Hebraization of Palestinian Place Names

Hebrew place-naming encompasses several different practices: restoring historical names, translating Arabic names, adapting their sounds into Hebrew, and choosing new symbolic or commemorative names.[1] These methods do not all produce the same relationship with earlier Arabic names: some preserve a name’s meaning or pronunciation, while others introduce a different historical reference or commemorate a person or event.[1] The Government Names Committee’s remit includes settlements, geographical features, and historical sites, whereas municipal committees determine neighborhood and street names.[1]

The naming landscape also expresses Jewish historical attachment to the land through biblical names, names drawn from other historical sources, and commemorations of Jewish figures.[3] Examples include the revival of names such as Rehovoth, Beersheba, and Ashkelon, together with Hebrew names for thousands of streets, squares, and other places honoring Jewish historical figures.[3] Official naming principles connect this work with Hebrew-language revival and the historical geography of the land.[1]

Place-name changes, road-sign transliteration, and municipal incorporation are distinct processes in the documented examples.[1][2] Tel Aviv’s adoption of its name in 1910, for instance, replaced another Hebrew name, while the later incorporation of formerly separate Arab villages into its municipal area does not itself establish that their names were formally changed.[4] Similarly, a proposal to write an existing Hebrew name in Arabic and Latin letters concerns the public presentation of a name, not necessarily the creation of a new locality name.[2]

The first committee charged with determining Hebrew settlement names in Mandatory Palestine was appointed by the British Mandate government in 1920.[1] Chaired by David Yellin, it also included Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and geographer Abraham Jacob Brawer, and advised on English transliteration and the Hebrew spelling of existing place names.[1] In 1922, the Jewish National Fund created a separate committee to name new settlements established on its land.[1]

A 1946 Survey of Palestine index provides a pre-state archival reference for village and settlement names.[5] Its cataloged contents include population information for Muslims, Bedouins, Jews, Christians, and Druze.[5] Such an index establishes a record of names before 1948, but does not by itself establish the subsequent history of any individual name.[5]

After Israel’s establishment, David Ben-Gurion appointed a geographical naming committee for the Negev on July 7, 1949.[1] Its task covered geographical features and historical sites, and its methods included identifying historical names, using biblical and other historical personal names, translating Arabic names, adapting their sounds, and creating symbolic or revived names.[1] Over two years it selected approximately 561 names: 24 for existing Jewish settlements, 65 for historical sites, and 472 for geographical features.[1]

The committee’s methodological breakdown illustrates the variety within the project: 148 names drew on historical places or people, 167 translated an earlier name, 175 followed the sound of an earlier name, and 71 were newly revived symbolic names.[1] Translation and sound-based adaptation therefore accounted for substantial portions of its recorded work, alongside historical recovery and new symbolic naming.[1]

The Government Names Committee emerged from the unification of the Negev committee, chaired by Abraham Biran, and the Jewish National Fund’s settlement-naming committee, chaired by Yosef Weitz.[1] Its institutional task was to Hebraize the country’s map, with decisions binding on state institutions.[1] Its responsibilities cover new government-approved settlements, including planned Arab localities, as well as geographical features and historical sites; approved names are expected to follow Hebrew grammatical rules and the committee’s understanding of historical geography.[1]

The institutional account records close to 8,000 Hebrew names determined by naming committees for settlements, geographical features, and historical sites.[1] It also records new names for Arab villages in Galilee and the Negev, principally developing Bedouin settlements receiving official recognition.[1]

Ilaniyyah illustrates translation rather than the selection of an unrelated name: its Hebrew name derives from ilan, meaning “tree,” and translates Sejera, the former Arab village’s name, also meaning “tree.”[6] Established in 1899 by the Jewish Colonization Association as a training farm, the settlement remained popularly known as Sejera for most of its history.[6] It was nearly abandoned during the War of Independence and was resettled in 1953 by Israel-born settlers and immigrants from Poland, Romania, and later Morocco.[6]

Afula retained or adapted the name of Al-ʿAffūla, the Arab village formerly at its site.[7] Founded in 1925 on land acquired by the American Zion Commonwealth, it was the first planned urban settlement of Jewish Palestine.[7] Its population grew after 1948 with the settlement of Jewish immigrants, and it is also sometimes called ʿIr Yizreʿel, or “City of Jezreel.”[7]

