,000 (cf. 14,762 in Even-Shoshan 1970 [...]). With the inclusion of foreign and technical terms [...], the total number of Israeli words, including words of biblical, rabbinic and medieval descent, is more than 60,000. In Israel, Modern Hebrew is currently taught in institutions called Ulpanim (singular: Ulpan). There are government-owned, as well as private, Ulpanim offering online courses and face-to-face programs. Modern Hebrew
488-595: A century ago, was fluent enough in this idiom to be able to follow the Mishna Berurah without any trouble." Hebrew has been revived several times as a literary language, most significantly by the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement of early and mid-19th-century Germany. In the early 19th century, a form of spoken Hebrew had emerged in the markets of Jerusalem between Jews of different linguistic backgrounds to communicate for commercial purposes. This Hebrew dialect
610-661: A corollary Hebrew ceased to function as a spoken language around the same time. Moshe Zvi Segal , Joseph Klausner and Ben Yehuda are notable exceptions to this view. During the latter half of the 20th century, accumulating archaeological evidence and especially linguistic analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls has disproven that view. The Dead Sea Scrolls, uncovered in 1946–1948 near Qumran revealed ancient Jewish texts overwhelmingly in Hebrew, not Aramaic. The Qumran scrolls indicate that Hebrew texts were readily understandable to
732-638: A corridor that led to a large rock-cut courtyard surrounded by a bench. As was customary in Jewish burial caves during the Second Temple period . The stone items are very rare and were usually incorporated into the magnificent buildings and burial estates of Jerusalem, such as that of the priestly family of the sons of Hazeer in Kidron and several tombs in the Sanhedria neighborhood of Jerusalem. During
854-467: A courtyard divided by stone pillars, a rectangular back room and rooms along the courtyard. The foundations of a structure built of large stones were also uncovered, possibly a fortified defense tower. The biblical town of Giloh is mentioned in the Book of Joshua (Joshua 15:51) and the Book of Samuel (II Sam 15:12). Some scholars believe that biblical Giloh was located in the central Hebron Hills , whereas
976-579: A distinct style of philosophical Hebrew. This is used in the translations made by the Ibn Tibbon family. (Original Jewish philosophical works were usually written in Arabic. ) Another important influence was Maimonides , who developed a simple style based on Mishnaic Hebrew for use in his law code, the Mishneh Torah . Subsequent rabbinic literature is written in a blend between this style and
1098-620: A fierce battle. Kibbutz Ramat Rachel , located just north-east of Gilo, changed hands three times , ultimately remaining part of Israel, but Gilo remained on the side of the Green Line held by the Kingdom of Jordan until 1967. In 1970, the Israeli government expropriated 12,300 dunams of land to build Ring Neighborhoods around Jerusalem on land conquered in the Six-Day War . Gilo was established in 1973. According to some sources,
1220-594: A gradually accepted movement. It was not, however, until the 1904–1914 Second Aliyah that Hebrew had caught real momentum in Ottoman Palestine with the more highly organized enterprises set forth by the new group of immigrants. When the British Mandate of Palestine recognized Hebrew as one of the country's three official languages (English, Arabic, and Hebrew, in 1922), its new formal status contributed to its diffusion. A constructed modern language with
1342-468: A literary language down through the Byzantine period from the 4th century CE. The exact roles of Aramaic and Hebrew remain hotly debated. A trilingual scenario has been proposed for the land of Israel. Hebrew functioned as the local mother tongue with powerful ties to Israel's history, origins and golden age and as the language of Israel's religion; Aramaic functioned as the international language with
SECTION 10
#17327811215011464-536: A literary language, especially in Spain, as the language of commerce between Jews of different native languages, and as the liturgical language of Judaism, evolving various dialects of literary Medieval Hebrew , until its revival as a spoken language in the late 19th century. In May 2023, Scott Stripling published the finding of what he claims to be the oldest known Hebrew inscription, a curse tablet found at Mount Ebal , dated from around 3200 years ago. The presence of
1586-593: A neighborhood of Jerusalem. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Gilo community council director Yaffa Shitrit, invited the world "to come and see the neighborhood of Gilo and to understand the geography. We're not a settlement, we're part of the city of Jerusalem, we're a neighborhood like Katamon ." Palestinians regard it as occupied territory and make no distinction between Gilo and the West Bank settlements. Plans to expand Gilo have drawn criticism from
1708-489: A part of its Jerusalem Governorate . In 2002, the population was made up of 978 Palestinians. Sharafat is situated on a mountain-ridge at an altitude of 764 meters (2,507 ft). It is located east of the Green Line , in the Seam Zone . The built-up area of the village lies 400 meters (1,300 ft) south of Gilo , 700 meters (2,300 ft) from Teddy Stadium . Some tracts of village land were expropriated by
1830-451: A renowned Sufi wāli (Muslim saint) from this family took up residence in Dayr al-Shaykh . 'Abd al-Ḥafiz (d. 1296–1297), his grandson, established roots in neighbouring Sharafat when Dayr al-Shaykh had become too small to accommodate the growing population, relinquishing the revenues to the land he owned in the latter for the benefit of those remaining. Dāwūd, the son of al-Ḥafiz, established
1952-548: A set of dialects evolving out of Late Biblical Hebrew and into Mishnaic Hebrew, thus including elements from both but remaining distinct from either. By the start of the Byzantine Period in the 4th century CE, Classical Hebrew ceased as a regularly spoken language, roughly a century after the publication of the Mishnah, apparently declining since the aftermath of the catastrophic Bar Kokhba revolt around 135 CE. In
2074-668: A spoken language, it continued to be used as a lingua franca among scholars and Jews traveling in foreign countries. After the 2nd century CE when the Roman Empire exiled most of the Jewish population of Jerusalem following the Bar Kokhba revolt , they adapted to the societies in which they found themselves, yet letters, contracts, commerce, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry and laws continued to be written mostly in Hebrew, which adapted by borrowing and inventing terms. After
