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Israel

Israel

The State of Israel (Hebrew: , transliteration: Medinat Yisra'el; Arabic: دَوْلَةْ إِسْرَائِيل, transliteration: Dawlat Isrā'īl) is a country in the Middle East on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. It is a parliamentary democracy and the world's only Jewish state. The name "Israel" means "One Who Struggles with God," and is rooted in the Biblical passage Genesis 32:28 wherein Jacob is renamed Israel after struggling with an unnamed assailant. Israel is bordered by Lebanon and Syria in the north, Jordan and the West Bank in the east, and Egypt and the Gaza Strip in the south-west, and has coastlines on the Mediterranean in the west and the Gulf of Eilat (also known as the Gulf of Aqaba) in the south. Israel captured the West Bank and the Golan Heights during the Six-Day War of 1967. It withdrew all troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip on September 12 2005. The future status of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights remains to be determined.

History

Historical roots

Most believe that the land on which the State of Israel now exists was the birthplace of Judaism in the 10th century BCE or earlier, although some scholars dispute this. The earliest mention of the name 'Israel' is in Ancient Egyptian accounts of conquered lands in Asia minor, dating back to about 1500 BCE. For over 3,000 years, Jews have held the Land of Israel to be their homeland, both as a Holy Land and as a Promised Land, while non-Jews have also later maintained similar claims. The Land of Israel holds a special place in Jewish religious obligations, encompassing Judaism's most important sites including the remains of the First and Second Temple. Starting around 1200 BCE, a series of Jewish kingdoms and states existed intermittently in the region for over a millennium until the failure of the Great Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire resulted in widescale expulsion of Jews (see Destruction of Jerusalem). Under Roman, Byzantine, and (briefly) Persian rule, Jewish presence in the province dwindled, but the Mishnah and Jerusalem Talmud, two of Judaism's most important religious texts, were composed in Palestine during this period. The Arabs conquered the land from the Eastern Roman Empire in 638 CE and the area was ruled by various Arab states before becoming part of the Ottoman Empire in 1517. Throughout the centuries, the size of the Jewish population in the land fluctuated widely, with the population in the region of present day Israel numbering approximately 20-25,000 in 1881 of a total population of 470,000.

Zionism and Aliyah

Ottoman Empire on May 14 1948 in Tel Aviv.]] The first wave of Jewish emigration to Israel, or Aliyah (עלייה) started in the late 1800s as Jews fled persecution. The end of the 19th century saw the founding of Zionism, the national movement to create a Jewish political entity in Palestine, leading to the Second Aliyah during the first two decades of the 20th century with the influx of around 40,000 Jews. In 1917 the British Foreign Secretary Arthur J. Balfour issued the historic Balfour Declaration that "view[ed] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people". In 1920 Palestine became a League of Nations mandate administered by Britain (see British Mandate of Palestine). Jewish immigration resumed in third and fourth waves after World War I. Later, the rise of Nazism in 1933 led to a fifth wave of Aliyah, and the Jews in the region increased from 11% of the population in 1922 to 30% by 1940. The subsequent Holocaust in Europe led to additional immigration from other parts of Europe. By the end of World War II, the number of Jews in Palestine was approximately 600,000. In 1939 the British abandoned the idea of a Jewish national home, and abandoned partition and negotiations in favour of the unilaterally-imposed White Paper of 1939, which capped Jewish immigration. Its other stated policy was to establish a system under which both Jews and Arabs were to share one government. As a result of impending world war, the plan was never fully implemented, but the White Paper policy was implemented well into the end of WWII, and enforced even when refugees who survived the Holocaust were fleeing from Nazi persecution. (See Struma article.)

Establishment of the State and the War of Independence

In 1947, following increasing levels of violence by militant groups, alongside unsuccessful efforts to reconcile the Jewish and Arab populations, the British government decided to withdraw from the Palestine Mandate. Fulfillment of the 1947 UN Partition Plan would have divided the mandated territory into two states, Jewish and Arab, giving about half the land area to each state. Under this plan, Jerusalem was intended to be an international region under UN administration to avoid conflict over its status. Immediately following the adoption of the Partition Plan by the United Nations General Assembly, the Palestinian Arab leadership rejected the plan to create the as-yet-unnamed Jewish state and launched a guerilla war. On May 14 1948, before the expiring of the British Mandate of Palestine on midnight of the May 15 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed. The surrounding Arab states supported the Palestinian Arabs in rejecting both the Partition Plan and the establishment of Israel, and the armies of six Arab nations attacked the State of Israel. Over the next 15 months Israel captured an additional 26% of the Mandate territory west of the Jordan river and annexed it to the new state. Most of the Arab population fled or were expelled during the war. The continuing conflict between Israel and the Arab world resulted in a lasting displacement that persists to this day. 1948 edition of Yishuv newspaper The Palestine Post, soon renamed into The Jerusalem Post. In the news: Egyptian Air Force bombs Tel-Aviv, Transjordan shells Jerusalem. 15 May was Shabbat.]] Immigration of Holocaust survivors and Jews from Arab lands doubled Israel's population within a year of independence. Over the following decade approximately 600,000 Mizrahi Jews, who fled or were expelled from surrounding Arab countries, migrated to Israel (with another 300,000 or so settling in France and North America, leaving only a tiny remnant, mostly in Morocco and Tunisia). Israel's Jewish population continued to grow at a very high rate for some years, and was fed by further waves of Jewish immigration following the collapse of the USSR.

Wars

The refusal of Arab countries to recognize the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 has been a source of repeated wars and other conflicts with Arab nations such as Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. The state of war between Egypt and Israel ended with the signing of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty on March 26, 1979. The state of war with Jordan officially ended with the signing of the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace on October 26 1994. Sporadic negotiations with Lebanon and Syria have not as yet resulted in peace treaties. Israel is currently also embroiled in an ongoing conflict with Palestinians in the territories controlled since the Six Day War in 1967, despite the signing of the Oslo Accords on September 13 1993, and the ongoing efforts of Israeli, Palestinian and global peacemakers. Palestinians want Gaza and the West Bank to become part of a (preferably contiguous) future state. Israel currently plans on expanding existing large West Bank settlement blocs, and maintains the current impasse in the peace process —negotiations toward a permanent peace treaty featuring a two-state solution— cannot be restarted until the Palestinian government dismantles terrorist groups.

Articles related to the wars

- 1948 Arab-Israeli War "The Independence War" (see also: 1949 Armistice Agreements). Also called "War of Liberation" מלחמת העצמאות או מלחמת השחרור
- 1956 Suez War "Operation Kadesh" מבצע קדש או מלחמת סיני
- 1967 Six Day War מלחמת ששת הימים
- 1970 War of Attrition מלחמת ההתשה
- 1973 Yom Kippur War מלחמת יום כיפור
- 1982 Lebanon War "Operation Peace For Galilee" מבצע שלום הגליל
- First Intifada אינתיפדה
- 1990/1 Gulf War מלחמת המפרץ
- al-Aqsa Intifada אינתיפדת אל-אקצא The Israeli Defense Forces codenamed it "אירועי גיאות ושפל" ("Ebb and Tide events") but it is unofficially referred to as the Oslo War in some Israeli circles.

Politics and law

Israel is a parliamentary democracy based on universal suffrage and proportional representation. Israel's legislative branch is a 120-member parliament known as the Knesset. Membership in the Knesset is allocated to parties based on their proportion of the vote. Elections to the Knesset are normally held every four years, but the Knesset can decide to dissolve itself ahead of time by a simple majority, known as a vote of no-confidence. The President of Israel is head of state, serving as a largely ceremonial figurehead. The President selects the leader of the majority party or ruling coalition in the Knesset as the Prime Minister, who serves as head of government.²

Constitution

Israel has not completed a written constitution. Its government is based on the laws of the Knesset, especially by "Basic Laws of Israel", which are special laws (currently there are 15 of them), by the Knesset legislature which will become the future official constitution. In mid-2003, the Knesset's Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee began [http://www.cfisrael.org drafting a full written Constitution to be proposed to the Knesset floor.] This effort is still underway as of late 2005. The declaration of the State of Israel has a significance in this matter as well. Israel's legal system is a western legal system best classified as "mixed": it has a strong Anglo-American influence, but in some parts has borrowed heavily from civil law tradition. Despite the Anglo-American influence, the jury system was not adopted in Israel, and court cases are decided by professional judges.

