Palestinian Jew

A Palestinian Jew is a Jewish inhabitant of Palestine throughout certain periods of Middle Eastern history. According to the written record, Jews of the region referred to themselves in Hebrew as "The Jewish community in the Land of Israel" ('haYishuv haYehudi be'Eretz Israel'), rather than "Palestinian Jews".

Prior to the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, the population of what is now Israel and the Territories was not exclusively Muslim. About 20% of the Arab-speaking people there were Christian, and about 11% Jews. [J. McCarthy (1995). "The population of Palestine: population history and statistics of the late Ottoman period and the Mandate". Princeton, N.J.: Darwin Press] Page numberVerify source|date=July 2008 After the modern State of Israel was born, nearly all native Palestinian Jews became citizens of Israel, and the term "Palestinian Jews" largely fell into disuse. The preferred term today in Israel is "The old Yishuv". It is still used in contexts where it is necessary to distinguish from Muslim or Christian Palestinians who are together termed "Palestinian Arabs". (See also Arab citizens of Israel). Jews from Arab lands are today typically not termed Arab Jews, so "Palestinian Arab" today also implies the exclusion of Palestinian Jews.

Other religions among Palestinians include Sunni Islam, Druze, Baha'i, Christianity (Orthodox, Catholicism, Protestantism,) and Judaism (Samaritanism and Orthodox Judaism.)

Disputes over terminology

Part of the difficulty of describing the Jews of Palestine is the wave of renaming over the past few decades, both for the Palestinian Jewish and Arab populations.

Today Palestinians are regarded to fall into two groups that are for the most part assumed to be mutually exclusive: Jews and Arabs. Arabs, however, may be of any religion, including most numerously as Arab Muslims, then Arab Christians, and various others, including Arab Jews. Likewise, Israelis are also regarded to fall into the same two categories. Israeli Jews who comprise the majority of the country, however, hail from dozens of countries around the world and may be of any of the many Jewish ethnic backgrounds, including German Jews, Palestinian Jews, Iraqi Jews, Yemenite Jews, Indian Jews, Chinese Jews, Ethiopian Jews. Only the minority of Israelis that are both Arab and non-Jewish are deemed Arab citizens of Israel.

In the same way, many advocates} wish the term "Palestinian" to be used exclusively for non-Jewish Palestinians, and then give Palestinian synonymity with Arab (that is, Arab as understood to the exclusion of Jews from Arab countries).

This creates a dichotomy between "Israelis" (excluding Arabs, and the term "Arab" itself excluding Arab Jews) vs. "Palestinians" (excluding Palestinian Jews). The best known usage is the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict".

During the times of the British Mandate of Palestine, all residents of the Mandate were referred to as 'Palestinian' officially. However, the Arab residents of the Mandate, who largely identified with the Arab cause, and saw themselves as having a different national identity, viewed the term "Palestinian" as a derogatory colonialist British term, designed to erase their Arab identity.Fact|date=October 2008 This sentiment was especially strong during the 1930s and early 1940s, when the idea of Greater Syria was viewed positively by the Arab of the Levant, among them the Palestinian Arabs.Fact|date=October 2008

Examples of contemporary usage

Uri Davis, an Israeli citizen, academic, activist and observer-member in the Palestine National Council living in the Arab town of Sakhnin, identifies himself as an "anti-Zionist Palestinian Jew". [cite book|title=Crossing the Border: an autobiography of an anti-Zionist Palestinian Jew.|author=Uri Davis.|date=1995.|isbn=1-86102-002-3] cite news |author=Kevin Spurgaitis |title=Palestinian Jew Speaks Out Against ‘Apartheid State’ |url=http://lists.portside.org/cgi-bin/listserv/wa?A2=ind0411c&L=portside&T=0&P=1486 |work=Catholic New Times |year=2004]

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

Reference to European Jews as "Palestinians" prior to 1948

European Jews were commonly considered an "Oriental" people in many of their host countries. Thus figures such as Emmanuel Kant (18th-century Prussian philosopher) referred to European Jews as "Palestinians living among us." [Kant, Immanuel (1974): "Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View." Translated by Mary J. Gregor. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, cited in Chad Alan Goldberg, " [http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~cgoldber/Web%20Class/Goldberg2005a.pdf Politicide Revisited] ". University of Wisconsin-Madison] The British Mandate referred to Arab Palestinians and Jewish settlers from Europe alike as "Palestinians," consistent with an Orientalist view of all Jews as Eastern people. [Kalmar, Ivan Davidson & Penslar, Derek. [http://www.library.utoronto.ca/moorish/publications/orijews.intro.html "Orientalism and the Jews"] ; Brandeis 2005] This grouping of Jewish settlers with native Palestinians played a role in reinforcing confusion and dissimulation around questions of 'nativeness' to the region and rights to shape the future of Palestine.

References

ee also

*Yishuv haYashan
*History of the Jews in the Land of Israel
*Palestinian Arab - usual meaning of "Palestinian" in Western media
*Israeli Arab - substantial minority in Israel
*Definitions of Palestine and Palestinian - lengthy analysis of terminology
*Mizrahi Jews
*Palestinophilia
*list of Palestinian Jews in: