154-665: Hafrada ( Hebrew : הפרדה , lit. 'separation, disengagement') is the policy of the government of Israel to separate the Israeli population from the Palestinian population in the occupied Palestinian territories , in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip . Yitzhak Rabin , Israeli Prime Minister from 1992-1995, was the first to advocate for the construction of a physical barrier between Israelis and Palestinians. Following
308-604: A prime minister leading a Cabinet. According to the Palestinian Basic Law which was signed by Arafat in 2002 after a long delay, the current structure of the PA is based on three separate branches of power: executive, legislative, and judiciary. The PA was created by, is ultimately accountable to, and has historically been associated with, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), with whom Israel negotiated
462-738: A Hamas-led Palestinian government was formed, the Quartet (United States, Russia, United Nations, and European Union) conditioned future foreign assistance to the Palestinian Authority (PA) on the future government's commitment to non-violence, recognition of the State of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements. Hamas rejected these demands, which resulted in the Quartet suspension of its foreign assistance program and Israel imposed economic sanctions . In December 2006, Ismail Haniyeh , Prime Minister of
616-624: 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
770-583: 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
924-474: A change in the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank. In February 2011, the Palestinian Authority announced that parliamentary and presidential elections would be held by September 2011. On 27 April 2011, Fatah's Azzam al-Ahmad announced the party's signing of a memorandum of understanding with Hamas' leadership, a major step towards reconciliation effectively paving the way for a unity government . The deal
1078-649: 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
1232-562: 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
1386-573: A double game...with regards to battling Hamas, there's coordination if not cooperation with Israel. But on the political front, the PA is trying to generate a popular intifada." Since the Hamas-Fatah split in 2007, the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority based in areas of the West Bank had stabilized, though no significant economic growth had been achieved. Until 2012, there had also been no progress in promotion of PNA status in
1540-405: A government, it had not been implemented. The 2011 deal also promised the entry of Hamas into the Palestine Liberation Organization and holding of elections to its Palestine National Council decision-making body, which was not implemented as well. The deal was further ratified in the 2012 Hamas–Fatah Doha agreement , which was made with the background of Hamas relocation from Damascus, due to
1694-579: 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
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#17328523907281848-463: 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
2002-722: 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 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
2156-573: A partner and refused to negotiate with him, regarding him as linked to terrorism. Arafat denied this, and was visited by other leaders around the world up until his death. However, this began a push for change in the Palestinian leadership. In 2003, Mahmoud Abbas resigned because of lack of support from Israel, the US, and Arafat himself. He won the presidency on 9 January 2005 with 62% of the vote. Former prime minister Ahmed Qureia formed his government on 24 February 2005 to wide international praise because, for
2310-599: A physical barrier between Israelis and Palestinians in 1992, and by 1994, construction on the first barrier – the Gaza-Israel barrier – had begun. In January 1995, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad carried out a double suicide bombing at the Beit Lid Junction near Netanya , killing 22 Israelis . Following the attack, Rabin specified the objectives behind the undertaking, stating that, "This path must lead to
2464-461: A separation, though not according to the borders prior to 1967. We want to reach a separation between us and them. We do not want a majority of the Jewish residents of the state of Israel, 98% of whom live within the borders of sovereign Israel, including a united Jerusalem, to be subject to terrorism." The first Israeli politician to campaign successfully on a platform based explicitly on separation, under
2618-535: 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
2772-603: 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
2926-468: 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
3080-549: 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
3234-511: 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
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#17328523907283388-621: Is administered as part of the Jerusalem District of Israel, but is claimed by Palestine as part of the Jerusalem Governorate . It was annexed by Israel in 1980, but this annexation is not recognised by any other country. Of the 456,000 people in East Jerusalem, roughly 60% are Palestinians and 40% are Israelis. The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) foreign relations are conducted by the minister of foreign affairs . The PNA