Judiciary and Legal System

The Judiciary branch of Israel is made of a three-tier system of courts: at the lowest level are the Magistrate Courts, situated in most cities. Above them, serving both as an appellate court and as a court of first instance are the District Courts (six of them, situated in the six judicial districts of Jerusalem, South, Tel Aviv, Centre, Haifa and Nazareth). At the top of the judicial pyramid is the Supreme Court seated in Jerusalem. The current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is Aharon Barak. Religious tribunals (Jewish, Sharia'a, Druze and Christian) have exclusive jurisdiction on annulment of marriages. The Israeli Supreme Court serves a dual role as the highest court of appeals and as the body for a separate institution known as the High Court of Justice. The HCOJ has the unique responsibility of addressing petitions presented to the Court by individual citizens. The respondents to these petitions are usually Governmental agencies (including the Israel Defense Forces). The result of such petitions, which are decided by the HCOJ, may be an instruction by the HCOJ to the relevant Governmental agency to act in a manner prescribed by the HCOJ. Judges are elected by a committee made of Members of the Knesset (Parliament), Supreme Courts Judges and Members of the Israeli Bar. According to the Courts Law, judges retire at the age of 70. Registrars to all courts are appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, with the approval of the Minister of Justice. Israel's legal system is part of the Western legal systems. It is a mixed system, influenced by Anglo-American, Continental and Jewish law principles. As for the Anglo-American influence, the Israeli legal system is based on the principle of stare-decisis (precedent). It is an adversarial system, not an inquisitorial one, in the sense that the parties (e.g. plaintiff and defendant) are the ones that bring the evidence before the court. The court does not conduct any independent investigation on the case. There is no jury in Israeli courts, and cases are decided upon by professional judges. As for Civil Law influences, several major Israeli statutes (such as the Contract Law) are based on Civil Law principles. Israeli statute body is not comprised of Codes, but rather of individual statutes. However, a Civil Code draft has been completed recently, and is planned to become a bill.

Military

Israel's military consists of a unified Israel Defense Forces (IDF), known in Hebrew by the acronym Tzahal (צה"ל). Historically, there have been no separate Israeli military services. The Navy and Air Force are subordinate to the Army. There are other paramilitary government agencies which deal with different aspects of Israel's security (such as MAGAV and the Shin Bet). See further discussion: Israel Security Forces. The IDF is considered one of the strongest military forces in the Middle East and ranks among the most battle-trained armed forces in the world, having had to defend the country in five major wars. The IDF's main resource is the training quality of its soldiers, but it also relies heavily on high-tech weapons systems (both developed and manufactured in Israel for its specific needs, and also largely imported from the United States), and expert manpower, rather than possession of overwhelming manpower. Most Israelis, males and females, are drafted into the military at the age of 18. Exceptions are Israeli Arabs, confirmed pacifists, those who cannot serve due to injury or disability, and women who declare themselves religiously observant. Compulsory service is three years for men, and 20 months for women. Circassians and Bedouin actively enlist in the IDF. Since 1956, Druze men have been conscripted in the same way as Jewish men, at the request of the Druze community. Men studying full-time in religious institutions can get a deferment from conscription; most Haredi Jews extend these deferments until they are too old to be conscripted, a practice that has fueled much controversy in Israel. Following compulsory service, Israeli men become part of the IDF reserve forces, and are usually required to serve several weeks every year as reservists, until their 40's.

Geography

Haredi Jews The total area of the sovereign territory of Israel —excluding all territories captured by Israel in 1967 — is 20,770 (20,330 land) square km; the total area under Israeli law —including East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights — is 22,145 (21,671 land) square km; the total area under Israeli control — including the military-controlled and Palestinian-governed territory of the West Bank — is 28,023 (27,549 land) square km.

Metropolitan areas

As of 2004, The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics defines three metropolitan areas: Tel Aviv (population 2,933,300), Haifa (population 980,600) and Be'er Sheva (population 511,700) [http://www1.cbs.gov.il/shnaton55/st02_15.pdf]. Jerusalem may also be considered a metropolitan area, though its limits are hard to define since it spans communities in Israel proper and the West Bank, both Israeli and Palestinian, and even the boundaries of Jerusalem city itself are disputed. As of 2005, the official population of Jerusalem city is 706,368.

Economy

Israel has a technologically advanced market economy with substantial government participation. It depends on imports of fossil fuels (crude oil, natural gas, and coal), grains, beef, raw materials, and military equipment. Despite limited natural resources, Israel has intensively developed its agricultural and industrial sectors over the past 20 years. Israel is largely self-sufficient in food production except for grains and beef. Diamonds, high-technology, military equipment, software, pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, and agricultural products (fruits, vegetables, and flowers) are leading exports. Israel usually posts sizable current account deficits, which are covered by large transfer payments from abroad and by foreign loans. Israel possesses extensive facilities for oil refining, diamond polishing, and semiconductor fabrication. Roughly half of the government's external debt is owed to the U.S., which is its major source of economic and military aid. A relatively large fraction of Israel's external debt is held by individual investors, via the Israel Bonds program. The combination of American loan guarantees and direct sales to individual investors, allow the state to borrow at competitive and sometimes below-market rates. The influx of Jewish immigrants from the former USSR topped 750,000 during the period 1989-1999, bringing the population of Israel from the former Soviet Union to 1 million, one-sixth of the total population, and adding scientific and professional expertise of substantial value for the economy's future. The influx, coupled with the opening of new markets at the end of the Cold War, energized Israel's economy, which grew rapidly in the early 1990s. But growth began slowing in 1996 when the government imposed tighter fiscal and monetary policies and the immigration bonus petered out. Those policies brought inflation down to record low levels in 1999.

Demographics

1999 According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, at the end of 2004, of Israel's 6.9 million people, 76.2% were Jews, 19.5% Arabs, and 4.3% "others".[http://www1.cbs.gov.il/shnaton56/st02_01.pdf] Among Jews, 68% were Sabras (Israeli-born), mostly second or third generation Israelis, and the rest are olim — 22% from Europe and the Americas, and 10% from Asia and Africa, including the Arab countries.[http://www1.cbs.gov.il/shnaton56/st02_24.pdf] Israel has two official languages; Hebrew and Arabic (See also: Languages of Israel). Hebrew is the major and primary language of the state and is spoken by the majority of the population. Arabic is spoken by the large Arab minority and by some members of the Mizrahi and Teimani Jewish communities. English is studied in school and is widely understood. Other languages spoken in Israel include Russian, Yiddish, Ladino, Romanian and French. American and European popular television shows are commonly presented. Newspapers can be found in all languages listed above as well as others, such as Farsi. As of 2004, 224,200 Israeli citizens lived in the West Bank in numerous settlements, (including towns such as Ma'ale Adummim and Ariel, and a handful of communities that were present long before the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and were re-established after the Six-Day War such as Hebron and Gush Etzion). Around 180,000 Israelis lived in East Jerusalem [http://fmep.org/settlement_info/stats_data/jerusalem/east_jerusalem_population_area_2000-2002.html], which came under Israeli law following its capture from Jordan during the Six-Day War. About 8,500 Israelis lived in settlements built in the Gaza Strip, prior to their evacuation by the government in the summer of 2005 as part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan.

Religion in Israel

According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, at the end of 2004, 76.2% of Israelis were Jews by religion. Muslims made up 16.1% of Israelis, 2.1% were Christian, 1.6% were Druze and the remaining 3.9% (including Russian immigrants and some Jews) were not classified by religion.[http://www1.cbs.gov.il/shnaton56/st02_01.pdf] Israel, however, is not a theocracy and religions other than Judaism are supported. Roughly 6% of Israeli Jews define themselves as haredim (ultra-orthodox religious); an additional 9% are "religious" ; 34% consider themselves "traditionalists" (not strictly adhering to Jewish halacha); and 51% are "secular" (termed "hiloni"). Among the seculars, 53% believe in God.[http://www.geocities.com/demokratya/dat/shavit.htm] Israelis tend not to align themselves with a movement of Judaism (such as Reform Judaism or Conservative Judaism) but instead tend to define their religious affiliation by degree of their religious practice. Of the Arab Israelis 82.6% were Muslim, 8.8% were Christian and 8.4% were Druze.[http://www1.cbs.gov.il/shnaton56/st02_01.pdf]

Culture and religion

Footnotes

¹ Jerusalem is Israel's officially designated capital, and the location of its presidential residence, government offices and the Knesset, Israel's Parliament. In 1980, the Israeli Knesset confirmed Jerusalem's status as the nation's "eternal and indivisible capital", by passing the Basic Law: Jerusalem — Capital of Israel. However, many countries dissent from this designation, and consider the status of Jerusalem as an unresolved issue, due to Israel's capture of the eastern half of Jerusalem (and subsequent reunification) from Jordan during the Six Day War. They believe that the final issue of the status of Jerusalem will be determined in future Israeli-Palestinian negotiations; Therefore, those countries locate their embassies in other major cities like Tel-Aviv, Ramat-Gan, Herzliya, etc., instead, to avoid political sensitivities. Moreover, some of the dissenting countries do not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, due to what they perceive as illegal Israeli action in designating the city to be its capital in the first place (1950), as well as Israel's capture of the eastern half from Jordan, in 1967. These states instead recognize Tel-Aviv, the temporary capital for a time in 1948, when Jerusalem was under Arab control, as the continuous legitimate capital, and as a result keep their embassies there. Other entities maintain that Jerusalem must be internationalized as originally envisioned by the United Nations General Assembly. See the article on Jerusalem for more. ² For a short period in the 1990s the prime minister was directly elected by the electorate. This change was not viewed a success and was abandoned.