Tel Ḥay, translated as “Hill of Life,” is described as an onomatopoeic derivation from the former Arabic name Talha.[8] The site was intermittently inhabited from 1905 and permanently settled as a pastoral camp and border outpost in 1918, later becoming a national memorial.[8] The artists’ village Ein Hod, established in 1953 on the site of an abandoned Arab village, likewise has a Hebrew name adapted from an Arabic predecessor.[9] “Spring of Splendor” adapts ʿAyn al-Ḥawḍ, rendered as “The Garden Spring”; the site also contains Roman and Byzantine antiquities and Crusader structures.[9]

Gederah connects a contemporary Arabic name with an ancient geographical identification.[10] Founded in 1884 by young members of the Bilu movement from Russia, it takes its name from the neighboring Arab village Qaṭra, abandoned since 1948.[10] The identification of Qatira with biblical Gederah is accepted by most scholars in the cited reference account.[10]

Other official examples include Migdal HaEmek as a Hebrew form of al-Mujaydil and Rosh HaAyin as a Hebrew form of Ras al-Ayn.[1] In the Negev, Be’er Ora replaced Bir Hendas and Ein Yahav replaced Ein Wiba; the committee presented both changes as replacing names it associated with negative meanings.[1] The Negev committee used names expressing renewal or the area’s character when it considered earlier local or historical names unsuitable or unavailable.[1]

Tel Aviv received its name on May 21, 1910, replacing Aḥuzzat Bayit rather than an Arabic village name.[4] Nahum Sokolow had chosen “Tel Aviv” as the title of his Hebrew translation of Theodor Herzl’s novel Altneuland, drawing on the name of a Babylonian city mentioned in Ezekiel 3:15.[4] This example belongs to the creation of a modern Hebrew naming landscape, but is not a direct instance of translating or replacing an Arab village’s name.[4]

Tel Aviv and Jaffa were amalgamated on April 24, 1949, and the united municipality’s official name became Tel Aviv-Jaffa.[4] The expanded municipal area also included the abandoned Arab villages of Shaikh Muwannis, Jammasin, and Sumail.[4] Their incorporation documents the absorption of previously named places into a larger municipality, without itself demonstrating formal renaming of each village.[4]

Kiryat Shmona, meaning “Town of the Eight,” commemorates the eight defenders associated with Tel Ḥay and occupies the site of the former Arab village of Khalasah.[11] Its early naming sequence included Khalisa and Kiryat Yosef before Kiryat Shmona, commemorating Joseph Trumpeldor and seven others killed defending Tel Hai in 1920.[12] Givat Koah was established on land of the abandoned Arab village of Qula, and Netiv HaLamed-Heh on land of the abandoned Arab village of Bayt Nattif.[12] These examples document settlements and subsequent Hebrew names, rather than establishing that every case followed one comprehensive naming policy.[12]

Official names have not invariably displaced older names in everyday speech.[13] The military base commonly called Tzrifin is officially Camp Yadin; Serfand, or Sarafand al-Amar, was the Arab village at the site until 1948, and its name may preserve the older Hebrew Tzrifin.[13] Other Arabic names remaining in common use include Kastina for the Malachi Junction, Wadi Ara for the Iron area, and Masmiya for the Re’em Junction.[13]

In July 2009, a Transportation Ministry initiative proposed uniform road-sign rules for approximately 2,500 destinations in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.[2] The proposal would make English and Arabic forms correspond to Hebrew pronunciation, including “Yerushalayim” for Jerusalem, “Natsrat” for Nazareth, and “Kesariya” for Caesarea.[14] Another proposed form was “Tveria” for Tiberias.[15] The plan concerned Hebrew-based spellings across the three languages, rather than the elimination of Arabic and English lettering from signs.[2][15]

The ministry presented the initiative as a response to inconsistent spellings and navigation difficulties, including multiple Latin spellings of Caesarea.[14] Changes were to be gradual, applying to newly installed signs or signs replaced because of wear, not an immediate replacement of all existing signs.[14] The initiative was described as covering more than 2,000 place names, while the stated uniform standard covered about 2,500.[14]

The proposed treatment of Jerusalem would have removed “Al-Quds,” the Arabic name identified in the policy account, in favor of “Yerushalayim” rendered across the three languages.[2] The policy remained under review at the end of 2009, and the available account does not establish full implementation.[2] A communications adviser to Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz separately stated that Arab communities, including Umm al-Fahm, would retain their Arabic names across all three languages.[14]

Multiscript naming has also allowed different forms rather than requiring a single pronunciation.[1] The Government Names Committee selected “Jerusalem” in Latin letters and “Yerushalayim” in Hebrew; for Shechem, it selected the historical Hebrew name in Hebrew and “Nablus” in Arabic and Latin letters.[1] The same institutional history records the Mandate-era official usage “Palestine (E.I.),” combining Palestine with an abbreviation for Eretz Israel.[1]