2196-577: A tent on her land, which The Red Cross was willing to provide, she was unable to do so after it was discovered that her land had been declared a "military zone" in 1975. Ray Hanania , a Palestinian-American journalist, notes that documents attesting to his grandmother's nephew's land ownership rights in Sharafat are at the Ministry of Interior in Jerusalem, but that he has been unable to procure them despite paying them more than two dozen visits since
2318-472: A truly Semitic vocabulary and written appearance, although often European in phonology , was to take its place among the current languages of the nations. While many saw his work as fanciful or even blasphemous (because Hebrew was the holy language of the Torah and therefore some thought that it should not be used to discuss everyday matters), many soon understood the need for a common language amongst Jews of
2440-558: A vernacular in Judea until it was displaced by Aramaic, probably in the 3rd century CE. Certain Sadducee , Pharisee , Scribe , Hermit, Zealot and Priest classes maintained an insistence on Hebrew, and all Jews maintained their identity with Hebrew songs and simple quotations from Hebrew texts. While there is no doubt that at a certain point, Hebrew was displaced as the everyday spoken language of most Jews, and that its chief successor in
2562-518: Is 8198, of which some 2000 are hapax legomena (the number of Biblical Hebrew roots, on which many of these words are based, is 2099). The number of attested Rabbinic Hebrew words is less than 20,000, of which (i) 7879 are Rabbinic par excellence, i.e. they did not appear in the Old Testament (the number of new Rabbinic Hebrew roots is 805); (ii) around 6000 are a subset of Biblical Hebrew; and (iii) several thousand are Aramaic words which can have
SECTION 20
#17327811215012684-582: Is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family . A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages , it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language until after 200 CE and as the liturgical language of Judaism (since the Second Temple period ) and Samaritanism . The language was revived as a spoken language in the 19th century, and
2806-567: Is fighting to stop businesses from using only English signs to market their services. In 2012, a Knesset bill for the preservation of the Hebrew language was proposed, which includes the stipulation that all signage in Israel must first and foremost be in Hebrew, as with all speeches by Israeli officials abroad. The bill's author, MK Akram Hasson , stated that the bill was proposed as a response to Hebrew "losing its prestige" and children incorporating more English words into their vocabulary. Hebrew
2928-672: Is located in Gilo. Gilo has 35 synagogues. In 2009, the Gilo community center, one of the largest in the country, introduced a new hybrid water heating system that saves energy and greatly reduces pollution. Park Gilo has a large adventure playground for children. Because Gilo is located beyond the 1949 Green Line , on land occupied since the Six-Day War , the United Nations, the European Union and Japan refer to it as an illegal settlement. Israel disputes this, and considers it
3050-586: Is one of several languages for which the constitution of South Africa calls to be respected in their use for religious purposes. Also, Hebrew is an official national minority language in Poland , since 6 January 2005. Hamas has made Hebrew a compulsory language taught in schools in the Gaza Strip. Sharafat, East Jerusalem Sharafat ( Arabic : شرفات ) is a Palestinian Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem , located within approximately 5 km to
3172-414: Is said to have bought land in Sharafat after falling in love with an oak tree in the village that was thought to be 1,500 years old. Shahid writes that the mukhtar's home was surrounded by Israeli forces during a raid across the armistice line in 1951. The house was blown up, and Miriam and her daughter were partially buried in the rubble for a day before being rescued. They both succumbed to their wounds in
3294-573: Is the only successful large-scale example of linguistic revival . It is the only Canaanite language, as well as one of only two Northwest Semitic languages, with the other being Aramaic , still spoken today. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date back to the 10th century BCE. Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew , with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around
3416-457: Is the primary official language of the State of Israel. As of 2013 , there are about 9 million Hebrew speakers worldwide, of whom 7 million speak it fluently. Currently, 90% of Israeli Jews are proficient in Hebrew, and 70% are highly proficient. Some 60% of Israeli Arabs are also proficient in Hebrew, and 30% report having a higher proficiency in Hebrew than in Arabic. In total, about 53% of
3538-547: Is used to pronounce the Hebrew Bible; however, properly it should be distinguished from the historical Biblical Hebrew of the 6th century BCE, whose original pronunciation must be reconstructed. Tiberian Hebrew incorporates the scholarship of the Masoretes (from masoret meaning "tradition"), who added vowel points and grammar points to the Hebrew letters to preserve much earlier features of Hebrew, for use in chanting
3660-650: The Chayei Adam in Hebrew, as opposed to Yiddish , as a guide to Halacha for the " average 17-year-old" (Ibid. Introduction 1). Similarly, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan 's purpose in writing the Mishnah Berurah was to "produce a work that could be studied daily so that Jews might know the proper procedures to follow minute by minute". The work was nevertheless written in Talmudic Hebrew and Aramaic, since, "the ordinary Jew [of Eastern Europe] of
3782-465: The 1948 Arab-Israeli War , Sharafat lay in the area to the east of the Green Line that was occupied by Jordan until 1967. Musa Alami a Palestinian nationalist and politician, owned a house in Sharafat where he hosted members of the foreign press and British visitors. Serene Husseini Shahid mentions Sharafat in her book A Jerusalem Childhood: The Early Life of Serene Husseini . Her grandfather, Fadi al-Alami , Jerusalem's mayor under Ottoman rule,
Gilo - Misplaced Pages Continue
3904-727: The Ancient Greek Ἑβραῖος ( hebraîos ) and Aramaic 'ibrāy , all ultimately derived from Biblical Hebrew Ivri ( עברי ), one of several names for the Israelite ( Jewish and Samaritan ) people ( Hebrews ). It is traditionally understood to be an adjective based on the name of Abraham 's ancestor, Eber , mentioned in Genesis 10:21 . The name is believed to be based on the Semitic root ʕ-b-r ( ע־ב־ר ), meaning "beyond", "other side", "across"; interpretations of