Annotated List of Israeli Media Sources

General references to the Israeli media:
- [http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/facts%20about%20israel/culture/the%20printed%20media-%20israel-s%20newspapers The Printed Media: Israel's Newspapers] Summary from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- List of Israeli newspapers English-language periodicals:
- Globes [http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/nodeView.asp?fid=942] English-language website of Israel's business and technology daily
- Ha'Aretz [http://www.haaretz.com/] Online English edition of the relatively highbrow Hebrew-language newspaper, Haaretz has a liberal editorial stance similar to that of The Guardian.
- IsraelInsider [http://www.israelinsider.com] - Independent, right wing outlet. Target audience is American Jewry.
- Jerusalem Newswire [http://www.jnewswire.com/ ] Independent, right-wing Christian-run news outlet
- The Jerusalem Post [http://www.jpost.com/] Israel's oldest English-language newspaper, considered to have a right-of-center editorial slant
- Jerusalem Report [http://www.jrep.com/] Left-of-center English weekly newspaper
- Maariv [http://www.maarivintl.com/] English edition of the centrist second largest Hebrew-language newspaper
- YNetNews [http://www.ynetnews.com/] English-language website of Israel's largest newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth Hebrew-language periodicals:
- Globes [http://www.globes.co.il/ ] business and technology daily
- Ha'Aretz [http://www.haaretz.co.il/] Relatively highbrow Israeli newspaper with a liberal editorial stance similar to that of The Guardian
- Hamodia Daily newspaper serving Israel's Haredi community. English editions are also published in the U.S. and the U.K. and serve local Jewish Orthodox communities in those countries. Hamodia is not available online.
- Hazofe [http://www.hazofe.co.il] daily newspaper with a religious Zionist point of view Hebrew-language periodicals (continued):
- Maariv [http://www.maariv.co.il/] Second largest Israeli newspaper, centrist.
- Makor Rishon [http://www.makorrishon.net] Conservative weekly newspaper
- Yated Ne'eman Daily newspaper serving the Haredi community
- Yedioth Ahronoth [http://www.ynet.co.il/], Israel's largest newspaper, centrist Arabic-language periodicals:
- Al-Ittihad Arabic-language daily newspaper Israeli broadcast media:
- [http://www.iba.org.il/ Israel Broadcasting Authority], TV News in Hebrew, some English.
- [http://www.radioisrael.com Radio Israel]
- [http://www.israelnationalnews.com/ Arutz Sheva] news site representing the settler community, right-wing religious (English)
- [http://www.israelradio.org/ Kol Israel - Voice of Israel] Also produced by the IBA. In Hebrew, French, English, Spanish, Ladino, Russian, Persian, Yiddish, etc.
- [http://www.isracast.com IsraCast] - Independent, multimedia broadcast and distribution network that focuses on Israeli foreign affairs and defense issues (English) Important Internet sources:
- Indymedia Israel [http://israel.indymedia.org/], primarily left-wing and anti-zionist, mostly in Hebrew Relevant non-Israeli media:
- Electronic Intifada [http://electronicintifada.net], Independent website covering Palestinian affairs and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
-
- Jewish Telegraphic Agency [http://www.jta.org/], New York-based news agency covering worldwide Jewish news, centrist (English)
- Yahoo News [http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/israel] news headline links

External links

-
- [http://www.telavivguide.net Tel Aviv travel guide with information about sightseeing and activities in and around Tel Aviv]

General information

- [http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761575008/Israel_(country).html#s1 Encarta Encyclopedia entry on Israel]
- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/middle_east/country_profiles/803257.stm BBC News Country Profile - Israel and Palestinian Territories]
- [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/israel.html Jewish Virtual Library Israel articles], including information on history, economics, and military issues. From the American-Israel Cooperative Enterprise, an Israel-advocacy group.
- [http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/is.html CIA World Factbook - Israel]
- [http://www.state.gov/p/nea/ci/israel/ US State Department - Israel] includes Background Notes, Country Study and major reports
- [http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/mideast/cuvlm/Israel.html Columbia University Libraries - Israel] directory category of the WWW-VL
- [http://dmoz.org/Regional/Middle_East/Israel/ Open Directory Project - Israel] directory category
- [http://www.sabranet.com SABRAnet - Where Israel comes alive on the Internet]
- [http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/Countries/Israel/ Yahoo! - Israel] directory category

Government

- [http://www.gov.il/FirstGov/english Government Portal of Israel]
- [http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel]
- [http://www.president.gov.il/defaults/default_en.asp The President of the state of Israel]
- [http://www.pmo.gov.il/PMOEng Prime Minister's Office]
- [http://www.cbs.gov.il/engindex.htm Bureau of Statistics]
- [http://www.idf.il/ Israel Defence Force site]
- [http://www.seamzone.mod.gov.il/pages/eng/purpose.htm Israel Security Fence Project]

The Knesset (Parliament)

- [http://www.knesset.gov.il/ The Knesset (Parliament)]

Legislation and the Legal System

- [http://62.90.71.124/eng/home/index.html The Courts]
- [http://www.knesset.gov.il/description/eng/eng_mimshal_yesod1.htm Basic Laws], legal code of Israel
- [http://www.israelinsurancelaw.com/ Israeli Commercial, Banking, Tort and Insurance Laws - in English]

History

Please see main article History of Israel
- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/78601.stm The birth of Israel] from the BBC
- [http://www.imj.org.il/ Israel Museum, Jerusalem]
- [http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2002/7/Israel-s%20Foreign%20Relations-%20Selected%20Documents Historical documents] from the Israeli Ministry of Public Affairs
- [http://www.isracast.com/territories.asp Authentic historical Recordings] - UN Partition Vote of 1947, Arab Rejection, "First" Hatikva, David Ben-Gurion - On Independence, Arab Countdown to Six Day War, Moshe Dayan - Six Day War, Gen. Ariel Sharon - "Move forward!", Nasser's Infamous Phonecall, Gen. Yitzhak Rabin - Six Day War, Abba Eban's "Stalingrad" Speech

Economy, science, and technology

- [http://www.standardpoor.co.il/index.html Standard and Poor's Israel Economic Information]
- [http://duns100.dundb.co.il/ DUNS 100], the hundred largest companies in Israel
- [http://www.science.co.il/ Israel Science and Technology Homepage]
- [http://www.israelinsurancelaw.com/ Translation of Israeli Laws to English]
- [http://www.isracast.com/tech.asp IsraCast: Science and Technology News From Israel] - Updated Weekly (English)
- [http://www.worldwide-tax.com/israel/indexisrael.asp Israel economy and business parameters] Israel key Data on Israeli Taxes, Income Tax, Tax Rates in Israel.

Foreign relations and the current conflicts

For links on the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, see Arab-Israeli Conflict: External Links
- [http://www.mfa.gov.il Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs]
- [http://www.israel21c.com Israel21c: A focus beyond the conflict]
- [http://www.saag.org/papers2/paper131.html India-Israeli Relations: The Imperatives for Enhanced Strategic Cooperation]
- [http://mondediplo.com/focus/mideast/r1276 Le Monde diplomatique report on EU-Israeli relations]
- [http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/israel/intro/ European Union's relations with Israel]
- [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ustoc.html US-Israeli Relations] from the Jewish Virtual Library.
- [http://www.cactus48.com/truth.html Jews for Justice in the Middle East] Publication detailing Arab-Israli conflict

Society

- [http://www.iwn.org.il/iwn.asp Israel Women's Network]
- [http://www.gaymiddleeast.com/country/israel Gay Middle East - Israel section]
- [http://www.fmep.org/analysis/ori_nir_israels_arab_minority.html Israeli Arabs and Israeli Society], discussion with Ori Nir, correspondent for Haaretz and the Forward.
- [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/freedom.html Freedom of Religion in Israeli Society and Politics] by Prof. Shimon Shetreet, former minister of Religious Affairs.
- [http://www.nswas.org/ Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam] the Oasis of Peace, an experimental Arab-Jewish cooperative village.
- [http://www.reform.org.il/ Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism], Reform Judaism in Israel

Photos

- [http://www.trekker.co.il/english/israel-tour.htm Pictures of various holy sites and tourist destinations].
- Israel capital - [http://www.jerusalemshots.com/en Jerusalem]. Portal of Jerusalem Photos

