188 • chapter 5
this knowledge is extremely limited. Most of the [Jewish] arabic
speakers are from the masses of the nation; our intelligentsia
in the land is entirely alien to it [arabic]. therefore, even the
knowledge of “those who know” arabic is extremely limited.
two years ago, there was an incident in which a high official, an
arab patriot, wished to speak with the hebrew leaders and asked
to speak arabic. there was not a single person in Jaffa or its sur-
roundings who was able to take up this task and so the residents
of Jaffa needed to bring a “speaker” from Jerusalem. and even
in Jerusalem, the number [of new hebrew yishuv members] who
know arabic is two or three.^11even if Smilansky overstated his claim for rhetorical effect, the basic
point— that few ashkenazic Zionist immigrants in the Late Ottoman
period mastered arabic— is not disputed. as Smilansky suggests, many
members of the “new hebrew yishuv” had learned some arabic after
their arrival in palestine, but most acquired only the essentials neces-
sary to carry on life in an arabic- speaking environment (giving them
the ability, for example, to engage in simple commerce or to instruct
laborers). there were certain notable exceptions, of course, such as the
journalist- linguist eliezer Ben- Yehuda, who not only learned arabic
but used it as one of his sources for expanding the modern hebrew
vocabulary.^12 however, the vast majority of ashkenazic Zionists in
palestine never became literate in arabic; learning to speak one new
language, namely, hebrew, was a sufficient challenge for most of the
immigrants who were at the same time struggling to make a living in a
new and foreign environment.^13
there were, of course, some Zionists who did not need to learn ara-
bic as they already knew the language. as discussed in chapter 1, these
were the mostly Sephardic Jewish natives of palestine, as well as Jew-
ish immigrants from arabic- speaking lands, many of whom affiliated
with the Zionist enterprise.^14 to be clear, though, not all Jews born in
the Middle east were literate in arabic.^15 arabic literacy, after all, was
limited among the population of the Middle east as a whole, and in any
(^11) Moshe Smilansky, “Maʿaseinu yekarvunu, maʿaseinu yeraḥakunu,” ha- ʿOlam (Jan-
uary 1914).
(^12) See eliezer Ben- Yehuda, ha- Mavo ha- gadol, MBY. See also avishur, “ha- Markiv ha-
ʿarvi ba- lashon ha- ʿivrit bat zemanenu u- vi- sifrutah me- eliʿezer Ben- Yehuda ʿad Netivah
Ben- Yehuda (ve- Dan Ben- amoẓ),” 9.
(^13) there were certainly efforts to introduce arabic instruction in Jewish schools in
palestine. See Lang, Daber ʿivrit!, 626.
(^14) On the Yemenite immigration to palestine, for instance, see Druyan, Be- ein
“marvad- kesamim.”
(^15) On arabic literacy in palestine, see ayalon, Reading Palestine.