3542-477: Is believed to be based on the Semitic root ʕ-b-r ( ע־ב־ר ), meaning "beyond", "other side", "across"; interpretations of 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
3696-578: Is derived from Old French Ebrau , via Latin from 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
3850-602: 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 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
4004-563: 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
4158-411: 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 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
4312-601: 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. Palestinian Authority The Palestinian Authority , officially known as the Palestinian National Authority or
4466-465: Is represented abroad by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which maintains a network of missions and embassies. In states that recognise the State of Palestine it maintains embassies and in other states it maintains "delegations" or "missions". Representations of foreign states to the Palestinian Authority are performed by "missions" or "offices" in Ramallah and Gaza . States that recognise
4620-680: 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 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"
4774-826: 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 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
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4928-535: Is the main obstacle in the talks. In a 25 Feb statement to local newspaper Felesteen , Hamas foreign relations chief Osama Hamdan accused the United States and Israel of blocking Palestinian reconciliation. The United States is putting pressure on the PA to not reconcile with Hamas until the latter recognizes the Quartet on the Middle East 's conditions, including the recognition of Israel, which Hamas rejects. After
5082-405: 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
5236-536: 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
5390-410: Is what I will incorporate and this is what I will exclude' without having a physical barrier that prevents movement between the two." In 2005, Israel carried out the disengagement from Gaza ( Hebrew : תוכנית ההתנתקות , romanized : Tokhnit HaHitnatkut , lit. 'disengagement plan'), a unilateral dismantling in 2005 of the 21 Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and
5544-630: 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
5698-650: The State of Palestine , is the Fatah -controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a consequence of the 1993–1995 Oslo Accords . The Palestinian Authority controlled the Gaza Strip prior to the Palestinian elections of 2006 and the subsequent Gaza conflict between the Fatah and Hamas parties, when it lost control to Hamas ;
5852-439: The 1995 Beit Lid suicide bombing that killed 22 Israelis, Rabin stated that separation is necessary to protect the majority of Israeli Jews from Palestinian terrorism . Ehud Barak , Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001, stated that "good fences make good neighbors." Since its first public introductions, the concept-turned-policy or paradigm has dominated Israeli political and cultural discourse and debate. The separation policy
6006-633: 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 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
6160-621: The Courrier International that public support by an overwhelming majority for " hafrada " was an outgrowth of the average Israeli 's indifference to the history and lot of the Palestinians – which he contrasted with Israel's demand that Palestinians study the Holocaust to understand Jewish motivations. In Mapping Jewish Identities , published that same year (2000), Adi Ophir submitted that support for what he calls "the major element of
6314-503: The Euphrates , Jordan or Litani ; or maybe the northern Arabian Desert between Babylonia and Canaan ). Compare 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
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6468-585: The Fatah–Hamas conflict . It stated that a unity government should be formed within five weeks, ahead of a presidential and parliamentary election within six months. The Palestinian unity government of 2014 formed on 2 June 2014 as a national and political union under Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas . The European Union, the United Nations, the United States, China, India, Russia and Turkey all agreed to work with it. The Israeli government condemned
6622-557: 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
6776-476: The Israeli Defense Forces , submitted that " hafrada (separation) – they are there and we are here" had become the "new ideology" and "new word for those who fantastize about peace." Indor aimed strong criticism toward Ariel Sharon 's proposed peace agreement put forward during the 2001 elections in which Sharon claimed he would provide "peace and security" by making "a hafrada the length and breadth of
6930-655: 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
