Journal of Historical Geography, 27, 2 (2001) 178–195

doi:10.1006/jhge.2001.0297, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

(Re)naming the landscape: The formation of the

Hebrew map of Israel 1949–1960

Maoz Azaryahu and Arnon Golan

The formation of the Hebrew map of Israel following the foundation of the State of
Israel was an institutionalized measure of cultural engineering and a procedure of
Zionist nation-building aimed at restoring the Hebrew toponomy of the land. The
Hebraicization of the landscape was the geographical aspect of Hebrew revival, which
predominated Zionist ideology and imagination. The Hebrew names affixed to landscape
features replaced—at least for Hebrew speakers—Arabic names rendered foreign from
a Zionist perspective. Accordingly, the formation of the national Hebrew map of Israel
was designed to assert the Jewish identity of the state of Israel in terms of a conflation
of cultural and territorial aspects of Jewish sovereignty. The main part of the article
explores the setting up and mode of operation in the 1950s of the Governmental Names
Commission that was in charge of the Hebraicization of the national map. Of particular
interest here are the ideological premises that both legitimized and facilitated the work
of the commission. The last part of the article evaluates the success of the project and
elaborates on its implications in the context of the Jewish-Arab conflict over a shared
and contested homeland.  2001 Academic Press

Introduction
Considered as a major accomplishment of modern Jewish nationalism, the ‘Heb-
raicization of Israel’ usually refers to the revival of the Hebrew language undertaken
by and associated with Zionism as a restorative project of nation-building.[1] A lesser
known aspect of the ‘Hebraicization of Israel’, however, has been the ‘Hebraicization
of the map’, a state-promoted national project whose objective was “To Judaize (sic)
the map of Israel and to affix Hebrew names to all geographical features in the map
of Israel”.
Formally canonized in the 1:100 000 map prepared by the British mandate government
in the early 1940s, the official place names of British mandate Palestine were mostly
Arabic or such that perpetuated Christian traditions. As such, they were foreign from
the perspective of Jewish nationalism and its fundamental commitment to Hebrew and
to the Jewish historical geography of the land. Conceived of and legitimized as a
restorative measure, the Hebraicization of the map and the production of a distinct
Hebrew toponymy was a substantial stage in the spatial history of modern Israel.
As an institutionalized activity, the consequent Hebraicization of the national map
began in 1949 with the Hebraicization of the Negev desert. In its virtue as a national
project, the shaping of the Hebrew map of Israel provided for the convergence of two
major concerns of Zionism as the ideology of Jewish national revival. One is the Land
of Israel (in Hebrew: Eretz Israel), as the homeland of the restored Jewish nation whose
178
0305–7488/01/020178+18 $35.00/0  2001 Academic Press
 (RE)NAMING THE LANDSCAPE 179

Figure 1. A portion of a map reproduced by the Israeli survey department in 1958 based on
sheet 8 (Yibna) of the 1 : 100 000-scale map reproduced by the survey of Palestine in 1942. Note
the English transcription of Arab and Jewish place names, and the Hebrew overprint that includes
names of new Jewish settlements established since 1948.
180 MAOZ AZARYAHU AND ARNON GOLAN

resettlement provided the territorial basis of Jewish national revival. Second is the
valorization of Hebrew culture and the Hebrew language in particular as the quintessence
of the process of Jewish cultural revival.
This article examines the institutionalized Hebraicization of the Israeli map as a
language-planning procedure and a nation-building measure within the contextual
framework of the ‘Hebraicization of Israel’. Other studies of Israeli toponymy were
focused on ideological properties and thematic classifications of names of Jewish
settlements.[2] The concern of this article, however, is with Hebrew as a fundamental
and shared property of Israeli place names. In particular, this article examines the
reinvention of the national map and the Israeli landscape as an authorized Hebrew
text.
This article elaborates upon the Hebraicization of the Israeli map as a procedure of
cultural engineering aimed at the customization of Hebrew as the language of the
Israeli landscape. Specifically the article investigates the project and its progression in
its formative stage in the 1950s, when the Hebraicization of the map was especially
intensive in terms of both coordinated activities and their effect on the shaping of the
Hebrew map. Based mainly on archival material, the article seeks to elaborate on the
historical and cultural context of the project; to shed light on its dynamic features as
a set of methodical principles and administrative procedures, and to evaluate its success
among Hebrew speakers as well as its implications in the context of Jewish-Israeli/
Arab-Palestinian conflict.