Historical Recordings

- [http://www.isracast.com/territories.asp Authentic historical Recordings] - UN Partition Vote of 1947, Arab Rejection, "First" Hatikva, Ben-Gurion - On Independence, Arab Countdown to Six Day War, Moshe Dayan - Six Day War, Gen. Ariel Sharon - "Move forward!", Nasser's Infamous Phonecall, Gen. Yitzhak Rabin - Six Day War, Abba Eban's "Stalingrad" Speech
- [http://www.isracast.com/yk/stage.swf A cry from the bunkers] - Dramatic and authentic recordings by IDF soldier Avi Yaffe from inside the IDF position, under attack at the outbreak of the Yom Kippur war. Category:Hebrew words Category:Levant Category:Near Eastern countries Category:Middle Eastern countries Category:Southwest Asian countries zh-min-nan:Í-sek-lia̍t-kok ko:이스라엘 ms:Israel ja:イスラエル simple:Israel

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by more than 6 million people, mainly in Israel, the West Bank, the United States and by Jewish communities around the world. The core of the Tanakh (sometimes referred to as the Hebrew Bible), the Torah (which Christianity and Judaism traditionally hold to have been first recorded in the time of Moses 3,300 years ago), is written in (Biblical) Classical Hebrew. Jews have always called it לשון הקודש Lashon ha-Qodesh ("The Sacred Language") as the scriptures written in this language were considered sacred. Most scholars agree that after the first destruction of Jerusalem by the Nebuchadnezzar II and the Babylonians in 586 BCE, the kind of Hebrew prevalent in the Tanakh was replaced in daily use by Mishnaic Hebrew and a local version of Aramaic. After the depletion of the Jewish population of parts of Roman occupied Judea, it is believed that Hebrew gradually ceased to be a spoken language roughly around 200 CE, but has stayed as the major written language throughout the centuries. Not only religious, but texts for a large variety of purposes: letters and contracts, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry, protocols of courts—all resorted to Hebrew, which thus adapted itself to various new fields and terminologies by borrowings and new inventions. Hebrew was revitalized as a spoken language during the late 19th and early 20th century as Modern Hebrew, replacing a score of languages spoken by the Jews at that time, such as Arabic, Judezmo (also called Ladino), Yiddish, Russian, and other languages of the Jewish diaspora as the spoken language of the majority of the Jewish people living in Israel. Modern Hebrew became an official language in British-ruled Palestine in 1921, and the primary official language of the State of Israel, (Arabic maintained its official language status). The Hebrew name for the language is עברית, or Ivrit (IPA: )

History

While the term "Hebrew" as a nationality is customarily used to refer to the ancient Israelites, the classical Hebrew language was extremely similar to the Canaanite languages spoken by their neighbors, such as Phoenician; indeed, Moabite and Hebrew are often considered to be two dialects of the same language. Hebrew strongly resembles Aramaic and to a lesser extent South-Central Arabic, sharing many linguistic features with them.

Early history

Hebrew is an Afro-Asiatic language. This language family is generally thought by linguists to have originated somewhere in northeastern Africa, and began to diverge around the 8th millennium BCE, although there is much debate about the exact date and place. (The theory is espoused by most archeologists and linguists, but at odds with traditional reading of the Torah.) One branch of this family, Semitic, eventually reached the Middle East; it gradually differentiated into a variety of related languages. By the end of the 3rd millennium BCE the ancestral languages of Aramaic, Ugaritic, and other various Canaanite languages were spoken in the Levant alongside the influential dialects of Ebla and Akkad. As the Hebrew founders from northern Haran filtered south into and came under the influence of the Levant, like many sojourners into Canaan including the Philistines, they adopted Canaanite dialects. The first written evidence of distinctive Hebrew, the Gezer calendar, dates back to the 10th century BCE, the traditional time of the reign of David and Solomon. It 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 the Roman script. The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where more modern spelling requires it (see below). Roman script, dates to the 7th century BCE.]] Numerous older tablets have been found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example Protosinaitic. It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to the hieroglyphs of the Egyptian writing, 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 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 Old Hebrew include the ostraka found near Lachish which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BCE. The most famous work originally written in Hebrew is the Tanakh, though the time at which it was written is a matter of dispute (see dating the Bible for details). The earliest extant copies were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, written between the 2nd century BCE and the 1st century CE. The formal language of the latter Babylonian Empire was Aramaic (its name is either derived from "Aram Naharayim", Upper Mesopotamia, or from "Aram," the ancient name for Syria). The Persian Empire, which had captured Babylonia a few decades later under Cyrus, adopted Aramaic as the official language. Aramaic is also a North-West Semitic language, quite similar to Hebrew. Aramaic has contributed many words and expressions to Hebrew, mainly as the language of commentary in the Talmud and other religious works. In addition to numerous words and expressions, Hebrew also borrowed the Aramaic writing system. Although the original Aramaic letter forms were derived from the same Phoenician alphabet that was used in ancient Israel, they had changed significantly, both in the hands of the Mesopotamians and of the Jews, assuming the forms familiar to us today around the first century CE. Writings of that era (most notably, some of the Dead Sea Scrolls found in Qumran) are written in a script very similar to the "square" one still used today.

Later history

The Jews living in the Persian Empire adopted Aramaic, and Hebrew quickly fell into disuse. It was preserved, however, as the literary language of Bible study. Aramaic became the vernacular language of the renewed Judaea for the following 700 years. Famous works written in Aramaic include the Targum, the Talmud and several of Flavius Josephus' books (several of the latter were not preserved, however, in the original.) Following the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Jews gradually began to disperse from Judaea into foreign countries (this dispersion was hastened when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem (and turned it into a pagan city named Aelia Capitolina) in 135 CE after putting down Bar Kokhba's revolt.) For many hundreds of years Aramaic remained the spoken language of Mesopotamian Jews, and Lishana Deni, one of several Judæo-Aramaic languages, is a modern descendant that is still spoken by a few thousand Jews (and many non-Jews) from the area known as Kurdistan; however, it gradually gave way to Arabic, as it had given way to other local languages in the countries to which the Jews had gone. Hebrew was not used as a mother tongue for roughly 1800 years. However the Jews have always devoted much effort to maintaining high standards of literacy among themselves, the main purpose being to let any Jew read the Hebrew Bible and the accompanying religious works in the original (see rabbinic literature, Codes of Jewish law, The Jewish Bookshelf). It is interesting to note that the languages that the Jews adopted from their adopted nations, namely Ladino and Yiddish were not directly connected to Hebrew (the former being based on Spanish and Arabic borrowings, latter being a remote dialect of Middle High German), however, both were written from right to left using the Hebrew script. Hebrew was also used as a language of communication among Jews from different countries, particularly for the purpose of international trade. The most important contribution to preserving traditional Hebrew pronunciation in this period was that of scholars called Masoretes (from masoret meaning "tradition"), who from about the seventh to the tenth centuries CE devised detailed markings to indicate vowels, stress, and cantillation (recitation methods). The original Hebrew texts used only consonants, and later some consonants were used to indicate long vowels. By the time of the Masoretes this text was considered too sacred to be altered, so all their markings were in the form of pointing in and around the letters.

Revival

cantillation The revival of Hebrew as a mother tongue was initiated by the efforts of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858-1922) (אליעזר בן־יהודה). He joined the Jewish national movement and in 1881 emigrated to Eretz Israel, then a province 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 the literary and liturgical language into everyday spoken language. However, his brand of Hebrew followed norms that had been replaced in Eastern Europe by more modern grammar and style, in the writings of people like Achad Ha-Am and others. His organizational efforts and involvement with the establishment of schools and the writing of textbooks pushed the vernacularization activity into a gradually accepted movement. It was not, however, until the 1904-1905 "Second aliyah" that Hebrew had caught real momentum in Ottoman Palestine with the new and better 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. While many saw his work as fanciful or even blasphemous, many soon understood the need for a common language amongst Jews of pre-state Israel 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. Later it became the Academy of the Hebrew Language, an organization that exists today. The results of his and the Committee's work were published in a dictionary (The Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew). Ben-Yehuda's work fell on fertile ground, and by 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 pre-State Israel.