Later sign-writing proposals were not necessarily changes to the names used in daily life.[16] A 2022 initiative covered dozens of localities and sought to make signs easier to understand while driving, with potential changes in Hebrew, English, or Arabic spelling.[16] Examples included the Hebrew spelling of I’billin, “Tayibe (Jezreel)” in place of “Tayibe (in the Valley),” and revised English spellings for Birya and Hasfin.[16]

Jerusalem’s municipality approved 30 Hebrew street names in predominantly Arab East Jerusalem neighborhoods in 2015 as part of a mapping project.[17] The municipality connected the selected locations with significant Jewish historical associations and noted that more than 800 East Jerusalem streets had already received Arabic names.[17] Seven streets around the City of David site in Silwan received Hebrew names, while two streets in Sheikh Jarrah were to be named Nahalat Shimon and Nahalat Yitzhak.[17]

Unofficial naming initiatives also operated outside the municipal process.[18] In 2011, Palestinian activists installed nine Arabic-English street signs in Jabel Mukabber, including one naming Farouk Street, as an effort to preserve or restore Arabic names.[18] These signs had no legal status, since official street names were determined by a municipal committee.[18]

Everyday speech could preserve alternative names even where official Hebrew neighborhood names existed.[18] Israeli residents continued to use Baqaa, Katamon, and Abu-Tor for neighborhoods officially called Geulim, Gonen, and Givat Hananiya.[18] Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries after 1967 included 28 Palestinian villages, bringing numerous previously distinct places into the city’s administrative and naming landscape.[18]

The revival of biblical and Jewish historical names made Hebrew naming a visible expression of Jewish national renewal and connection to the land.[3] Sacred texts and other historical sources supplied names, while streets and squares commemorated Jewish historical figures.[3] Naming committees linked this work to the revival of Hebrew and to a return to biblical and Jewish historical landscapes.[1]

Mapping, trail marking, exploration of natural features, and the adoption of thousands of Hebrew place names also formed a wider set of practices through which Jewish inhabitants became familiar with the country’s terrain.[19] A scholarly interpretation connects these activities with the formation of attachment to particular places alongside attachment to the country as a national space.[19]

Research on Palestinian Arabic and Israeli Hebrew names for natural features distinguishes five analytical categories: unification, uniqueness, male rhetoric replacing female identity, sanitization, and linguistic imitation.[20] This analysis identifies intermediate naming practices reflecting local communication and sociocultural realities, alongside the prominence of Jewish nationalist narratives.[20] It also interprets some Zionist naming as incorporating Palestinian cultural perspectives for Jewish cultural purposes.[20]

Street names likewise express historical memory and collective identity.[21] A comparative study of pre-1948 Haifa, pre-1948 Jerusalem, and post-1948 Umm el-Fahm examines Arab-Palestinian street-naming systems as locally produced “texts of identity,” carrying political messages and ideas of historical and cultural heritage.[21] Research based on several hundred signs in Jerusalem’s Old City after 1967, covering its four quarters and the al-Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount compound, identifies Hebrew dominance and interprets the patterns as promoting Jewish-Israeli nationalization.[22]

The 2009 road-sign proposal generated significant disagreement over Arabic and national identity.[14] Katz defended Hebrew-based transliteration, while Ahmad Tibi and Mohammad Barakeh objected that it diminished Arabic and Palestinian connections to place; Minister Avishay Braverman also criticized the initiative and emphasized Arabic’s official-language status at the time.[14] Adalah argued that the decision conflicted with a 2002 Supreme Court judgment concerning Arabic signage in mixed cities, and its cancellation request remained unanswered by the attorney general at the end of 2009.[2]

The 2015 East Jerusalem decision drew objections from residents and Arab lawmakers, while former Supreme Court justice Jacob Turkel advised reconsideration because of the area’s delicate situation.[17] The municipal committee rejected that recommendation and defended the names as reflecting Jewish historical legacy.[17]

Broader claims require attention to their scope: the figure of more than 9,000 Arabic names replaced by Hebrew nomenclature belongs to the account presented in Meron Benvenisti’s Sacred Landscape, framed around transformation after 1948, including war, destruction, and expulsion.[23] A Palestinian Grade 7 textbook’s allegation that the ‘Awja River “has become Yarkon” is a reported textbook claim, not an independently established naming history.[24] The Old City study’s characterization of Arabic and Palestinian erasure is a scholarly interpretation.[22] Sinai examples—Dahab becoming Di Zahav and Sharm el-Sheikh becoming Ophira—concern a different geographical setting, not Palestinian places.[25]