Nationalism, language and the politics of place names

By asserting nationalism as a “unity and authenticity ideology”, Joshua Fishman
explains the significance assigned to language in the context of nationalism also in that
it fosters broader unity and greater authenticity.[3] The authenticity factor in particular
is a powerful instrument in directing nation-building as a cultural revival procedure,
when the national language is construed in terms of historical heritage and cultural
identity. The issue of language permeates both ethnic and territorial, post-colonial
nationalisms. Shaping a national language often takes the form of language-planning,
which Fishman defines as “[T]he organized pursuit of solution to language problems”.[4]
Subsequently, the aim of a nationalistic language-planning is to foster the national
language as a vehicle of unity and authenticity. Fostering authenticity is also stressed
by the ‘purification’ of the national language from foreign influences, deemed as
‘impurities’ and hence undesirable.[5]
Reshaping toponymies in a nationalist context is an important example of a language-
planning procedure. Webster’s dictionary defines toponymy as “The place names of a
region or a language” which highlights the extent to which place names weld language
and geography. Place names figure prominently in the cultural construction of the
landscape. They are not to be found in dictionaries but rather in maps and in
encyclopedias, which inform about specific places considered to be worthy of mentioning.
As a special nomenclature, toponymy constitutes a branch of knowledge about the
world. However, in contrast to botanical, zoological, astronomical and other such
‘specialized’ nomenclatures, toponymy also belongs to the sphere of folk geography
and is embedded into ordinary parlance.
As a comprehensive set of place names, toponomy produces a shared cultural text.
The notion of a toponymy as a text becomes clearly apparent in maps, where the
spatial configuration of names purports to reproduce the geographical distribution of
 (RE)NAMING THE LANDSCAPE 181

places. Maps purport to be an objective and definitive representation of the landscape,

and their authority is conductive to the substantialization of place names as an aspect
of the landscape and to rendering a specific toponymy legitimate.
Seen as a text, a toponymy is a twofold system of signification. On one level, which
is immediate and unreflected, each place name signifies a geographical location. On
another level, however, a toponymy signifies the ideology which underlies and legitimates
its use as a proper nomenclature. Paraphrasing Umberto Eco, it may be argued that
place names denote places and connote a certain ideology about the use of these names
and the nature of these places.[6]
Reading place names is embedded into the reading of landscapes and of maps as a
social practice and a semiotic procedure that takes place in specific cultural contexts.
James and Nancy Duncan have observed that since landscapes are “tangible,
familiar. . .and unquestioned”, their inattentive reading within a particular cultural/
ideological framework of interpretation serves to naturalize the social relations inscribed
upon them.[7] In a similar vein, the inattentive reading of place names reifies ideological/
cultural notions that belong to the sub-text of any given toponymy. In a nationalist
context, the reference to places by particular names not only acknowledges these places
as constituents of the physical world and social reality but also evinces nationalist
assumptions and arguments. Place names also belong to the language of nationalism.
Especially when co-existing nomenclatures compete for being recognized as legitimate
and definitive, as is the case with an area whose national or ethnic identity is contested,
the existence and use of place names (and the rejection of others) is a feature of the
conflict. For instance, designating a place as Yarzum (Spanish) or Oiartzun (Basque)
is an unequivocal political statement in the context of the Basque struggle for in-
dependence.[8]
Reading place names and deciphering their cultural properties and ideological
messages is one issue. Another is the writing and rewriting of toponyms, evident in
naming and renaming of places and physical landscape features. Beyond its being a
taxonomic measure, the act of naming is often a demonstration of authority that entails
the notion of appropriation. Naming is not a mere linguistic gesture but often evinces
specific power relations. Naming places is an aspect of exploration[9] as well as of
(re)settlement activities. An example is the naming of Montana following the con-
struction of the railroads in 1908:

