Note on Transliterations

i

n transliterating Arabic and ottoman turkish, i have generally fol-

lowed the International Journal of Middle East Studies transliteration

guide. in transliterating Hebrew and yiddish, i have generally followed

the Encyclopaedia Judaica transliteration guide. for ease of reading, in

the body of the book personal names and foreign words that have en-

tered the English lexicon are written without diacritical marks. for the

benefit of those interested in locating referenced texts, the translitera-

tions in the bibliographical information provided are more precise. for

the sake of consistency in transliteration between Hebrew and Arabic

text titles, i have capitalized only the first letter of the first word (unless

the title begins with a definite article, in which case i have capitalized

the letter immediately following the article) and personal names found

within the title. for Hebrew, i have generally followed the rule that a

sheva under the first letter of a word is a sheva naʿ (a rule Ben- yehuda

followed in transliterating the name of his newspaper in the masthead

as Hazewi), except in the body of the book when noting proper names

that have a conventional English spelling (such as in the last name of

israel’s second president, Ben- Zvi).