Modern Hebrew

Ben-Yehuda based Modern Hebrew on Biblical Hebrew. Often new words were coined by applying unused word-patterns to existing roots (Biblical k-t-v, "write," gave rise to modern Hebrew hikhtiv, "dictated," and hitkatev, "corresponded.") When this did not suffice and the Committee set out to invent a new word for a certain concept, it searched through the Biblical word-indexes and foreign dictionaries, particularly Arabic. While Ben-Yehuda preferred Semitic roots to European ones, the abundance of European Hebrew speakers led to the introduction of numerous foreign words. Other changes which had taken place as Hebrew came back to life were the systematization of the grammar - the Biblical syntax was sometimes limited and ambiguous -- and the adoption of standard Western punctuation. Modern Hebrew shows influences from Russian (for example, the Russian suffix -acia is used in nouns where English has the suffix -ation); German (particularly in combination words like "tapuakh-adama," meaning potato (German Erdapfel , earth-apple) or "iton" (German Zeitung, news-ity, news-paper). English has been a very strong influence, both from British influence during the period of the Mandate and American influence in the present day. Finally, Arabic, being the language of numerous Mizrahic and Sephardic Jewish immigrants from Arab countries as well as of the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, has also had an important influence on Hebrew, especially in slang (for example, "sababa", meaning "excellent", or "ya'alla", meaning "come on".) Due to its many influences and its youth, Modern Hebrew has many characteristics which are distinctly not Semitic. At the phonetic level, it has abandoned the pharyngeal and emphatic consonants (in most pronunciations). It also uses the occasional foreign morpheme, in words such as רכבל ("rakevel") (meaning "cable car", formed by adding a lamed to the word for "vehicle") and רמזור ("ramzor") (meaning "traffic light", formed by adding a vav and a resh to the root for "hinting" and "allusion"). Even so, the Hebrew preserved part of the prominent characteristics of the Semitic languages. One of the main questions which occupying the researchers of the Modern Hebrew is how much the Modern Hebrew is a Semitic language. Another non-Semitic property of Modern Hebrew is the pronunciation of certain letters. For instance, the letter Heth (ח) now sounds like Khaf (כ), the letter 'Ayin (ע) now sounds like (sometimes) Alef (א), Qof (ק) sounds like Kaf (כּ), and Thav (ת) sounds like Teth (ט). Modern Hebrew is printed with a script known as "square". It is the same script, ultimately derived from Aramaic, that was used for copying of Bible books in Hebrew for two thousand years. This script also has a cursive version, which is used for handwriting. Hebrew has been the language of numerous poets, which include Rachel, Hayim Nahman Bialik, Shaul Tchernihovsky, Lea Goldberg, Avraham Shlonsky and Natan Alterman. Hebrew was also the language of hundreds of authors, one of whom is the Nobel Prize laureate Shmuel Yosef Agnon.

Hebrew language in the USSR

, Yevsektsiya The Soviet authorities considered Hebrew a "reactionary language" since it was associated with both Judaism and Zionism, and it was officially banned by the Narkompros (Commissariat of Education) as early as 1919. Hebrew books and periodicals ceased to be published and were seized from the libraries. Despite numerous protests in the West, teachers and students who attempted to study Hebrew language were pilloried and sentenced for "counter revolutionary" and later for "anti-Soviet" activities.

Dialects

According to Ethnologue, dialects of Hebrew include Standard Hebrew (General Israeli, Europeanized Hebrew), Oriental Hebrew (Arabized Hebrew, Yemenite Hebrew). In practice, there is also Ashkenazi Hebrew, still widely used in Ashkenazi Jewish religious services and studies in Israel and abroad. It was influenced by the Yiddish language. Sephardi Hebrew language is the basis of Standard Hebrew and not all that different from it, although traditionally it has had a greater range of phonemes. It was influenced by the Ladino language. Mizrahi (Oriental) Hebrew is actually a collection of dialects (including Yemenite) spoken liturgically by Jews in various parts of the Arab and Islamic world. It was influenced by the Arabic language. Nearly every immigrant to Israel is encouraged to adopt Standard Hebrew as their daily language. Phonologically, this "dialect" may most accurately be described as an amalgam of pronunciations preserving Sephardic vowel sounds and Ashkenazic consonant sounds—its recurring feature being simplification of differences among a wide array of pronunciations. This simplifying tendency also accounts for the collapse of the Ashkenazic /t/ and /s/ pronunciations of unaspirated and aspirated ת into the single phoneme /t/. Most Sephardic dialects differentiated between these two pronunciations as /t/ and /θ/. Within Israel, the pronunciation of "Standard Hebrew", however, more often reflects the national or ethnic origin of the individual speaker, rather than the specific recommendations of the Academy. For this reason, over half the population pronounces ר as , (a uvular trill, as in Yiddish and some varieties of German) or as (a uvular fricative, as in French or many varieties of German), rather than as /r/, an apical trill, as in Spanish. The pronunciation of this phoneme is often used as a determinant among Israelis when ascertaining the national origin of perceived foreigners.

Languages strongly influenced by Hebrew

See main article Jewish languages Yiddish, Ladino, Karaim, and Judaeo-Arabic were all highly influenced by Hebrew. Although none are completely derived from Hebrew, they all make extensive use of Hebrew loanwords. In a less direct manner, the revival of Hebrew is often cited by proponents of International auxiliary languages as the best proof that languages long dead, with small communities, or modified or created artificially can become living languages used by a large number of people.

Sounds

Hebrew has two kinds of stress: on the last syllable (milra‘) and on the penultimate syllable (the one preceding the last, mil‘el). The former is more frequent. Specific rules connect the location of the stress with the length of the vowels in the last syllable; however due to the fact that Modern Hebrew does not distinguish between long and short vowels, these rules are often ignored in everyday speech. Interestingly enough, the rules that specify the vowel length are different for verbs and nouns, which influences the stress; thus the mil‘el-stressed ókhel (="food") and milra‘-stressed okhèl (="eats", masculine) are written in the same way. Little ambiguity exists, however, due to nouns and verbs having incompatible roles in normal sentences. This is, however, also true in English, in, for example, the English word "conduct," in its nominal and verbal forms.

Vowels

vowel length The Hebrew word for vowels is tnu‘ot. The marks for these vowels are called Niqqud. Modern Israeli Hebrew has 5 vowel phonemes:
- /a/ (as in "car") - The vowels qamatz and patakh
- /e/ (as in "set") - The vowels seggol and tzereh
- /i/ (as in "beak")- The vowel khiriq
- /o/ (as in "horn")- The vowel kholam
- /u/ (as in "room")- The vowels shuruq and qubbutz In Biblical Hebrew, each vowel had three forms: short, long and interrupted (hataf). However, there is no audible distinction between the three in modern Israeli Hebrew. Hebrew phonetics include a special feature called shva. According to "Ha-Yesod, the Fundamentals of Hebrew" by Luba Uveeler and Norman M. Broznick, this feature is pronounced "Shva" and is spelled Shin Vav He. There are two kinds of shva: resting (nax) and moving (na' ). The resting shva is pronounced as a brief stop of speech. The moving shva sounds much like the English a in about. Hebrew also has dagesh, a strengthening. There are two kinds of strengthenings: light (qal, known also as dagesh lene) and heavy (hazaq or dagesh forte). There are two sub-categories of the heavy dagesh: structural heavy (hazaq tavniti) and complementing heavy (hazaq mashlim). The light affects the phonemes /b/ /k/ /p/ in the beginning of a word, or after a resting schwa. Structural heavy emphases belong to certain vowel patterns (mishkalim and binyanim; see the section on grammar below), and correspond originally to doubled consonants. Complementing strengthening is added when vowel assimilation takes place. As mentioned before, the emphasis influences which of a pair of (former) allophones is pronounced. Interestingly enough, historical evidence indicates that /g/, /d/ and /t/ used to have strengthened versions of their own, however they had disappeared from virtually all the spoken dialects of Hebrew. All other consonants except gutturals may receive the heavy emphasis, as well. One-letter words are always attached to the following word. Such words include: the definite article h (="the"); prepositions b (="in"), m (="from"), l (="to"); conjunctions sh (="that"), k (="as", "like"), v (="and"). The vowel that follows the letter thus attached depends in general on the beginning of the next word and the presence of a definite article which may be swallowed by the one-letter word. The rules for the prepositions are complicated and vary with the formality of speech. In most cases they are followed by a moving schwa, and for that reason they are pronounced as be, me and le. In more formal speech, if a preposition is put before a word which begins with a moving schwa, then the preposition takes the vowel /i/ (and the initial consonant is weakened), but in colloquial speech these changes do not occur. For example, colloquial be-kfar (="in a village") becomes bi-khfar. If l or b are followed by the definite article ha, their vowel changes to /a/. Thus
- be-ha-matos becomes ba-matos (="in the plane"). However it does not happen to m, therefore me-ha-matos is a valid form, which means "from the plane". :
- indicates that the given example is not grammatically correct

Consonants

The Hebrew word for consonants is ‘itsurim (עיצורים). ע was once pronounced as a voiced pharyngeal fricative. Modern Ashkenazi (Northern and Eastern European Jews) reading tradition ignores this; however, Mizrahi (Middle Eastern and North African Jews) and Israeli Arabs accent these phonemes in a traditional semitic fashion which resembles Arabic `ain ع. Georgian Jews pronounce it as a glottalized g. Western European Sephardim and Dutch Ashkenazim traditionally pronounce it as "ng" in "sing" — a pronunciation which can also be found in the Italki tradition and, historically, in south-west Germany. Postalveolar sounds (with the exception of ) are not native to Hebrew, and only found in borrowings. The pairs (/b/, /v/), (/k/, /x/), (/p/, /f/), written respectively by the letters bet (ב), kaf (כ) and pe (פ) have historically been allophonic. In Modern Hebrew, however, all six sounds are phonemic, due to mergers involving formerly distinct sounds (/v/ merging with /w/, /k/ merging with /q/, /x/ merging with ), loss of consonant gemination (which formerly distinguished the stop members of the pairs from the fricatives when intervocalic), and the introduction of syllable-initial /f/ through foreign borrowings.

