96 • CHAPTER 3
between the terminology Zionists used to describe their non- Jewish
neighbors and the ways in which they perceived these neighbors,
studying the terminology is critical in discerning those perceptions.
newspapers and Their neighborsZionist newspapers represent an exceptionally useful source for this dis-
cussion. Though each was edited by a different small group of intellec-
tuals, many people from across palestine’s Jewish society and beyond
participated in them— as correspondents, advertisers, letter- writers,
and, of course, readers (as the Jewish population enjoyed a high lit-
eracy rate). From the earliest period of Jewish nationalist settlement
in the Holy Land in the 1880s (the First Aliyah), Zionists established
newspapers that combined news reports from palestine, Diaspora Jew-
ish communities, the Ottoman empire, europe, and elsewhere, along
with opinion pieces that argued for a variety of political, religious,
ideological, or cultural positions. the Zionist press in palestine was
especially vibrant and expansive in the years following the Young Turk
Revolution of 1908, the bloodless political uprising in Istanbul that
restored the Ottoman Constitution and parliament and promised in-
creased freedoms, including freedom of the press. Given the loosened
restrictions on the press and the new wave of Zionist immigration that
had begun in 1904 (the Second Aliyah), the final years of Ottoman
rule in Palestine witnessed a marked expansion of Zionist papers: new
newspapers were founded, and veteran weeklies became semiweeklies
and even dailies.
The three papers I have chosen to analyze here offer certain insights
into the worlds and worldviews of the three main Zionist communities
in Late Ottoman Palestine: Sephardim, Ashkenazic immigrants of the
First Aliyah, and the more recent Ashkenazic arrivals of the Second
aliyah. Ha-Ḥerutwas founded and edited by Sephardic Zionists in Je-
rusalem, beginning in 1909; ha-Ẓevi (which at various times also went
under the title ha- Or or Hashkafah) was founded by the Ashkenazic
First Aliyah immigrant Eliezer Ben- Yehuda and edited by members of
his family beginning in 1884;^7 and ha-Aḥdut was founded in 1906 and
edited by leading members of the socialist Poʿalei Ẓiyon (Workers of
Zion) Party, including individuals who came to play central roles in the
history of the Yishuv and the State of Israel such as David Ben- Gurion,
Yitzhak Ben- Zvi, and Rachel Yanaʾit Ben- Zvi.
(^7) See Kressel, Toldotha-ʿitonutha-ʿivritbe-ereẓyisraʾel, 71ff.