112 • CHAPTER 3
whether on logical, political, cultural, or other grounds, some clearly
did not consider hebrew and arab to be mutually exclusive.
hebrew and arab were not the only categories to be questioned
in Ben- Yehuda’s papers. In one issue of ha- Or from 1910, a report is
found with the title “A Christian Muslim Woman.” Ha- Or’s correspon-
dent explains that there was great commotion in the market after a
peasant woman, “a Christian from ramallah, who had been persecuted
relentlessly by the residents of the village, decided to leave her faith
and enter under the wings of Islam.” this only aroused further fury
among her former coreligionists, who wished to execute her for her
betrayal. Brought before the court, she repeated her desire to enter, as
the author puts it, “the religion of Ishmael” and beseeched the judges
to protect her from the wrath of “her nation” (beneiʿamah).^75 the au-
thor and the editor who titled the article were clearly intrigued by the
possibility of a Christian Muslim, a concept, like the Arab Hebrew, that
angered many by challenging the exclusiveness of supposedly contra-
dictory categories.
Yet another such liminal figure in Late Ottoman Palestine was the
Karaite. Karaites were members of a Jewish sect that had separated
from the dominant Jewish community beginning around the ninth cen-
tury. In the early twentieth century, the largest single population of
Karaites was found in the russian empire, but communities existed in
a number of Middle eastern cities, including Istanbul, Jerusalem, and
Cairo. Those Karaites who spoke Arabic and had been living for gen-
erations in Arabic- speaking lands generated some identity confusion,
as is evidenced on the pages of ha- Or in 1910. In an article titled “the
arabic^76 theater,” ha- Or informs its readers that
the troupe of the famous arab^77 actor, rahamim Bibas— a Karaite
Jew— performed several shows in Jerusalem with great success.
among the actors, there are also many women, and this is un-
doubtedly the first time in Jerusalem that an Arab audience hears
such beautiful words from both men and women together. any-
one interested in the arabic language, in its advancement and de-
velopment, is well served to head to the theater across from Jaffa(^75) ‘Am here could also be taken as “people.”
(^76) the phrase is ha-ḥezyonha-ʿarvi. Because the term ʿarvi can mean both arab and
arabic, that is, both an ethnic group and a language, there is always a degree of inter-
pretation in which one engages in translating the word. this is especially treacherous in
a project such as that of this chapter, which aims to be sensitive to the choice of termi-
nology in these newspapers. I therefore render the present phrase as “arabic theater”
and not “arab theater” with an awareness that the intended meaning may have been the
latter, even though, in my view, this would seem unlikely.
(^77) See previous note.