Historical sound changes

Standard (non-Oriental) Israeli Hebrew (SIH) has undergone a number of splits and mergers in its development from Biblical Hebrew .
- BH /b/ had two allophones, [b] and [v]; the [v] allophone has merged with /w/ into SIH /v/
- BH /k/ had two allophones, [k] and [x]; the [k] allophone has merged with /q/ into SIH /k/, while the [x] allophone has merged with into SIH /x/
- BH /t/ and have merged into SIH /t/
- BH and have merged into SIH
- BH /p/ had two allophones, [p] and [f]; the incorporation of loanwords into Modern Hebrew has probably resulted in a split, so that /p/ and /f/ are separate phonemes

Grammar

See main article Hebrew grammar Hebrew grammar is mostly analytical, expressing such forms as dative, ablative, and accusative using prepositional particles rather than grammatical cases. However inflection does play an important role in the formation of the verbs, nouns and the genitive construct, which is called "smikhut". Words in smikhut are often combined with hyphens.
Writing system
Modern Hebrew is written from right to left using the Hebrew alphabet. Modern scripts are based on the "square" letter form. A similar system is used in handwriting, but the letters tend to be more circular in their character, and sometimes vary markedly from their printed equivalents. Biblical Hebrew text contains nothing but consonants and spaces, and most modern Hebrew texts contain only consonants, spaces and western-style punctuation. A pointing system (nikud, from the root word meaning "points" or "dots") developed around the 5th Century C.E. is used to indicate vowels and syllabic stresses in some religious books, and is almost always found in modern poetry, children's literature, and texts for beginning students of Hebrew. The system is also used sparingly to avoid certain ambiguities of meaning — such as when context is insufficient to distinguish between two identically spelled words — and in the transliteration of foreign names. All Hebrew consonant phonemes are represented by a single letter. Although a single letter might represent two phonemes — the letter "bet," for example, represents both /b/ and /v/ — the two sounds are always related "hard" (plosive) and "soft" (fricative) forms, their pronunciaton being very often determined by context. In fully pointed texts, the hard form normally has a dot, known as a dagesh, in its center. The letters hei, vav and yud can represent consonantal sounds (/h/, /v/ and /j/, respectively) or serve as a markers for vowels. In the latter case, these letters are called "emot qria" ("matres lectionis" in Latin, "mothers of reading" in English). The letter hei at the end of a word usually indicates a final /a/, which in turn is usually indicative of feminine gender. Vav may represent /o/ or /u/, and yod may represent /i/. There is no consonantal marker for /e/. In some modern Israeli texts, the letter alef is used to indicate long /a/ sounds in foreign names, particularly those of Arabic origin. Terminal syllabic emphasis is most common. Fully pointed texts will note variations with a vertical line placed underneath the first consonant of the emphasized syllable, to the left of the vowel mark if there is one.
Romanization
See also Romanization of Hebrew The Hebrew language is normally written in the Hebrew alphabet. Due to publishing difficulties, and the unfamiliarity of many readers with the alphabet, there are many ways of transcribing Hebrew into Roman letters. The most accurate method is the International Phonetic Alphabet. It is used (in a simplified ASCII form) in the section concerned with Phonology, to describe the sounds of the Hebrew language. However, the IPA is not well known, and is often considered cumbersome for transcribing pronunciations for a general audience. Therefore this article uses a different system to express Hebrew pronunciation, and at least some orthographic peculiarities. The system comes down to the following:
- The letter tzadi (צ) is transcribed by "c" so that it could be distinguished from other combinations of /t/ and /s/, although "ts" or "tz" is usually acceptable.
- The letter ‘ayin (ע) is transcribed ', the same as alef. In word-final position, this phoneme is always preceded by the vowel /a/.
- The letter shin (ש) is transcribed by "sh", and the letter sin as "s".
- Both the letter tav (ת) and the letter tet (ט) are transcribed by "t".
- The letter he (ה) at the end of a word, in those cases where it marks feminine gender, is transcribed by "ah" (it is read /a/).
- The letter chet (ח) is usually transcribed by "ch" as there is no "ch" sound in hebrew. "kh" is usually acceptable but not as common. "h" is occasionally used but often avoided as "h" is also used for he (ה).
- The letter qof (ק) is transcribed by "q" (it is pronounced /k/ by many speakers).
- Single-letter prepositions and the definite article are separated with a dash (-) from their subject.
- Stresses and schwas are not marked.
- The vowels are always written.
- The letter yod is usually transcribed by "y".
See also

- Common phrases in Hebrew
- Cantillation
- Hebrew alphabet
- Niqqud (vowel points)
- Samaritan Hebrew
- The study of Hebrew
- Hebrew literature
Notes
# [http://www.jewishmag.com/43mag/ben-yehuda/ben-yehuda.htm Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the Resurgence of the Hebrew Language] by Libby Kantorwitz # [http://www.zionistarchives.org.il/ZA/SiteE/pShowView.aspx?GM=Y&ID=48&Teur=Protest%20against%20the%20suppression%20of%20Hebrew%20in%20the%20Soviet%20Union%20%201930-1931 Protest against the suppression of Hebrew in the Soviet Union 1930-1931] signed by Albert Einstein, among others # Robert Hetzron. (1987). Hebrew. In The World's Major Languages, ed. Bernard Comrie, 686–704. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-520521-9.
External links

- [http://www.ethnologue.org/show_language.asp?code=heb Ethnologue report for Hebrew]
- [http://hebrew-academy.huji.ac.il/english.html Academy of Hebrew Language], the Institute which prescribes standards for modern Hebrew grammar, orthography, transliteration, and punctuation based upon the study of Hebrew's historical development.
- History of the Hebrew Language
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/history_of_hebrew.htm History of the Hebrew Language Steinberg]
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/rabin_he.htm Short History of the Hebrew Language Rabin]
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/israeli_hebrew_tene.htm Israeli Hebrew Tene]
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/israel_lang_policy_rosen.htm Israel Language Policy and Linguistics Rosén]
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/hebrew_words_history.htm Words and their History Kutscher]
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/hebrew_slang_sappan.htm Hebrew Slang and Foreign Loan Words Sappan ]
- Grammars
- [http://foundationstone.com.au/HtmlSupport/FrameSupport/onlineHebrewTutorialFrame.html Online Hebrew Tutorial] (foundationstone)
- [http://perso.wanadoo.fr/babel-site/ Hebrew is easy] (babel-site)
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/gk_cont.htm Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar]
- Dictionaries
- [http://www.hebrewatmilah.org/maskilon1/index.htm Root-based] (Maskilon)
- [http://milon.morfix.co.il/ Word-search] English-Hebrew and Hebrew-English (Morfix)
- [http://www.hebrewatmilah.org/maskilon3/index.htm Hebrew-English] (Maskilon)
- [http://www.faithofgod.net/davar/ Hebrew-English] (DAVAR freeware, english)
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Hebrew-english/ Hebrew-English] (Webster's Rosetta Edition)
- [http://www.hebrewatmilah.org/maskilon4/index.htm English-Hebrew] (Maskilon)
- General
- [http://www.yiwoodmere.org/library/cybrary/hebrew.html Learning Hebrew - Links], Young Israel
- [http://www.yomanim.com Hebrew Writings and Diaries]
- [http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/katmandu/hebrew/atoc.html Hebrew Abbreviations], Princeton University Library
- [http://www.mikledet.com Mikledet.com]: Send Hebrew emails without having a Hebrew keyboard.
- [http://www.amhaaretz.org/translit/ Hebrew translit]: type in Hebrew using an English keyboard
- Category:Jewish languages Category:Judaism Category:Guttural R Category:Semitic languages Category:Canaanite languages Category:Languages of Israel ko:히브리어 ja:ヘブライ語 simple:Hebrew language th:ภาษาฮีบรู

Hebrew transliteration

There are a number of ways of transliterating Hebrew. This often depends on the way that the speaker pronounces it. When ch appears in a Hebrew transliteration, it always has the guttural sound of German. For example, the holiday Chanuka can be written as: Chanuka, Hannuka, Chaneekoo. Here the names in the bible have been transliterated from English into Hebrew using an Ashkenazic pronunciation:
- Abraham = Avraham
- Isaac = Yitzchok
- Jacob = Ya-akov
- Israel = Yissra-el
- Esau = Eisav
- Joseph = Yossef
- Moses = Moshe
- Aaron = Aharon
- Samuel = Shmu-el
- Saul = Sha-ul
- Job = Iyov
- Jerusalem = Yerushalayim
- Isaiah = Yeshayahu

External links

Transliterated text of the Torah and all Haftarot is available from http://bible.ort.org/ using the Sephardi pronunciation. Category:Hebrew language

Arabic language

The Arabic language (; , less formally, ) is the largest member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family (classification: South Central Semitic) and is closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. It is spoken throughout the Arab world and is widely studied and known throughout the Islamic world. Arabic has been a literary language since at least the 6th century and is the liturgical language of Islam.