4026-547: The Canaanite group of languages . Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages. Hebrew was the spoken language in the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the period from about 1200 to 586 BCE. Epigraphic evidence from this period confirms the widely accepted view that the earlier layers of biblical literature reflect the language used in these kingdoms. Furthermore,
4148-572: The Gospel of Matthew . (See the Hebrew Gospel hypothesis or Language of Jesus for more details on Hebrew and Aramaic in the gospels.) The term "Mishnaic Hebrew" generally refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud , excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible. The dialects organize into Mishnaic Hebrew (also called Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew I), which
4270-644: The IDF started dismantling the concrete barrier, nearly a decade after its construction. Seventeen of the 19 passengers killed in the Patt Junction bus bombing were residents of Gilo. 31°43′53″N 35°11′11″E / 31.73139°N 35.18639°E / 31.73139; 35.18639 Hebrew language Hebrew ( Hebrew alphabet : עִבְרִית , ʿĪvrīt , pronounced [ ʔivˈʁit ] or [ ʕivˈrit ] ; Samaritan script : ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ ʿÎbrit )
4392-495: The Latin alphabet of ancient Rome . The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels , and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places in which later Hebrew spelling requires them. Numerous older tablets have been found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example, Proto-Sinaitic . It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to Egyptian hieroglyphs , though
4514-682: The Maccabean Revolt (167–160 BCE) and the emergence of the Hasmonean kingdom , the Great Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE), and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE). The nationalist significance of Hebrew manifested in various ways throughout this period. Michael Owen Wise notes that "Beginning with the time of the Hasmonean revolt [...] Hebrew came to the fore in an expression akin to modern nationalism. A form of classical Hebrew
4636-540: The PEF 's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Sherafat as a village of moderate size on a low hill. The houses were of stone, and the water-supply was from Ain Yalo, in the valley to the west. In her book, Bertha Spafford Vester , an American who lived in Jerusalem's American Colony in 1881 and 1949, writes about the grave of a female saint in the village who was venerated by Muslims and Christians alike. In 1896
4758-484: The Second Aliyah , it replaced a score of languages spoken by Jews at that time. Those languages were Jewish dialects of local languages, including Judaeo-Spanish (also called "Judezmo" and "Ladino"), Yiddish , Judeo-Arabic and Bukhori (Tajiki), or local languages spoken in the Jewish diaspora such as Russian , Persian and Arabic . The major result of the literary work of the Hebrew intellectuals along
4880-455: The Second Temple period. Roman and Byzantine remains have also been found at various sites. According to ARIJ , Israel confiscated land from several Palestinian villages/towns in order to construct Gilo: During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War , the Egyptian army positioned its artillery at Gilo, heavily shelling West Jerusalem. An attempt to advance on Jerusalem from Gilo was beaten back in
5002-462: The literary and liturgical language into everyday spoken language . However, his brand of Hebrew followed norms that had been replaced in Eastern Europe by different grammar and style, in the writings of people like Ahad Ha'am and others. His organizational efforts and involvement with the establishment of schools and the writing of textbooks pushed the vernacularization activity into
Gilo - Misplaced Pages Continue
5124-620: The official language of the State of Israel . Estimates of worldwide usage include five million speakers in 1998, and over nine million people in 2013. After Israel, the United States has the largest Hebrew-speaking population, with approximately 220,000 fluent speakers (see Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans ). Modern Hebrew is the official language of the State of Israel, while pre-revival forms of Hebrew are used for prayer or study in Jewish and Samaritan communities around
5246-543: The ostraca found near Lachish , which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BCE. In its widest sense, Biblical Hebrew refers to the spoken language of ancient Israel flourishing between c. 1000 BCE and c. 400 CE . It comprises several evolving and overlapping dialects. The phases of Classical Hebrew are often named after important literary works associated with them. Sometimes
5368-607: The 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic period , the traditional time of the reign of David and Solomon . Classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew , the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar (named after the city in whose proximity it was found) is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that, through the Greeks and Etruscans , later became
5490-486: The 16th century, and the travel writings and ethnographies of European and American visitors to Palestine in the 19th and 20th centuries. Jerusalem chronicles from the 13th century mention the Husseini family renting the lands of Sharafat. The specific branch who leased the village from a fief-holder is said to be al-Husyani al-Wafā'i, descendants of al- Husayn ibn Ali , grandson of the founder of Islam , Muhammad , and
5612-459: The 1967 Six-Day War and 1980 Jerusalem Law . The international community regards Israeli settlements illegal under international law , although Israel disputes this. Israel also disputes its designation as a settlement, and it is administered as part of the Jerusalem municipality. Gilo is located on a hilltop in southwestern East Jerusalem separated from Beit Jala by a deep gorge. The Tunnels Highway to Gush Etzion runs underneath it on
5734-555: The 1980s in the USSR , Hebrew studies reappeared due to people struggling for permission to go to Israel ( refuseniks ). Several of the teachers were imprisoned, e.g. Yosef Begun , Ephraim Kholmyansky , Yevgeny Korostyshevsky and others responsible for a Hebrew learning network connecting many cities of the USSR. Standard Hebrew, as developed by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, was based on Mishnaic spelling and Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation. However,
5856-462: The 19th and 20th centuries. During the period of Mamluk rule (c. 13th - early 16th centuries), Sharafat was home to the Badriyya a renowned family of awliya (Muslim saints) to whom the village was dedicated as a waqf (Islamic trust) by the viceroy of Damascus in the 14th century, and whose family tombs continue to be venerated to this day. After the 1948 Palestine War , Sharafat lay in