7084-584: The Oslo Accords . The PLC is an elected body of 132 representatives, which must confirm the Prime Minister upon nomination by the President, and which must approve all government cabinet positions proposed by the Prime Minister. The Judicial Branch has yet to be formalized. The President of the PA is directly elected by the people, and the holder of this position is also considered to be the commander-in-chief of
7238-701: The Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for a period of five years, during which final-status negotiations would take place. The Palestinian Central Council , itself acting on behalf of the Palestine National Council of the PLO, implemented this agreement in a meeting convened in Tunis from 10 to 11 October 1993, making the Palestinian Authority accountable to the PLO Executive Committee . The administrative responsibilities accorded to
7392-520: The Palestinian people , representing them at the United Nations under the name " Palestine ". General elections were held for its first legislative body, the Palestinian Legislative Council , on 20 January 1996. The expiration of the body's term was 4 May 1999, but elections were not held because of the "prevailing coercive situation". On 7 July 2004, the Quartet of Middle East mediators informed Ahmed Qurei , Prime Minister of
7546-552: The Second ("Al-Aqsa") Intifada . In 2005, after the Second Intifada, Israel withdrew unilaterally from its settlements in the Gaza Strip , thereby expanding Palestinian Authority control to the entire strip while Israel continued to control the crossing points , airspace, and the waters of the Gaza Strip's coast. In the Palestinian legislative elections on 25 January 2006, Hamas emerged victorious and nominated Ismail Haniyeh as
7700-422: 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
7854-462: The West Bank on 23 December 2004. On 27 January 2005, the first round of the municipal elections took place in the Gaza Strip for officials in 10 local councils. Further rounds in the West Bank took place in May 2005. Elections for a new Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) were scheduled for July 2005 by Acting Palestinian Authority President Rawhi Fattuh in January 2005. These elections were postponed by Mahmoud Abbas after major changes to
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#17328523907288008-432: The West Bank ; and that before 2015, Israel would unilaterally repartition Jerusalem along lines of its own choosing. Schueftan argued that the "underlying feature" of disengagement is not that it will bring peace, but rather that it will prevent "perpetual terror". Implementation of hafrada continued under the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert . In October 2000, Ha’aretz journalist Gideon Levy commented in
8162-600: The apartheid system – the so-called separation (hafrada) between Israelis and Palestinians," among Zionists who speak in favor of human rights is attributable to internal contradictions in Zionist ideology. In 2002, a television broadcast of The McLaughlin Group on the subject of Israel's separation policy opened with the words: "Jews call it hafrada , "separation", in Hebrew. Critics call it apartheid. The more technical neo-nomenclature is, quote, unquote, "unilateral disengagement." It's an idea that has gained ground in Israel." According to Smith and Cordell, implementation of
8316-399: 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
8470-408: 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 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
8624-433: The 'Palestine National Authority'. Additionally, on 17 December 2012, UN Chief of Protocol Yeocheol Yoon decided that "the designation of 'State of Palestine' shall be used by the Secretariat in all official United Nations documents". However, in a speech in 2016 president Abbas said that "The Palestinian Authority exists and it is here," and "The Palestinian Authority is one of our achievements and we won't give it up." On
8778-454: 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,
8932-535: 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
9086-401: The 2014 agreement, US president Barack Obama said in April 2014 that President Mahmoud Abbas' decision to form a national unity government with Hamas was "unhelpful" and undermined the negotiations with Israel. Amin Maqboul, secretary-general of Fatah's Revolutionary Council, told Al-Monitor , "Hamas did not stick to the 2014 agreement, as it has yet to hand over the reins of power over Gaza to
9240-579: 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,
9394-422: The Ariel Sharon Government began work on the Israeli West Bank barrier at the Seam Area . Israel has since maintained that the barrier is vital to keep Palestinian attackers out of Israeli cities. The barrier has been described by Daniel Schueftan as constituting, "the physical part of the strategy," of unilateral separation. Schueftan has explained that: "It makes the strategy possible because you cannot say 'this
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#17328523907289548-492: The Authority's Prime Minister. However, the national unity Palestinian government effectively collapsed, when a violent conflict between Hamas and Fatah erupted, mainly in the Gaza Strip. After the Gaza Strip was taken over by Hamas on 14 June 2007, the Authority's Chairman Mahmoud Abbas dismissed the Hamas-led unity government and appointed Salam Fayyad as prime minister , dismissing Haniyeh. The move wasn't recognized by Hamas, thus resulting in two separate administrations –