Literary and Modern Standard Arabic

The term "Arabic" may refer either to literary Arabic, which no Arab speaks as a mother tongue, or Modern Standard Arabic or to the many spoken varieties of Arabic commonly called "colloquial Arabic." Arabs consider literary Arabic as the standard language and tend to view everything else as mere dialects. Literary Arabic, (Literally: "the most eloquent Arabic language" — ) refers both to the language of present-day media across North Africa and the Middle East and to the more archaic language of the Qur'an. (The expression media here includes most television and radio, and all written matter, including all books, newspapers, magazines, documents of every kind, and reading primers for small children.) "Colloquial" or "dialectal" Arabic refers to the many national or regional dialects/languages derived from Classical Arabic, spoken daily across North Africa and the Middle East, which constitute the everyday spoken language. These sometimes differ enough to be mutually incomprehensible. These dialects are not typically written, although a certain amount of literature (particularly plays and poetry) exists in many of them. They are often used to varying degrees in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows. Literary Arabic or classical Arabic, is the official language of all Arab countries and is the only form of Arabic taught in schools at all stages. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of Diglossia -the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of whatever nationality can be assumed to speak both their local dialect and their school-taught literary Arabic (to an equal or lesser degree). This diglossic situation facilitates code switching in which a speaker switches back and forth unaware between the two varieties of the language, sometimes even within the same sentence. In instances in which Arabs of different nationalities engage in conversation only to find their dialects mutually unintelligible (e.g. a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), both should be able to code switch into Literary Arabic for the sake of communication. Since the written Arabic of today differs from the written Arabic of the Qur'anic era, it has become customary in western scholarship and among non-Arab scholars of Arabic to refer to the language of the Qur'an as Classical Arabic and the modern language of the media and of formal speeches as Modern Standard Arabic. Arabs, on the other hand, often use the term to refer to both forms, thus placing greater emphasis on the similarities between the two. The difference between Arabic of the Qur'anic era and today's Classical Arabic is only in the degree of eloquance. The vocabulary, the syntatic and grammatical rules are the same. Quite a few English words are ultimately derived from Arabic, often through other European languages, especially Spanish, among them every-day vocabulary like sugar (sukkar), cotton (qutn) or magazine (). More recognizable are words like algorithm, algebra, alchemy, alcohol, azimuth, nadir, and zenith (see List of English words of Arabic origin). The Maltese language spoken on the Mediterranean island of Malta is the only surviving European language to derive primarily from Arabic (a North African dialect), though it contains a large number of Italian and English borrowings.

Arabic and Islam

It is sometimes difficult to translate Islamic concepts, and concepts specific to Arab culture, without using the original Arabic terminology. The Qur'an is expressed in Arabic and traditionally Muslims deem it impossible to translate in a way that would adequately reflect its exact meaning—indeed, until recently, some schools of thought maintained that it should not be translated at all. A list of Islamic terms in Arabic covers those terms which are too specific to translate in one phrase. While Arabic is strongly associated with Islam (and is the language of salah), it is also spoken by Arab Christians, Oriental (Sephardic) Jews, and smaller sects such as Iraqi Mandaeans. Even so, a majority of the world's Muslims do not actually speak Arabic, but only know some fixed phrases of Arabic, such as those used in Islamic prayer. However, to counteract this, there is great encouragement for non-Arabic-speaking Muslims to learn the language.

Dialects

See Varieties of Arabic for a fuller overview. "Colloquial Arabic" is a collective term for the spoken languages or dialects of people throughout the Arab world, which, as mentioned, differ radically from the literary language. The main dialectal division is between the Maghreb dialects and those of the Middle East, followed by that between sedentary dialects and the much more conservative Bedouin dialects. Maltese, though descended from Arabic, is considered a separate language. Speakers of some of these dialects are unable to converse with speakers of another dialect of Arabic; in particular, while Middle Easterners can generally understand one another, they often have trouble understanding Maghrebis (although the converse is not true, due to the popularity of Middle Eastern—especially Egyptian—films and other media). One factor in the differentiation of the dialects is influence from the languages previously spoken in the areas, which have typically provided a significant number of new words, and have sometimes also influenced pronunciation or word order; however, a much more significant factor for most dialects is, as among Romance languages, retention (or change of meaning) of different classical forms. Thus Iraqi aku, Levantine fiih, and North African kayen all mean "there is", and all come from Arabic (yakuun, fiihi, kaa'in respectively), but now sound very different. The major groups are:
- Egyptian Arabic (Egypt) Considered the most widely understood and used "second dialect"
- Maghreb Arabic (Algerian Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, Tunisian Arabic and western Libyan)
- Levantine Arabic (Western Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, and western Jordanian, Cypriot Maronite Arabic)
- Iraqi Arabic or Gulf Arabic (Iraqi, Eastern Syrian, Kuwaiti, Saudi Arabian, Persian Gulf coast from Iraq to Oman including much of Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, and minorities on the other side) Other varieties include:
- (in Mauritania and Western Sahara)
- Andalusi Arabic (extinct, but important role in literary history)
- Maltese
- Sudanese Arabic (with a dialect continuum into Chad)
- Hijazi Arabic (West Cost of Saudi Arabia, Northern Saudi Arabia, eastern Jordan, Western Iraq)
- Najdi Arabic (Najd region of central Saudi Arabia)
- Yemeni Arabic (Yemen to southern Saudi Arabia)

Phonology

The consonant phonemes below reflect the pronunciation of Standard Arabic, which has only three vowels, in short and long variants, namely and . Naturally, considerable allophony occurs.

Consonants

Standard Arabic has 28 consonants: See Arabic alphabet for explanations on the IPA phonetic symbols found in this chart. # is pronounced as by some speakers. This is especially characteristic of the Egyptian and southern Yemeni dialects. In many parts of North Africa and in the Levant, it is pronounced as . # is pronounced only in , the name of God, i.e. Allah. # is usually a phonetic approximant. # In many varieties (if not most), are actually epiglottal (despite what is reported in many earlier works).

Emphatic Consonants

The consonants traditionally known as "emphatic" are either velarised or pharyngealised . In some transcription systems, emphasis is shown by capitalizing the letter e.g. is written ‹D›; in others the letter is underlined or has a dot below it e.g. ‹ḍ›.

Long Consonants

Vowels and consonants can be (phonologically) short or long. Long (geminate) consonants are normally written doubled in Latin transcription (i.e. bb, dd, etc.), reflecting the presence of the Arabic diacritic mark shaddah, which marks lengthened consonants. Such consonants are held twice as long as short consonants. This consonant lengthening is phonemically contrastive: e.g. qabala "he received" and qabbala "he kissed".

Syllable Shape

Arabic has two kinds of syllable: open syllables (CV) and (CVV) - and closed syllables (CVC), (CVVC) and (CVCC). Every syllable begins with a consonant - or else a consonant is borrowed from a previous word through elision – especially in the case of the definite article THE, al (used when starting an utterance) or _l (when following a word), e.g. baytu –l mudiir “house (of) the director”, which becomes bay-tul-mu-diir when divided syllabically. By itself, definite mudiir would be pronounced .

Word Stress

Although word stress is not phonemically contrastive in Standard Arabic, it does bear a strong relationship to vowel length and syllable shape, and correct word stress aids intelligibility. In general, "heavy" syllables attract stress (i.e. syllables of longer duration - a closed syllable or a syllable with a long vowel). In a word with a syllable with one long vowel, the long vowel attracts the stress (e.g. ki-'taab and ‘kaa-tib). In a word with two long vowels, the second long vowel attracts stress (e.g.ma-kaa-'tiib). In a word with a "heavy" syllable where two consonants occur together or the same consonant is doubled, the (last) heavy syllable attracts stress (e.g. ya-ma-’niyy, ka-'tabt, ka-‘tab-na, ma-‘jal-lah, ‘mad-ra-sah, yur-‘sil-na). This last rule trumps the first two: ja-zaa-i-‘riyy. Otherwise, word stress typically falls on the first syllable: ‘ya-man, ‘ka-ta-bat, etc. The Cairo (Egyptian Arabic) dialect, however, has some idiosyncrasies in that a heavy syllable may not carry stress more than two syllables from the end of a word, so that mad-‘ra-sah carries the stress on the second-to-last syllable, as does qaa-‘hi-rah.