5978-611: The 19th century was a lexical modernization of Hebrew. New words and expressions were adapted as neologisms from the large corpus of Hebrew writings since the Hebrew Bible, or borrowed from Arabic (mainly by Ben-Yehuda) and older Aramaic and Latin. Many new words were either borrowed from or coined after European languages, especially English, Russian, German, and French. Modern Hebrew became an official language in British-ruled Palestine in 1921 (along with English and Arabic), and then in 1948 became an official language of
6100-604: The 6th century BCE, during the time of the Babylonian captivity . For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Lashon Hakodesh ( לְשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶש , lit. ' the holy tongue ' or ' the tongue [of] holiness ' ) since ancient times. The language was not referred to by the name Hebrew in the Bible , but as Yehudit ( transl. ' Judean ' ) or Səpaṯ Kəna'an ( transl. "the language of Canaan " ). Mishnah Gittin 9:8 refers to
6222-766: The Aramaized Rabbinic Hebrew of the Talmud. Hebrew persevered through the ages as the main language for written purposes by all Jewish communities around the world for a large range of uses—not only liturgy, but also poetry, philosophy, science and medicine, commerce, daily correspondence and contracts. There have been many deviations from this generalization such as Bar Kokhba 's letters to his lieutenants, which were mostly in Aramaic, and Maimonides' writings, which were mostly in Arabic; but overall, Hebrew did not cease to be used for such purposes. For example,
SECTION 50
#17327811215016344-687: The British Mandate who at the turn of the 20th century were arriving in large numbers from diverse countries and speaking different languages. A Committee of the Hebrew Language was established. After the establishment of Israel, it became the Academy of the Hebrew Language . The results of Ben-Yehuda's lexicographical work were published in a dictionary ( The Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew , Ben-Yehuda Dictionary ). The seeds of Ben-Yehuda's work fell on fertile ground, and by
6466-666: The Finnish ethnographer, when asked which villages were renowned for having more daughters than sons, Sharafat was named along with the villages of Beit Sahour and Ein Karem . In the 1931 census , the population of the village was recorded as 158 Muslims, in 32 houses. In the 1945 statistics the population of Sharafat was 210 Muslims, with 1,974 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. 482 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 508 for cereals, while 5 dunams were built-up (urban) land. After
6588-416: The Great conquered Babylon, he allowed the Jewish people to return from captivity. In time, a local version of Aramaic came to be spoken in Israel alongside Hebrew. By the beginning of the Common Era , Aramaic was the primary colloquial language of Samarian , Babylonian and Galileean Jews, and western and intellectual Jews spoke Greek , but a form of so-called Rabbinic Hebrew continued to be used as
6710-432: The Hebrew name of god , Yahweh, as three letters, Yod-Heh-Vav (YHV), according to the author and his team meant that the tablet is Hebrew and not Canaanite. However, practically all professional archeologists and epigraphers apart from Stripling's team claim that there is no text on this object. In July 2008, Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa that he claimed may be
6832-437: The Hebrew Bible. The Masoretes inherited a biblical text whose letters were considered too sacred to be altered, so their markings were in the form of pointing in and around the letters. The Syriac alphabet , precursor to the Arabic alphabet , also developed vowel pointing systems around this time. The Aleppo Codex , a Hebrew Bible with the Masoretic pointing, was written in the 10th century, likely in Tiberias, and survives into
6954-514: The Israeli government in 1970 for the construction of Gilo. According to Jordan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations , an additional 1,350 dunams (1.35 km2) were expropriated in 1983. In 1996, the total land area of the village was 1,974 dunams (1.974 km2), with a built-up area of 285 dunams. Of these, 1,962 dunams were privately owned by Muslims , and the remainder was public land. Zuhur and Deir Cremisan are often included in land and population surveys as part of Sharafat. In 2003,
7076-454: The Israeli population speaks Hebrew as a native language, while most of the rest speak it fluently. In 2013 Hebrew was the native language of 49% of Israelis over the age of 20, with Russian , Arabic , French , English , Yiddish and Ladino being the native tongues of most of the rest. Some 26% of immigrants from the former Soviet Union and 12% of Arabs reported speaking Hebrew poorly or not at all. Steps have been taken to keep Hebrew
7198-417: The Middle East was the closely related Aramaic language, then Greek , scholarly opinions on the exact dating of that shift have changed very much. In the first half of the 20th century, most scholars followed Abraham Geiger and Gustaf Dalman in thinking that Aramaic became a spoken language in the land of Israel as early as the beginning of Israel's Hellenistic period in the 4th century BCE, and that as
7320-449: The Talmud, the Gemara , generally comments on the Mishnah and Baraitot in two forms of Aramaic. Nevertheless, Hebrew survived as a liturgical and literary language in the form of later Amoraic Hebrew, which occasionally appears in the text of the Gemara, particularly in the Jerusalem Talmud and the classical aggadah midrashes . Hebrew was always regarded as the language of Israel's religion, history and national pride, and after it faded as
7442-406: The Talmud, various regional literary dialects of Medieval Hebrew evolved. The most important is Tiberian Hebrew or Masoretic Hebrew, a local dialect of Tiberias in Galilee that became the standard for vocalizing the Hebrew Bible and thus still influences all other regional dialects of Hebrew. This Tiberian Hebrew from the 7th to 10th century CE is sometimes called "Biblical Hebrew" because it
SECTION 60
#17327811215017564-420: The United States and United Kingdom. Israel maintains that it has the right to build freely in Gilo because the neighborhood is within (expanded) Jerusalem municipal borders and not a West Bank settlement. In 2009, the Jerusalem Planning Committee approved construction of 900 new housing units in Gilo, sparking a fresh round of global criticism. From 2000, Beit Jala, a predominantly Palestinian Christian town,