9702-503: 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
9856-498: The Election Law were enacted by the PLC which required more time for the Palestinian Central Elections Committee to process and prepare. Among these changes were the expansion of the number of parliament seats from 88 to 132, with half of the seats to be competed for in 16 localities, and the other half to be elected in proportion to party votes from a nationwide pool of candidates. The following organizations, listed in alphabetic order, have taken part in recent popular elections inside
10010-424: The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and a rival Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. The reconciliation process to unite the Palestinian governments achieved some progress over the years, but had failed to produce a re-unification. The Palestinian Authority received financial assistance from the European Union and the United States (approximately US$ 1 billion combined in 2005). All direct aid
10164-416: 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
10318-425: The Hafrada policy is considered to use cultural autonomy as an excuse for enforced segregation. Hebrew language Hebrew ( Hebrew alphabet : עִבְרִית , ʿĪvrīt , pronounced [ ʔivˈʁit ] or [ ʕivˈrit ] ; Samaritan script : ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ ʿÎbrit ) is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family . A regional dialect of
10472-414: The Hafrada policy to apartheid , and others argue the word "hafrada" bears a "striking similarity" to the South African use of the term. In 2014, United Nations Special Rapporteur Richard A. Falk used the term repeatedly in his "Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967". Yitzhak Rabin was the first to propose the creation of
10626-437: 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
10780-480: The Israeli government and enacted in August 2005, the unilateral disengagement plan resulted in the dismantlement of all settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in the northern West Bank . Schueftan has characterized Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan as only the first step in a "wider historical process." Telling The Jerusalem Report in 2005 that he could "even pin the dates on it," he suggested that in 2007 or 2008, there would be another major disengagement in
10934-492: The Israeli government of a policy of separation is generally credited to the ideas and analysis of Daniel Schueftan as expressed in his 1999 book, Korah Ha'hafrada: Yisrael Ve Harashut Ha'falestinit or "Disengagement: Israel and the Palestinian Entity". An alternate translation for the title in English reads, "The Need for Separation: Israel and the Palestinian Authority ." In it, Schueftan reviews new and existing arguments underlying different separation stances, in order to make
11088-454: 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
11242-417: 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
11396-483: The PA continues to claim the Gaza Strip, although Hamas exercises de facto control. Since January 2013, following United Nations General Assembly resolution 67/19 , the Palestinian Authority has used the name "State of Palestine" on official documents, without prejudice to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) role as "representative of the Palestinian people". The Palestinian Authority
11550-427: The PA from 2003 to 2006, that they were "sick and tired" of the Palestinians failure to carry out promised reforms: "If security reforms are not done, there will be no (more) international support and no funding from the international community" On 18 July 2004, United States President George W. Bush stated that the establishment of a Palestinian state by the end of 2005 was unlikely due to instability and violence in
11704-428: The PA were limited to civil matters and internal security and did not include external security or foreign affairs. Palestinians in the diaspora and inside Israel were not eligible to vote in elections for the offices of the Palestinian Authority. The PA was legally separate from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which continues to enjoy international recognition as the sole legitimate representative of
11858-477: The PA, declared that the PA will never recognize Israel: "We will never recognize the usurper Zionist government and will continue our jihad-like movement until the liberation of Jerusalem." In an attempt to resolve the financial and diplomatic impasse, the Hamas-led government together with Fatah Chairman Mahmoud Abbas agreed to form a unity government . As a result, Haniyeh resigned on 15 February 2007 as part of
12012-465: The Palestinian Authority erected no actions during the conflict of Israel with Hamas. The reconciliation process between Fatah and Hamas reached intermediate results by the two governments, most notably the agreement in Cairo on 27 April 2011, but with no final solution. Though the two agreed to form a unity government, and to hold elections in both territories within 12 months of the establishment of such
