100 • CHAPTER 3
settlers in palestine.^22 The fact that the “Christians” who were seeking
the hebrew word for “stationery” are named Sayegh and Selim sug-
gests that they were not europeans.^23 In these cases, and numerous
others, residents of Palestine are classified as “the Christians” when
religion or religious identity would appear to be irrelevant to the inci-
dents described.
It is worthwhile noting here that the letter to Ben- Yehuda was
signed by David de Boton, a member of an illustrious Sephardic family.
there was not, as is sometimes imagined, a rigid separation between
the social, intellectual, and cultural worlds of Sephardim, on the one
hand, and Ashkenazim, on the other; the Sephardic de Boton knew of
and respected the Ashkenazic Ben- Yehuda’s Hebrew language project,
and he clearly read Ben- Yehuda’s newspaper. Because of the Sephardic
identity of its author, this letter can obviously not be taken as a direct
indication of the perceptions of First Aliyah Ashkenazim. However, the
title provided for it by the First Aliyah Ashkenazic editors— “Hebrew
among the Christians”— uses the same terminology.
Just as ha-Ḥerut and ha-Or/ha-Ẓevifrequently identify the Christians
of Palestine solely by their religious affiliation, the same is often true of
their discussion of palestine’s Muslims. In midsummer 1910 there was
a stabbing in Jerusalem. Ha-Ḥerut reported that “the Jew Shlomo Babel
stabbed a young man who was from among the Muslim notables in our
city.”^24 In December of that year ha-Ḥerutreported on the elections for
an administrative council (the majlisʿumumī) in the mutasarriflik of Je-
rusalem. here, too, the categories the article cites are Muslim (or, more
precisely, “Ishmaelite”), Christian, and Jewish: “from Jerusalem, two
Ishmaelites, one Christian, and one Jew were elected”; “from hebron,
three Ishmaelites and one Jew”; “from Jaffa two Ishmaelites and two
Christians”; and “from Beersheba four Ishmaelites.”^25
Ben- Yehuda’s newspapers use this religious mode of classification of
Palestine’s Muslims as well. In a november 1908 article titled “Killed,”
we read of the spread of rumors about a man who had been murdered.
At first, the author explains, the man was believed to have been a
(^22) For a brief overview of the activities of British, German, French, and russian set-
tlers and missionaries in Jerusalem, including those of the German templers, see Ben-
arieh, JerusalemintheNineteenthCentury, 58– 71.
(^23) Given their knowledge of the French word, though, it is possible that they were na-
tives of Lebanon (where the French presence was more expansive) and not of Palestine.
however, this is certainly not necessarily so; after all, well- educated arabs in palestine
(especially those who attended missionary schools) were taught French.
(^24) ha-Ḥerut 2:122 (July 20, 1910), 3. The author is Mendel Kremer.
(^25) ha-Ḥerut 3:18 (December 2, 1910), 3. The author is, again, Mendel Kremer. See
fur ther in this chapter for a discussion of this contributor.