7686-422: The ability to speak the language and attempted to promote its use. According to the Jerusalem Talmud , Megillah 1:9: "Rebbi Jonathan from Bet Guvrrin said, four languages are appropriate that the world should use them, and they are these: The Foreign Language (Greek) for song, Latin for war, Syriac for elegies, Hebrew for speech. Some are saying, also Assyrian (Hebrew script) for writing." The later section of
7808-411: The above phases of spoken Classical Hebrew are simplified into "Biblical Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 10th century BCE to 2nd century BCE and extant in certain Dead Sea Scrolls) and "Mishnaic Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE and extant in certain other Dead Sea Scrolls). However, today most Hebrew linguists classify Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew as
7930-435: The area in 1596–1597. It had a population of 12 Muslim families. A 16th-century Ottoman map situates Sharafat in the green belt around Jerusalem. In 1838 it was described as a Muslim village, located in the Beni Hasan district, west of Jerusalem. James Finn , the British consul to Jerusalem during Ottoman rule, writes of visiting Sharafat between 1853 and 1856. He describes it as a small village perched on high hill to
8052-539: The area to the east of the Green Line that was ruled by Jordan until 1967. Following the occupation West Bank, including East Jerusalem by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War , Israel included it in its expanded Jerusalem District . In the 1970s, the Israeli government expropriated land from the village to build the settlement of Gilo , whose subsequent expansion saw the destruction of homes, vineyards and orchards in Sharafat. The Palestinian Authority (PA), established pursuant to 1993 Oslo Accords , considers Sharafat
8174-455: The average Jew, and that the language had evolved since Biblical times as spoken languages do. Recent scholarship recognizes that reports of Jews speaking in Aramaic indicate a multilingual society, not necessarily the primary language spoken. Alongside Aramaic, Hebrew co-existed within Israel as a spoken language. Most scholars now date the demise of Hebrew as a spoken language to the end of the Roman period , or about 200 CE. It continued on as
8296-428: The beginning of the 20th century, Hebrew was well on its way to becoming the main language of the Jewish population of both Ottoman and British Palestine. At the time, members of the Old Yishuv and a very few Hasidic sects, most notably those under the auspices of Satmar , refused to speak Hebrew and spoke only Yiddish. In the Soviet Union, the use of Hebrew, along with other Jewish cultural and religious activities,
8418-413: The combined land area was 8,939 dunams, housing a population of 963 in 245 dwellings. The site of a prosperous Jewish village during the Hasmonean period , archaeological excavations performed by the Israel Antiquities Authority in 2019 have found remains of a rural Jewish settlement from the Hasmonean period, dated to between 140 BC and 37 BC. The excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority
8540-541: The composition of 1 Maccabees in archaizing Hebrew, Hasmonean coinage under John Hyrcanus (134-104 BCE), and coins from both the Great Revolt and Bar Kokhba Revolt featuring exclusively Hebrew and Palaeo-Hebrew script inscriptions. This deliberate use of Hebrew and Paleo-Hebrew script in official contexts, despite limited literacy, served as a symbol of Jewish nationalism and political independence. The Christian New Testament contains some Semitic place names and quotes. The language of such Semitic glosses (and in general
8662-410: The content of Hebrew inscriptions suggests that the written texts closely mirror the spoken language of that time. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a spoken vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile when the predominant international language in the region was Old Aramaic . Hebrew was extinct as a colloquial language by late antiquity , but it continued to be used as
8784-568: The dialects of Classical Hebrew that functioned as a living language in the land of Israel. A transitional form of the language occurs in the other works of Tannaitic literature dating from the century beginning with the completion of the Mishnah. These include the halachic Midrashim ( Sifra , Sifre , Mekhilta etc.) and the expanded collection of Mishnah-related material known as the Tosefta . The Talmud contains excerpts from these works, as well as further Tannaitic material not attested elsewhere;
8906-423: The earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating from around 3,000 years ago. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said that the inscription was "proto-Canaanite" but cautioned that "[t]he differentiation between the scripts, and between the languages themselves in that period, remains unclear", and suggested that calling the text Hebrew might be going too far. The Gezer calendar also dates back to
9028-513: The earliest speakers of Modern Hebrew had Yiddish as their native language and often introduced calques from Yiddish and phono-semantic matchings of international words. Despite using Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation as its primary basis, modern Israeli Hebrew has adapted to Ashkenazi Hebrew phonology in some respects, mainly the following: The vocabulary of Israeli Hebrew is much larger than that of earlier periods. According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann : The number of attested Biblical Hebrew words
9150-532: The early 6th century BCE, the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered the ancient Kingdom of Judah , destroying much of Jerusalem and exiling its population far to the east in Babylon . During the Babylonian captivity , many Israelites learned Aramaic, the closely related Semitic language of their captors. Thus, for a significant period, the Jewish elite became influenced by Aramaic. After Cyrus
9272-456: The east, and the settlement of Har Gilo is visible on the adjacent peak. Beit Safafa and Sharafat are located north of Gilo, while Bethlehem is to the South. A site dating to the period of Israelite settlement during Iron Age I (1200 – 1000 BCE) was identified and excavated at the modern site of Gilo. The site revealed a small planned settlement with dwellings along the perimeter of
9394-711: The first Middle East printing press, in Safed (modern Israel), produced a small number of books in Hebrew in 1577, which were then sold to the nearby Jewish world. This meant not only that well-educated Jews in all parts of the world could correspond in a mutually intelligible language, and that books and legal documents published or written in any part of the world could be read by Jews in all other parts, but that an educated Jew could travel and converse with Jews in distant places, just as priests and other educated Christians could converse in Latin. For example, Rabbi Avraham Danzig wrote