12166-539: The Palestinian Authority were founded in 1995 to replace the 8 Israeli military districts of the Civil Administration : 11 governorates in the West Bank and 5 in the Gaza Strip. The governorates are not regulated in any official law of decree by the Palestinian Authority but they are regulated by Presidential decrees, mainly Presidential Decree No. 22 of 2003, regarding the powers of the governors. The regional governors ( Arabic : محافظ muhafiz ) are appointed by
12320-513: The Palestinian Authority. Following Arafat's death on 11 November 2004, Rawhi Fattouh , leader of the Palestinian Legislative Council became acting president of the Palestinian Authority as provided for in Article 54(2) of the Authority's Basic Law and Palestinian Elections Law. On 19 April 2005, Vladimir Putin the president of Russia agreed to aid the Palestinian Authority stating, "We support
12474-495: The Palestinian Authority. Area B forms 22% of the West Bank, and is under Palestinian civil control, and joint Israeli-Palestinian security control. Area C , except East Jerusalem , forms 60% of the West Bank, and is administered by the Israeli Civil Administration , except that the Palestinian Authority provides the education and medical services to the 150,000 Palestinians in the area. 70.3% of Area C (40.5% of
12628-628: The Palestinian Authority: October 2006 polls showed that Fatah and Hamas had equal strength. On 14 June 2007, after the Battle of Gaza (2007) , Palestine president Mahmoud Abbas dismissed the Hamas-led government, leaving the government under his control for 30 days, after which the temporary government had to be approved by the Palestinian Legislative Council. The governorates ( Arabic : محافظات muhafazat ) of
12782-545: The Palestinian Cabinet announced that municipal elections would take place for the first time. Elections were announced for August 2004 in Jericho , followed by certain municipalities in the Gaza Strip . In July 2004 these elections were postponed. Issues with voter registration are said to have contributed to the delay. Municipal elections finally took place for council officials in Jericho and 25 other towns and villages in
12936-524: The President. They are in charge of the Palestinian police force in their jurisdiction as well as coordinating state services such as education, health and transportation. The governorates are under the direct supervision of the Interior Ministry . The governorates in the West Bank are grouped into three areas per the Oslo II Accord . Area A forms 18% of the West Bank by area, and is administered by
13090-556: The Strip to the Palestinian Authority but retained control of its borders including air and sea (except for the Egyptian border). This increased the percentage of land in the Gaza Strip nominally governed by the PA from 60 percent to 100 percent. Palestinian legislative elections took place on 25 January 2006. Hamas was victorious and Ismail Haniyeh was nominated as prime minister on 16 February 2006 and sworn in on 29 March 2006. However, when
13244-654: 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
13398-509: 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
13552-645: The UN, as well in negotiations with Israel. Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority stayed out of the Gaza War in 2008–2009, which followed the six-month truce , between Hamas and Israel which ended on 19 December 2008. Hamas claimed that Israel broke the truce on 4 November 2008, though Israel blamed Hamas for an increasing rocket fire directed at southern Israeli towns and cities. The 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict began on 27 December 2008 (11:30 a.m. local time; 09:30 UTC ). Though condemning Israel over attacks on Gaza,
13706-657: The West Bank) is off limit to Palestinian construction and development. These areas include areas under jurisdiction of Israeli settlements, closed military zones, nature reserves and national parks and areas designated by Israel as "state land". There are about 330,000 Israelis living in settlements in Area C, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank . Although Area C is under martial law , Israelis living there are judged in Israeli civil courts. a. Data from Jerusalem includes occupied East Jerusalem with its Israeli population East Jerusalem
13860-466: The West Bank-based Cabinet formed by Fayyad was the sole legitimate Palestinian government, and Egypt moved its embassy from Gaza to the West Bank. Hamas, which government has an effective control of the Gaza Strip since 2007, faces international diplomatic and economic isolation. In 2013, political analyst Hillel Frisch from Bar-Ilan University 's BESA Center, noted that "The PA is playing
14014-567: The West Bank. 61% of the West Bank remains under direct Israeli military and civilian control. East Jerusalem was unilaterally annexed by Israel in 1980, prior to the formation of the PA. Since 2007 Gaza has been governed by the Hamas Government in Gaza . The politics of the Palestinian Authority take place within the framework of a semi-presidential multi-party republic, with the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), an executive president , and
14168-480: 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
14322-470: 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
14476-549: The agreement. The unity government was finally formed on 18 March 2007 under Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and consisted of members from Hamas, Fatah and other parties and independents. The situation in the Gaza strip however quickly deteriorated into an open feud between the Hamas and Fatah, which eventually resulted in the Brothers' War . After the takeover in Gaza by Hamas on 14 June 2007, Palestinian Authority Chairman Abbas dismissed