The railroad moved into Montana like Caesar marching through Gaul, freely inventing
the land it occupied as it went along. Like Gaul, this part of Montana had been named
long ago—by the Indians, by the United States Army, and by ranchers [. . .] But the
railroad ignored the existing names, preferring to adorn the landscape with bright new
coinage of its own. It canvassed directors and senior managers for the names they had
given their daughters. . . .[10]

As is often the case, the act of naming often amounts to a renaming. Shaping and re-
shaping toponyms is an example of the connection between political and cultural
processes which directly affect semiotic procedures. This, for instance, is the case with
the renaming of streets following radical changes of political regime.[11] In the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, the systematic construction of ‘national’ toponymies was an
aspect of nation-building and state-formation. The age of modern nationalism demanded
the exclusive use of the national language, and the renaming of landscapes accompanied
state-formation situations where the theme of “national revival” featured prominently.
This was the case in Greece after 1830, where Turkish, Slavic and Italian names were
‘Hellenised’; after 1867 it was also practiced in Hungary, and after 1918 also in the
182 MAOZ AZARYAHU AND ARNON GOLAN

new states founded in central and eastern Europe. Polish names in areas that were
annexed to the German Reich after 1939 were ‘Germanized’, while the expulsion of
the German population after 1945 was sealed with replacing the traditional German
toponymy with Russian, Polish and Czech ones in the ethnically cleansed areas.
As an illustration and in order to suggest a comparative perspective, to follow is a
brief discussion of the ‘Polandization’ of the German areas east of the Oder-Neisse
after World War II. The ‘Polandization’ of former German toponomy was coordinated
by a special agency, the “commission for the determination of names of places
and physiographic objects” founded in 1946.[12] A case of language-planning, the
‘Polandization’ of the map was conducted according to well defined guidelines. The
preferred option was to officialize existing Polish place names or to revive Polish names
that had existed in the middle ages. When no such alternatives were available, four
options were employed: One, the German name was taken over with a “Polandized”
orthography. Two, the German name was translated into Polish, three, the Polish name
was modelled on the German name and four, an entirely new Polish name was created.

Hebrew revival: the general context

The link to Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel), preserved in holy scriptures, religious
rituals and liturgy, dominated Jewish imagination and provided the Jews in the Diaspora
with a symbolic homeland which was not identical with actual patterns of Jewish
settlement. The separation between the actual Jewish habitat and Eretz Israel was the
source of substantial messianic charge that before the age of political Zionism was
formulated in religious terms and messianic notions. As the ideology of national revival
in the ancient homeland, the restorative aspect of modern Zionism was of paramount
significance. Hebrew revival featured prominently in the process. Already in 1931 it
was stated that the “re-establishment of Hebrew as a living and spoken language,
extraordinary as it may seem, is already an indisputable fact”.[13]
As the language of the Old Testament, and in consideration of the language diversity
that characterized Jewish life in the Diaspora, Hebrew presented an authentic historical-
cultural option that also provided for the greatest measure of unity. Focused upon the
language, the Hebrew revival project sought to create a Hebrew identity. This was also
evident in that the term ‘Hebrew’ denoted not only the language itself but also its
speakers and served to distinguish Zionist society in British mandatory Palestine as a
distinct cultural community:

Everything that was created, or everything operated while thinking in and speaking
Hebrew became itself “Hebrew”: “Hebrew” settlement, “Hebrew” economy, “Hebrew”
transportation, “Hebrew” literature, “Hebrew” education.[14]