9516-406: The generic term for these passages is Baraitot . The dialect of all these works is very similar to Mishnaic Hebrew. About a century after the publication of the Mishnah, Mishnaic Hebrew fell into disuse as a spoken language. By the third century CE, sages could no longer identify the Hebrew names of many plants mentioned in the Mishnah. Only a few sages, primarily in the southern regions, retained
9638-536: The hospital. On the night of February 6–7, 1951, the Israel Defense Forces carried out a raid on Sharafat on the orders of Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion after IDF intelligence determined that it had served as a base for an attack in which an Israeli man was murdered, his wife raped, and their home robbed. IDF troops from the 16th (Jerusalem) Brigade entered Sharafat at night, surrounding and blowing up two houses, one of which belonged to
9760-565: The land belonged to the Palestinian villages of Sharafat , Beit Jala and Beit Safafa . With its expansion over the years, Gilo has formed a wedge between Jerusalem and Beit Jala- Bethlehem . In 2017, Gilo had a population of 30,900. From its inception, Gilo has provided housing to new Jewish immigrants from around the world. Many of those who spent their first months in the country at the immigrant hostel in Gilo, including those from Iran, Syria, France and South America, chose to remain in
9882-615: The land confiscations in Sharafat is discussed by the permanent observer of the Palestine Liberation Organization to the United Nations in a letter dated November 6, 1986. The case of Halimeh Abdal Nabi, a 70-year-old woman, whose home was demolished in 1986, is outlined therein in detail: In the early 1970s, 40 dunams of land were confiscated from the Abdal Nabi family in order to build roads for
10004-536: The lands were confiscated in 1970. Hanania describes the land of Sharafat as, "a rambling field of olive trees and small orange groves," noting that to Palestinians, "the land is everything." On January 24, 2020, Israeli settlers burned the village mosque, writing racist slogans against Arabs and Muslims on its walls. They protested against the evacuation of the Kumi Ori outpost near the Yitzhar settlement in
10126-462: The language as Ivrit , meaning Hebrew; however, Mishnah Megillah refers to the language as Ashurit , meaning Assyrian , which is derived from the name of the alphabet used , in contrast to Ivrit , meaning the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet . Hebrew ceased to be a regular spoken language sometime between 200 and 400 CE, as it declined in the aftermath of the unsuccessful Bar Kokhba revolt , which
10248-465: The language spoken by Jews in scenes from the New Testament) is often referred to as "Hebrew" in the text, although this term is often re-interpreted as referring to Aramaic instead and is rendered accordingly in recent translations. Nonetheless, these glosses can be interpreted as Hebrew as well. It has been argued that Hebrew, rather than Aramaic or Koine Greek, lay behind the composition of
10370-471: The language. The revival of the Hebrew language as a mother tongue was initiated in the late 19th century by the efforts of Ben-Yehuda. He joined the Jewish national movement and in 1881 immigrated to Palestine , then a part of the Ottoman Empire . Motivated by the surrounding ideals of renovation and rejection of the diaspora " shtetl " lifestyle, Ben-Yehuda set out to develop tools for making
10492-474: The name of the modern settlement was chosen because of its proximity to Beit Jala, possibly a corruption of Giloh. During the construction of the modern suburb of Gilo, archaeologists discovered a fortress and agricultural implements from the period of the First Temple period above the shopping center on Rehov Haganenet. Between Givat Canada and Gilo Park, they unearthed the remains of a farm and graves from
10614-509: The neighborhood. Since the large influx of Soviet Jews in the 1990s, Gilo has absorbed 15% of all immigrants of that wave settling in Jerusalem. The immigrant hostel is now the site of an urban kibbutz , Beit Yisrael. Gilo is a mixed community of religious and secular Jews, although more Haredi families are moving in. Beit Or (Home of Light), a hostel for autistic young adults, opened in Gilo in March 2008. The Ilan home for handicapped adults
10736-483: The new settlement of Gilo. The kitchen and well of the woman's house were destroyed around this time, and to accommodate Gilo's expansion in 1976, Palestinian vineyards and orchards were also destroyed and homes demolished. A wall built by the Israeli construction company, to separate Abdal Nabi's home from the settlement, blocked her access to her own staircase. Following the demolition of her home in 1986, she went to live in her neighbour's house. Though she wanted to set up
10858-727: The newly declared State of Israel . Hebrew is the most widely spoken language in Israel today. In the Modern Period, from the 19th century onward, the literary Hebrew tradition revived as the spoken language of modern Israel, called variously Israeli Hebrew , Modern Israeli Hebrew , Modern Hebrew , New Hebrew , Israeli Standard Hebrew , Standard Hebrew and so on. Israeli Hebrew exhibits some features of Sephardic Hebrew from its local Jerusalemite tradition but adapts it with numerous neologisms, borrowed terms (often technical) from European languages and adopted terms (often colloquial) from Arabic. The literary and narrative use of Hebrew
10980-512: The northern West Bank . In 2010, the Latin Patriarchate launched a construction project to house dozens of Christian families, mostly young couples with children. Some 9,000 square meters of land were purchased by the families and the Jerusalem municipality granted the necessary construction permits. Eighty apartments are now under construction. Archaeological excavations in 2007 found a terrace compound that may have been part of
11102-427: The period of Mamluk rule (c. 13th - early 16th centuries), Sharafat was home to the Badriyya a renowned family of awliya (Muslim saints) to whom the village was dedicated as a waqf (Islamic trust) by the viceroy of Damascus in the 14th century, and whose family tombs continue to be venerated to this day. Sharafat is mentioned in Jerusalem chronicles from the 13th and 15th centuries, Ottoman tax records from
11224-534: The phonetic values are instead inspired by the acrophonic principle. The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called Canaanite , and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from that of Egyptian. One ancient document is the famous Moabite Stone , written in the Moabite dialect; the Siloam inscription , found near Jerusalem , is an early example of Hebrew. Less ancient samples of Archaic Hebrew include