14630-520: The armed forces. In an amendment to the Basic Law approved in 2003, the president appoints the Prime Minister who is also chief of the security services in the Palestinian territories. The Prime Minister chooses a cabinet of ministers and runs the government, reporting directly to the President. Parliamentary elections were conducted in January 2006 after the passage of an overhauled election law that increased
14784-552: 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
14938-535: 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,
15092-578: The case for separation from the Palestinians , beginning with those in the West Bank and Gaza . Schueftan favours the "hard separation" stances of politicians like Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak , while characterizing the stance of politicians like Shimon Peres , as "soft separation". After assuming office in 1999, Barak moved to "stimulate cabinet discussion of separation" by distributing copies of Haifa University Professor Dan Schueftan's manifesto, Disengagement , to his ministers. The separation policy
15246-562: 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 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
15400-596: 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
15554-450: The creation of a transitional government. In response to the announcement, Israeli prime minister Netanyahu warned that the Authority must choose whether it wants "peace with Israel or peace with Hamas". From the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1993 until the death of Yasser Arafat in late 2004, only one election had taken place. All other elections were deferred for various reasons. A single election for president and
15708-563: 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;
15862-513: 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
16016-618: 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
16170-503: The efforts of President Abbas to reform the security services and fight against terrorism [...] If we are waiting for President Abbas to fight terrorism, he cannot do it with the resources he has now. [...] We will give the Palestinian Authority technical help by sending equipment, training people. We will give the Palestinian Authority helicopters and also communication equipment." The Palestinian Authority became responsible for civil administration in some rural areas, as well as security in
16324-556: The evacuation of Israeli settlers and army from inside the Gaza Strip . Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had originally dubbed his unilateral disengagement plan – in Hebrew , Tokhnit HaHitnatkut , or Tokhnit HaHinatkut – the "separation plan" or Tokhnit HaHafrada before realizing that, "separation sounded bad, particularly in English, because it evoked apartheid." The plan was put before the Israeli public in mid-December 2003. Formally adopted by
16478-436: 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 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
16632-703: 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
16786-490: The first time, most ministries were headed by experts in their field as opposed to political appointees. The presidential mandate of Mahmoud Abbas expired in 2009 and he is no longer recognised by Hamas, among others, as the legitimate Palestinian leader. According to Palestinian documents leaked to the Al Jazeera news organization, the United States has threatened to cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority should there be
16940-406: 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
17094-523: The government and on 15 June 2007 appointed Salam Fayyad Prime Minister to form a new government. Though the new government's authority is claimed to extend to all Palestinian territories, in effect it became limited to the Palestinian Authority-controlled areas of the West Bank , as Hamas hasn't recognized the move. The Fayyad government has won widespread international support. Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia said in late June 2007 that
17248-445: The government is still in force. On 7–8 February 2016, Fatah and Hamas held talks in Doha , Qatar in an attempt to implement the 2014 agreements. Hamas official told Al-Monitor on 8 March, that the talks did not succeed and that discussions continued between the two movements. He also said that the foreign pressures on the Palestinian Authority to not implement the reconciliation terms
17402-487: 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 the language as Ivrit , meaning Hebrew; however, Mishnah Megillah refers to the language as Ashurit , meaning Assyrian , which
17556-491: The land." Indor stated that in his opinion, "If it were possible to make a hafrada , it would have been done a long time ago." He also noted that, " Binyamin Ben Eliezer himself said hafrada is impossible to implement." In 2002, Rochelle Furstenberg of Hadassah Magazine reported that the concept of "unilateral disengagement" had been unknown to the public eight months previous, but that the notion had gained momentum. In 2002,
17710-574: 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 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