The importance assigned to Hebrew as the language and culture of national revival
was also manifest in the emphasis upon Hebrew purity and Hebraicization procedures.
Hebraicization included the introduction of Hebrew nomenclatures in various fields of
scientific knowledge e.g. botany or zoology. Of special political bearing and with far
reaching personal consequences was the Hebraicization of family names of Jewish
immigrants. This measure belonged to the construction of a new Hebrew identity.[15] In
the first years of Israeli Independence, Ben-Gurion, the founding father of modern
Israel, used his authority to promote Hebrew family names. In his capacity as a Defence
Minister, he made the Hebraicization of family names obligatory for Israeli officials
serving in representative positions e.g. high ranking army officers and diplomats.
 (RE)NAMING THE LANDSCAPE 183

The construction of the Hebrew map: the pre-state period

Embedded into the discourse of national restoration and renewal, names of Jewish
settlements founded in the framework of Zionist settlement activities were symbolic
statements of substantial resonance. Centrally regulated by a special committee es-
tablished in July of 1925, names of newly founded Jewish settlements either restored
Biblical and Talmudic place names or served as a means for the commemoration of
Zionist figures and political leaders. In both cases, the new names inscribed the process
of national revival and restoration unto the map and conflated Jewish history and
Zionist memory with the geography of Zionist revival. During the 26 years of its work,
this committee designated 415 names to newly founded settlements, of which 215
belonged to the pre-state era. Among these, 108 were “historical names”, meaning
ancient names that were restored, 120 “commemorative names” and 187 “symbolic
names”.[16] Since the committee ceased to exist in March 1951, this number includes
also names given to settlements established after the foundation of the State of Israel.
While Hebrew was proclaimed as an official language of British mandatory Palestine
in 1922, together with Arabic and English,[17] the status of Hebrew place names in
official publications of the mandate government proved a delicate political issue. Zionist
sensitivity was focused upon the use of Hebrew place names (whenever Hebrew versions
existed) side by side with Arabic and/or English designations in official government
publications.[18] The Zionist demand to acknowledge Hebrew place names by including
them in the official index was fundamental in that it sought to obtain an official
recognition of Jewish historical and cultural links with the ancient homeland of the
Jews. The Zionist demand, it should be noted, was not about Hebrew-Jewish place
names being exclusive but rather on their equal status with Arabic and English
designations.
The 1:100 000 maps prepared in the 1940s by the British Mandatory Survey of
Palestine provided an authoritative map of the Holy Land as an administrative unit
(though the Negev south of Beer Sheva was not included in this set of maps). As this
map demonstrated, the geographical language of British Mandatory Palestine was
overwhelmingly Arabic, with some 3700 Arabic names designating local topography.
A little more than 200 Hebrew names designated Jewish settlements, while some Biblical
place names were reproduced in their English form, e.g. Jerusalem and Hebron, whose
Arabic names (Al-Quds and Al-Halil) and Hebrew versions (Yerushalaim and Hevron)
were not mentioned.[19]
From the perspective of the local Arab population, the Arabic names were a self-
evident feature of life. For the current investigation, however, it is the Jewish perspective
that counts. For the majority of Jewish immigrants, and irrespective of their commitment
to the Zionist cause of national revival, Arabic place names were a feature of the local
landscape and thus instrumental in the mental construction of the Hebrew (home)land.
Moreover, the use of Arabic references often emphasized an intimate knowledge of
and relationship with the local landscape. As cultural signifiers of the condition of
being native to the land, they exuded authenticity.
In contrast to such prevalent notions, a patriotic-purist attitude emerged which
deplored the hegemony of Arabic in the language of the local landscape. From the
perspective of the commitment to Hebrew as a patriotic obligation, Arabic place names
were considered foreign while their prevalence and use constituted a cognitive dissonance:

Because of this (the lack of Hebrew place names) the land is also foreign to its sons
who were born and raised there. They walk its length and width, travel its roads, climb
the summits of its beautiful mountains and go down to its valleys which are shrouded
184 MAOZ AZARYAHU AND ARNON GOLAN

with green, step alongside ravines and cross rivers without knowing the names of these
geographical features, without which a person can not form a spiritual bond with what
his eyes see.[20]