11346-546: The population of Scharafat was estimated to be about 125 persons. In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities , Sharafat had a population 106, all Muslims. In 1929, the American Colony established a child welfare station in Sharafat, in a room provided by the village sheikh which was also open to women from the neighbouring villages. In interviews with area residents conducted between 1925 and 1931 by Hilma Natalia Granqvist ,
11468-644: The population of Sharafat was 128. Following the 1967 war , Sharafat came under Israeli occupation , and it came to form part of Israel's expanded Jerusalem municipality in the Jerusalem District . Government expropriations of land east of the Green Line in the green belt around Jerusalem in 1970 enabled the creation of Jewish satellite neighbourhoods, among them Gilo, which was constructed in 1973 on land belonging to Palestinian residents of Sharafat, Beit Jala , and Beit Safafa . The impact of
11590-591: The present day. It is perhaps the most important Hebrew manuscript in existence. During the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain , important work was done by grammarians in explaining the grammar and vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew; much of this was based on the work of the grammarians of Classical Arabic . Important Hebrew grammarians were Judah ben David Hayyuj , Jonah ibn Janah , Abraham ibn Ezra and later (in Provence ), David Kimhi . A great deal of poetry
11712-570: The primary language of use, and to prevent large-scale incorporation of English words into the Hebrew vocabulary. The Academy of the Hebrew Language of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem currently invents about 2,000 new Hebrew words each year for modern words by finding an original Hebrew word that captures the meaning, as an alternative to incorporating more English words into Hebrew vocabulary. The Haifa municipality has banned officials from using English words in official documents, and
11834-557: The raid. Samir Rifa'i , the Prime Minister of Jordan , who had been regarded by Israel as "generally reasonable and conciliatory," described the IDF raid on Sharafat as "fiendish" and "provocative", and became convinced that Israel "did not seriously desire peace," thereby derailing American hopes for pursuing peace talks. According to Benny Morris , such punitive raids constituted a prime IDF strategy between 1951 and 1953. In 1961,
11956-734: The rest of the Middle East; and eventually Greek functioned as another international language with the eastern areas of the Roman Empire. William Schniedewind argues that after waning in the Persian period, the religious importance of Hebrew grew in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and cites epigraphical evidence that Hebrew survived as a vernacular language – though both its grammar and its writing system had been substantially influenced by Aramaic. According to another summary, Greek
12078-458: The site, together with pottery dating to the twelfth century BC. The southern part of the Iron Age site at Gilo is believed to be one of the earliest Israelite sites from this period. The site was surrounded by a defensive wall and divided into large yards, possibly sheep pens, with houses at the edges. Buildings at the site are amongst the earliest examples of the pillared four room house characteristic of Iron Age Israelite architecture, featuring
12200-524: The south west of the Old City of Jerusalem . It is situated close to the Palestinian town of Beit Safafa and near the Israeli settlement of Gilo in the southern portion of East Jerusalem. Sharafat is later mentioned in chronicles from the 13th and 15th centuries, Ottoman tax records from the 16th century, and the travel writings and ethnographies of European and American visitors to Palestine in
12322-493: The southern villages of Judea." In other words, "in terms of dialect geography, at the time of the tannaim Palestine could be divided into the Aramaic-speaking regions of Galilee and Samaria and a smaller area, Judaea, in which Rabbinic Hebrew was used among the descendants of returning exiles." In addition, it has been surmised that Koine Greek was the primary vehicle of communication in coastal cities and among
12444-492: The southwest of Jerusalem which could be seen from there. The villagers are described as "a robust and well-fed people," who expressed to him that they were happily exempt from a family feud between the Abu Ghosh and Mohammed 'Atallah that was the disturbing the peace of nearby Beit Safafa . An Ottoman village list of about 1870 counted 18 houses and a population of 53, though the population count included only men. In 1883
12566-474: The spoken language of the Russian Jews, should be treated as their only national language, while Hebrew was to be treated as a foreign language. Hebrew books and periodicals ceased to be published and were seized from the libraries, although liturgical texts were still published until the 1930s. Despite numerous protests, a policy of suppression of the teaching of Hebrew operated from the 1930s on. Later in
12688-470: The term "Hebrew" generally render its meaning as roughly "from the other side [of the river/desert]"—i.e., an exonym for the inhabitants of the land of Israel and Judah , perhaps from the perspective of Mesopotamia , Phoenicia or Transjordan (with the river referred to being perhaps the Euphrates , Jordan or Litani ; or maybe the northern Arabian Desert between Babylonia and Canaan ). Compare
12810-580: The upper class of Jerusalem , while Aramaic was prevalent in the lower class of Jerusalem, but not in the surrounding countryside. After the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in the 2nd century CE, Judaeans were forced to disperse. Many relocated to Galilee, so most remaining native speakers of Hebrew at that last stage would have been found in the north. Many scholars have pointed out that Hebrew continued to be used alongside Aramaic during Second Temple times, not only for religious purposes but also for nationalistic reasons, especially during revolts such as
12932-543: The village mukhtar . Three women and five children (aged 1–13) were killed, and five women and three children were injured. Moshe Dayan , characterized the operation as "an eye for an eye." Reuven Shiloah , head of the Mossad , told the British ambassador that the incident had been provoked by "Arab raiding, raping, etc. from [the] Jordan side." He also told King Hussein that individual soldiers may have been involved in
13054-437: The village of Sharafat was dedicated as a waqf ("Islamic trust") to the Badriyya family by the viceroy of Damascus in 1349. Al-Dīn's al-Uns al-Jalīl suggests that Sharafat was named for this family of ashrāf . The Palestine Exploration Fund notes that prior to its renaming, the village was known as Karafat (the opposite of Sharafat , which means "noble"). Badriyya (also called Sitt Badriyya), Sheikh Badir's daughter,