17864-458: 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
18018-464: 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
18172-494: 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 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
18326-494: The legislature took place in 1996. The next presidential and legislative elections were scheduled for 2001 but were delayed following the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada . Following Arafat's death, elections for the President of the Authority were announced for 9 January 2005. The PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas won 62.3% of the vote, while Dr. Mustafa Barghouti , a physician and independent candidate, won 19.8%. On 10 May 2004,
18480-474: The major cities of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip . Although the five-year interim period expired in 1999, the final status agreement has yet to be concluded despite attempts such as the 2000 Camp David Summit , the Taba Summit , and the unofficial Geneva Accords . In August 2005, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon began his disengagement from the Gaza Strip , ceding full effective internal control of
18634-476: The morning of 26 February 2024, the entire Palestinian government, including Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh , resigned from office, amid popular opposition to the Palestinian Authority and pressure from the United States during the Israel–Hamas war . The Palestinian Territories refers to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem). The Palestinian Authority currently administers some 39% of
18788-579: The national consensus government and continues to control the crossings. Should Hamas continue down this path, we have to go to the polls immediately and let the people choose who they want to rule". The UN has permitted the PLO to title its representative office to the UN as "The Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations", and Palestine has started to re-title its name accordingly on postal stamps, official documents and passports, whilst it has instructed its diplomats to officially represent 'The State of Palestine', as opposed to
18942-720: 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
19096-491: The number of seats from 88 to 132. The Chairman of the PLO, Yasser Arafat , was elected as President of PA in a landslide victory at the general election in 1996. Arafat's administration was criticized for its lack of democracy, widespread corruption among officials, and the division of power among families and numerous governmental agencies with overlapping functions. Both Israel and the US declared they lost trust in Arafat as
19250-528: 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 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. '
19404-630: 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
19558-620: 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
19712-451: The region was Old Aramaic . Hebrew was extinct as a colloquial language by late antiquity , but it continued to be used as 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
19866-431: 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 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
20020-657: 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
20174-455: The simmering Syrian civil war . Since late August 2012, Palestinian National Authority has been swept with social protests aiming against the cost of living. The protesters targeted the Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad, calling for his resignation. Some anti-government protests turned violent. On 11 September, Palestinian prime minister issued a decree on lowering the fuel prices and cutting salaries of top officials. In July 2012, it
20328-522: The slogan of "Us here. Them there," was Ehud Barak . In the U.S.-based journal Policy Review , Eric Rozenman writes: "Barak explained hafrada – separation – this way in 1998: 'We should separate ourselves from the Palestinians physically, following the recommendation of the American poet Robert Frost , who once wrote that good fences make good neighbors. Leave them behind [outside] the borders that will be agreed upon, and build Israel.'" The adoption by
20482-485: 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
20636-662: The speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council , to be the acting president until new elections can be held. The State of Palestine is recognized by 146 nations as of June 2024 . In November 2012, the United Nations voted to recognize the State of Palestine as a non-member UN observer state . Widely considered an authoritarian regime , the Palestinian Authority has not held elections in over 15 years. It has been criticized for human rights abuses, including cracking down on journalists , human rights activists , and dissent against its rule. The Palestinian Authority
20790-468: 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
20944-631: The territories, including Israeli settlements , the Jordan Valley region and bypass roads between Palestinian communities, were to remain under Israeli control (" Area C "). East Jerusalem was excluded from the Accords. Negotiations with several Israeli governments had resulted in the Authority gaining further control of some areas, but control was then lost in some areas when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) retook several strategic positions during