Dialectical Phonologies

In some dialects, there may be more or fewer phonemes than those listed in the chart above. For example, non-Arabic is used in the Maghreb dialects as well in the written language mostly for foreign names. Semitic became extremely early on in Arabic before it was written down; a few modern Arabic dialects, such as Iraqi (influenced by Persian) distinguish between and . Interdental fricatives ( and ) are rendered as stops and in some dialects (principally Levantine and Egyptian) and as and in "learned" words from the Standard language. Early in the expansion of Arabic, the separate emphatic phonemes and coallesced into a single phoneme, becoming one or the other. Predictably, dialects without interdental fricatives use exclusively, while those with such fricatives use . Again, in "learned" words from the Standard language, is rendered as in dialects without interdental fricatives. Another key distinguishing mark of Arabic dialects is how they render Standard (a voiceless uvular stop): it retains its original pronunciation in widely scattered regions such as Yemen and Morocco (and among the Druze), while it is rendered in Gulf Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, Upper Egypt and less urban parts of the Levant (e.g. Jordan) and as a glottal stop in many prestige dialects, such as those spoken in Cairo, Beirut and Damascus. Thus, Arabs instantly give away their geographical (and class) origin by their pronunciation of a word such as qamar "moon": , or .

Grammar

See Arabic grammar

Alphabet

Arabic alphabet

Main article: Arabic alphabet The Arabic alphabet derives from the Aramaic script (which variety - Nabataean or Syriac - is a matter of scholarly dispute), to which it bears a loose resemblance like that of Coptic or Cyrillic script to Greek script. Traditionally, there were several differences between the Western (Maghrebi) and Eastern version of the alphabet—in particular, the fa and qaf had a dot underneath and a single dot above respectively in the Maghreb, and the order of the letters was slightly different (at least when they were used as numerals). However, the old Maghrebi variant has been abandoned except for calligraphic purposes in the Maghreb itself, and remains in use mainly in the Quranic schools (zaouias) of West Africa. Arabic, like other Semitic languages, is written from right to left.

Calligraphy

See Arabic calligraphy for a fuller overview. After the definitive fixing of the Arabic script around 786, by Khalil ibn Ahmad al Farahidi, many styles were developed, both for the writing down of the Qur'an and other books, and for inscriptions on monuments as decoration. Kufic font Arabic calligraphy has not fallen out of use as in the Western world, and is still considered by Arabs as a major art form; calligraphers are held in great esteem. Being cursive by nature, unlike the Latin alphabet, Arabic script is used to write down a verse of the Qur'an, a Hadith, or simply a proverb, in a spectacular composition. The composition is often abstract, but sometimes the writing is shaped into an actual form such as that of an animal. Two of the current masters of the genre are Hassan Massoudy and [http://arabworld.nitle.org/gallery.php?module_id=7 Khaled Al Saa’i].

Arabic using the Latin alphabet

See Arabic transliteration and Arabic Chat Alphabet for more information. There are a number of different standards of Arabic transliteration: methods of accurately and efficently representing Arabic with the Latin alphabet. The more scientific standards allow the reader to recreate the exact word using the Arabic alphabet. However, these systems are heavily reliant on diacritical marks, which may be difficult to pronounce at first sight. Other, less scientific, systems often use digraphs (like sh and kh), which are usually more simple to read, but sacrifice the definiteness of the scientific systems. During the last few decades and especially since the 1990s, Western-invented text communication technologies have become prevalent in the Arab world, such as personal computers, the World Wide Web, email, Bulletin board systems, IRC, instant messaging and mobile phone text messaging. Most of these technologies originally had the ability to communicate using the Latin alphabet only, and some of them still do not have the Arabic alphabet as an optional feature. As a result, Arabic speaking users communicated in these technologies by transliterating the Arabic text using the Latin script. To handle those Arabic letters that do not have an approximate equivalent in the Latin script, numerals and other characters were appropriated. E.g., the Latin numeral "3" is used to represent the Arabic letter "ع" ("ayn"). There is no universal name for this type of transliteration, but some have named it Arabic Chat Alphabet.

External links

- [http://arabic-media.com/ Arabic-Media] on-line access to Arabic newspapers, radio, and television
- [http://st-takla.org/Learn_Languages/01_Learn_Arabic-ta3leem-3araby/Learn-Arabic_00-index_El-Fehres.html Learn Arabic language online with audio pronunciation] from [http://St-Takla.org St. Takla Egyptian Church]
- [http://www.nicoweb.com/sirpus/learn%20arabic%20course%20mp3.htm Arabic Writing and Reading with MP3]. Arabic Writing and Reading Course Online with MP3 audio.
- [http://pince31.free.fr/lang/arabic/liens.htm Links to learn Arabic language with online course]
- [http://www.madinaharabic.com Arabic language learning course with audio]
- [http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=4&article_id=6173 "Antonyms in Arabic are a strange phenomenon" by Tamim al-Barghouti]
- [http://arabworld.nitle.org/texts.php?module_id=1&reading_id=17 "The Development of Classical Arabic" by Kees Versteegh]
- [http://arabworld.nitle.org/audiovisual.php?module_id=1&selected_feed=118 Wellesley College Professor of Arabic on the forms and dialects of the language]
- [http://www.uga.edu/islam/arabic_windows.html Multilingual Computing in Arabic with Windows, major word processors, web browsers, Arabic keyboards, and Arabic transliteration fonts]
- [http://www.gomideast.com/arabic/index.htm gomideast - Learning to Speak Arabic phrases]
- [http://language-directory.50webs.com/languages/arabic.htm List of online Arabic-related resources] Web references and examples:
- [http://transliteration.org/quran/Pronunciation/Letters/TashP.htm Arabic language pronunciation applet] with audio samples
- [http://www.sunna.info/teaching/ Learn Arabic]
- [http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1289272 E2 article]
- [http://www.sprachprofi.de.vu/english/ar.htm Sprachprofi]
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Arabic-english/ Arabic - English Dictionary]: from [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org Webster's Online Dictionary] - the Rosetta Edition.
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=arb SIL's Ethnologue]
- [http://www.nitle.org/arabworld/texts.php?module_id=1&reading_id=113 Dialects of Arabic]
- [http://www.muftah-alhuruf.com Muftah-Alhuruf.com]: Write and send Arabic emails without having an Arabic keyboard or operating system. Arabic languages samples:
- [http://www.language-museum.com/a/arabic.php Arabic]
- [http://www.language-museum.com/a/arabic-chadian-spoken.php Arabic Chadian Spoken]
- [http://www.language-museum.com/a/arabic-judeo-iraqi.php Arabic Judeo Iraqi]
- [http://www.language-museum.com/a/arabic-north-levantine-spoken.php Arabic North Levantine Spoken]
- [http://arabworld.nitle.org/texts.php?module_id=1&reading_id=17 "The Development of Classical Arabic" by Kees Versteegh]
- Category:Arab ko:아랍어 ms:Bahasa Arab ja:アラビア語 simple:Arabic language th:ภาษาอาหรับ

Arabic transliteration

Due to the fact that the Arabic language has a number of phonemes that have no equivalent in English or other European languages, a number of different transliteration methods have been invented to represent certain Arabic characters, due to various conflicting goals.

Conflicting goals

- A desire to stay consistent with traditional usage (as demonstrated in the standard spelling of various words and names), which is often ambiguous. Furthermore, transliterations often differ depending on the target language (compare English Omar Khayyám with German Omar Chayyam and Polish Omar Chajjam).
- A desire to represent the language as accurately and directly as possible, which may result in the introduction of various diacritics and unfamiliar symbols.
- A desire to avoid unfamiliar symbols, which results in the usage of digraphs; sometimes tricks are necessary to avoid ambiguity (e.g., inserting a dash to separate two sounds that would be incorrectly perceived as a single digraph).
- A desire to maintain one-to-one, round-trip conversion of symbols (usually only relevant to computer-only transliterations). Arabic speakers and teachers often assert that any transliteration system is inherently "flawed" or "inaccurate," but from a linguistic standpoint there is no justification for this. The main reasons most transliteration systems are considered flawed: #One phoneme is transliterated using exactly the same symbol as another phoneme. #The use of a similar symbol for both `ayn and hamza. This is an example of the previous problem. #Some transliteration systems use capital letters to represent different letters than their lowercase counterparts. This goes against the normal use of latin letters. #Digraph confusion. example. is it fus-ha or fu-sha or fuS-Ha, the last example ties up with the previous flaw. #Accurately representing pronunciation, but sacraficing phonemic recognizability. ##Example: al-shams becomes ash-shams. ##transliteration not distinguishing "un" case ending from "un" (ن). This applies for all case endings with nunation. ##Case endings appearing in the next word. example: al-waladu al-aHmar BECOMES al-walad ul-aHmar #transliteration of "tied taa" (ة) is usually imperfect. ##Sometimes it is transliterated as either "t" or "h" dep

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Conflicting goals

- [http://62.90.71.124/eng/home/index.html The Courts]
- [http://www.knesset.gov.il/description/eng/eng_mimshal_yesod1.htm Basic Laws], legal code of Israel
- [http://www.israelinsurancelaw.com/ Israeli Commercial, Banking, Tort and Insurance Laws - in English]

- [http://www.trekker.co.il/english/israel-tour.htm Pictures of various holy sites and tourist destinations].
- Israel capital - [http://www.jerusalemshots.com/en Jerusalem]. Portal of Jerusalem Photos