13176-734: The village remained in their possession throughout the Mamluk period. The Jerusalemite chronicler Mujīr al-Dīn 's al-Uns al-Jalīl (c. 1495) documents the exploits of Sufi notables in Hebron and Jerusalem, and provides much information about the history of Sharafat in the Mamluk period. The Abdu l-Wafā' or the Wafā'iyya are described by him as a family of Sufi scholars and ashrāf ("honoured ones") whose origins were in 12th-century Iraq . Al-Sayyid Badr al-Dīn Muhammed (d. 1253, also known as Sheikh Badir),
13298-455: The word Habiru or cognate Assyrian ebru , of identical meaning. One of the earliest references to the language's name as " Ivrit " is found in the prologue to the Book of Sirach , from the 2nd century BCE. The Hebrew Bible does not use the term "Hebrew" in reference to the language of the Hebrew people; its later historiography, in the Book of Kings , refers to it as יְהוּדִית Yehudit " Judahite (language)". Hebrew belongs to
13420-595: The world today; the latter group utilizes the Samaritan dialect as their liturgical tongue. As a non- first language , it is studied mostly by non-Israeli Jews and students in Israel, by archaeologists and linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilizations , and by theologians in Christian seminaries . The modern English word "Hebrew" is derived from Old French Ebrau , via Latin from
13542-421: Was a spoken language , and Amoraic Hebrew (also called Late Rabbinic Hebrew or Mishnaic Hebrew II), which was a literary language . The earlier section of the Talmud is the Mishnah that was published around 200 CE, although many of the stories take place much earlier, and were written in the earlier Mishnaic dialect. The dialect is also found in certain Dead Sea Scrolls. Mishnaic Hebrew is considered to be one of
13664-480: Was also buried in Sharafat, as was her husband, Ahmed et-Tubbar. The simple, unadorned tomb of Sitt Badriyya overlooks a valley that is today crowded with highways, but is still venerated by area residents, who believe that she can render assistance in times of drought. Sharafat is listed in the Daftar-i Mufassal , a book of the Ottoman Empire that recorded tax related information for the villages in
13786-457: Was carried out against the Roman Empire by the Jews of Judaea . Aramaic and, to a lesser extent, Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among societal elites and immigrants. Hebrew survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy , rabbinic literature , intra-Jewish commerce, and Jewish poetic literature . The first dated book printed in Hebrew
13908-480: Was done prior to the construction of a school in the Sharafat neighborhood in southern Jerusalem. In the excavation findings in the site, there was a large wine-making winepress that contained numerous fragments of jars, a large columbarium cave, an olive oil press, a large Mikveh (bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism). The highlight of the excavation is a magnificent burial estate, which included
14030-491: Was now a more significant written language than Aramaic within Judaea." This nationalist aspect was further emphasized during periods of conflict, as Hannah Cotton observing in her analysis of legal documents during the Jewish revolts against Rome that "Hebrew became the symbol of Jewish nationalism, of the independent Jewish State." The nationalist use of Hebrew is evidenced in several historical documents and artefacts, including
14152-566: Was published by Abraham Garton in Reggio ( Calabria , Italy) in 1475. With the rise of Zionism in the 19th century, the Hebrew language experienced a full-scale revival as a spoken and literary language. The creation of a modern version of the ancient language was led by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda . Modern Hebrew ( Ivrit ) became the main language of the Yishuv in Palestine , and subsequently
14274-629: Was revived beginning with the Haskalah movement. The first secular periodical in Hebrew, Ha-Me'assef (The Gatherer), was published by maskilim in Königsberg (today's Kaliningrad ) from 1783 onwards. In the mid-19th century, publications of several Eastern European Hebrew-language newspapers (e.g. Hamagid , founded in Ełk in 1856) multiplied. Prominent poets were Hayim Nahman Bialik and Shaul Tchernichovsky ; there were also novels written in
14396-531: Was suppressed. Soviet authorities considered the use of Hebrew "reactionary" since it was associated with Zionism, and the teaching of Hebrew at primary and secondary schools was officially banned by the People's Commissariat for Education as early as 1919, as part of an overall agenda aiming to secularize education (the language itself did not cease to be studied at universities for historical and linguistic purposes ). The official ordinance stated that Yiddish, being
14518-551: Was the language of government, Hebrew the language of prayer, study and religious texts, and Aramaic was the language of legal contracts and trade. There was also a geographic pattern: according to Bernard Spolsky , by the beginning of the Common Era, " Judeo-Aramaic was mainly used in Galilee in the north, Greek was concentrated in the former colonies and around governmental centers, and Hebrew monolingualism continued mainly in
14640-408: Was to a certain extent a pidgin . Near the end of that century the Jewish activist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda , owing to the ideology of the national revival ( שיבת ציון , Shivat Tziyon , later Zionism ), began reviving Hebrew as a modern spoken language. Eventually, as a result of the local movement he created, but more significantly as a result of the new groups of immigrants known under the name of
14762-431: Was used as a base by Fatah 's Tanzim gunmen to launch sniper and mortar attacks against Gilo. The Israeli government built a concrete barrier and installed bulletproof windows in the homes and schools on the periphery of Gilo, facing Beit Jala. The attacks on Gilo subsided after Operation Defensive Shield , with the rate slowing to three incidents of gunfire that year. On August 15, 2010, following years of relative quiet,
14884-570: Was written, by poets such as Dunash ben Labrat , Solomon ibn Gabirol , Judah ha-Levi , Moses ibn Ezra and Abraham ibn Ezra , in a "purified" Hebrew based on the work of these grammarians, and in Arabic quantitative or strophic meters. This literary Hebrew was later used by Italian Jewish poets. The need to express scientific and philosophical concepts from Classical Greek and Medieval Arabic motivated Medieval Hebrew to borrow terminology and grammar from these other languages, or to coin equivalent terms from existing Hebrew roots, giving rise to
#500499