21098-411: The unity government because it views Hamas as a terrorist organization. The Palestinian unity government first convened in Gaza on 9 October 2014 to discuss the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip following the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict . On 30 November 2014, Hamas declared that the unity government had ended with the expiration of the six-month term. But Fatah subsequently denied the claim, and said that
21252-580: 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
21406-413: The widely accepted view that the earlier layers of biblical literature reflect the language used in these kingdoms. Furthermore, 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
21560-421: 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
21714-573: Was created by the Gaza–Jericho Agreement , pursuant to the 1993 Oslo Accords . The Gaza–Jericho Agreement was signed on 4 May 1994 and included Israeli withdrawal from the Jericho area and partially from the Gaza Strip, and detailed the creation of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Civil Police Force . The PA was envisioned as an interim organization to administer a limited form of Palestinian self-governance in
21868-614: Was formally announced in Cairo, and was co-ordinated under the mediation of Egypt's new intelligence director Murad Muwafi . The deal came amidst an international campaign for statehood advanced by the Abbas administration, which is expected to culminate in a request for admission into the General Assembly as a member state in September. As part of the deal, the two factions agreed to hold elections in both territories within twelve months of
22022-610: Was formed on 4 May 1994, pursuant to the Gaza–Jericho Agreement between the PLO and the government of Israel , and was intended to be a five-year interim body . Further negotiations were then meant to take place between the two parties regarding its final status. According to the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority was designated to have exclusive control over both security-related and civilian issues in Palestinian urban areas (referred to as " Area A ") and only civilian control over Palestinian rural areas (" Area B "). The remainder of
22176-925: Was maintained by successive Israeli governments, which constructed the Israel-Gaza barrier and the Israeli West Bank barrier ( Geder Ha'hafrada, Hebrew for "separation fence"). In 2005, Israel carried out the disengagement from Gaza , which included the evacuation of Israeli settlements and the IDF from the Gaza Strip. The West Bank closures have also been cited as an example of the policy. Other names for hafrada when discussed in English include unilateral separation or unilateral disengagement. Aaron Klieman has distinguished between partition plans based on "hafrada", which he translated as "detachment"; and "hipardut", translated as "disengagement." The Hebrew word Hafrada can imply both "separation" and "segregation." Critics have linked
22330-446: Was marked by intensive and numerous Palestinian suicide bombings, the majority of which were directed towards Israeli citizens. Between 2001 and 2005, these suicide bombs killed 491 Israeli citizens, turning civilian life into a battleground. As a result, the Israeli government abandoned hopes for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict and embraced a strategy of unilateral disengagement. In February 2001, Meir Indor, lieutenant colonel in
22484-487: 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
22638-476: Was reported that Hamas Government in Gaza was considering to declare the independence of the Gaza Strip with the help of Egypt. On 23 April 2014 Ismail Haniyeh , the prime minister of Hamas, and a senior Palestine Liberation Organisation delegation dispatched by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas signed the Fatah–Hamas Gaza Agreement at Gaza City in an attempt to create reconciliation in
22792-618: 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
22946-490: Was subsequently adopted by Israel's National Security Council , where Schueftan has also served as an advisor. According to Gershon Baskin and Sharon Rosenberg, Schueftan's book appears to be "the working manual for the IDF and wide Israeli political circles" for the implementation and "unilateral construction of walls and fences." The Second Intifada , a large Palestinian uprising against Israel, lasted from 2000 to 2005. This period
23100-527: 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
23254-470: Was suspended on 7 April 2006, as a result of the Hamas victory in parliamentary elections. Shortly thereafter, aid payments resumed, but were channeled directly to the offices of Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. Since 9 January 2009, when Mahmoud Abbas' term as president was supposed to have ended and elections were to have been called, Hamas supporters and many in the Gaza Strip have withdrawn recognition for his presidency and instead consider Aziz Dweik ,
23408-437: 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
23562-408: 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
23716-570: 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
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