traNSLatioN aND coNqueSt • 195or fifteen, hardly a sufficient number to fill the editorial boards even of
just the most important arabic newspapers.
a Zionist Newspaper in arabic and
the charge of “assimilationism”the answer that Moyal and Malul, along with several other Zionists,
proposed instead was the creation of the Zionists’ own arabic news-
paper. Such an undertaking would permit Zionists to present their
perspective to arabs on the Zionists’ own terms, without subventions
or any sort of dependence on otherwise unsympathetic arabs.^43 this
proposal to favorably translate Zionism into arabic was aired publicly
on the pages of ha- Ḥerut, and it stirred intense controversy almost
immediately among palestine’s Zionist community. One ashkenazic
Zionist— abraham Ludvipol— accused the scheme’s most outspoken
early proponent, Shimon Moyal, of being an “assimilationist.” By in-
stitutionalizing the use of arabic by Zionists, the arabic newspaper
idea aimed in reality to break down the linguistic and cultural barri-
ers between Jews and their arab neighbors, Ludvipol contended. the
outrage was only intensified when Moyal insisted, in something of a
rhetorical flourish, that it would be worthwhile to sell an entire Zionist
colony if, through its sale, “we were to found an arabic newspaper that
would fight our war.”^44
the debate between Moyal and Ludvipol exposed tensions within
palestine’s Zionist community, between Sephardim and ashkenazim.
Moyal claimed that Ludvipol’s attack was based in the latter’s irritation
that “a Sephardic easterner dared to prove to him, with evidence, that
his european experience and ideas are not always sufficient for him to
deal properly with the east.” Moyal excoriated Ludvipol for his conde-
scension toward the Sephardim, insisting that he recall that “you are
our guest and that the residents of the Land of Israel and their ancestors
suffered terribly over many years in order to preserve their nationality
among the streams of nations that flowed as they grabbed the reins
of the government generation after generation.”^45 having “preserved
their nationality” for so long, Moyal implied, the Sephardim could
hardly be accused of being “assimilationists.” rather, a Zionist- edited
arabic newspaper would simply be like the arabic newspapers of the
(^43) In addition, as some advocates hastened to highlight, a Zionist newspaper in arabic
would also serve to address arabic- reading Jews. See Malul, ha- Ḥerut (June 18, 1913).
(^44) See ha- Or 3:2 (october 4, 1911), 1; and ha- Ḥerut 4:9 (october 19, 1911), 1– 2.
(^45) ha- Ḥerut 4:9 (october 19, 1911), 1– 2.