The purist attitude was based upon the conviction that even though only 174 toponymical
items were specifically mentioned in the Old Testament and in later Jewish historical
sources, there had existed a comprehensive Hebrew toponymy. In the nineteenth century,
the investigation of place names of the Holy Land and in particular the identification
of historical, mainly Biblical, places assumed a modern, scientific form and became the
subject of historical and linguistic studies as well as geographical and archaeological
surveys. Beginning in the second half of the 19th century, studies conducted in the
framework of the exploration of Palestine by various European societies and institutions
produced reliable maps and expanded the knowledge of the historical geography of the
land in general and of its historical toponymy in particular. An issue of much relevance
in this context was the identification of Biblical place names with contemporary
landscape features.
The conventional theory about the historical dynamics of local place names in
Palestine was already been formulated towards the end of the nineteenth century[21].
The theory maintained that in spite of changes of regime and cycles of settlement,
many contemporary Arabic place names preserved, albeit in a modified form, their
original Semitic names, some of them from Biblical times.[22] Explicated in terms of
pronunciation shifts, the theory not only maintained that ancient place names, many
of them of Hebrew provenance, were Arabicized during and following the Arab conquest
of Palestine in the seventh century, but also explained the linguistic mechanism that
controlled the procedure. Scientifically, the notion of toponymical continuity was
instrumental for the reconstruction of the Semitic-Hebrew map of ancient Palestine.
From a Zionist perspective, this theory confirmed Hebrew toponymy as a constituent
of the historical geography of Palestine. It also provided both legitimacy to and a
(linguistic) mechanism for the recovery of former Hebrew names.
A Zionist-purist attitude towards the language of the landscape was relevant for and
prevailed mostly among a small, yet dedicated group of people committed to the
exploration of the historical geography of Jewish Palestine. Even before the foundation
of the State of Israel, some Hebrew names were proposed for landscape features other
than new Zionist settlements, yet the establishment of Israeli sovereignty prompted the
possibility to expand Hebrew revival into the sphere of toponymy. The construction of
a comprehensive Hebrew map was envisioned in a letter sent already in December 1948
to the Interior Minister:

The conventional names should be replaced by new ones . . . since, in an anticipation

of renewing our days as of old and living the life of a healthy people that is rooted in
the soil of our country, we must begin in the fundamental Hebraicization of our
country’s map.

The genealogy of the Governmental Names Commission[23]

The purist approach to the language of the national map was officially empowered in
July 1949, when Ben-Gurion nominated a commission with the task “To determine
Hebrew names to all the places, mountains, valleys, springs, roads and the like in the
area of the Negev”.[24] The task of this commission was geographically limited to the
area of the Negev only, namely the southern half of Israel. In September of 1949 it
 (RE)NAMING THE LANDSCAPE 185

was already suggested to extend the work of the Negev Commission to the rest of the
country and to include among its tasks the determination of names of settlements.[25]
Following the suggestion of its chairman in November 1950, the commission was re-
summoned and bestowed with the assignment to Hebraicize the entire national map,
which practically meant the extension of its former work to the northern, relatively
densely settled, half of Israel. In its session of 8 March 1951, the government decided
to establish a Governmental Names Commission, which incorporated the committee
in charge of naming new settlements. Significantly, the commission was not in charge
of the entire national toponymy, the most prominent exception being street names that
were under the jurisdiction of elected local authorities.
The significance of the geographical aspect of the Hebraicization project was also
evident in that a merger of the Government Names Commission with the Academy of
the Hebrew language, as a purely administrative logic could suggest, was never on the
bureaucratic agenda. Founded in 1952, the Academy of Hebrew language was also in
charge of determining Hebrew alternatives for foreign words, including zoological and
botanical nomenclatures. The administrative and operative separation of the two
agencies in charge of Hebraicization, though anchored in specific historical circumstances
(the Governmental Names Commission was set up already in 1950), further distinguished
the geographical aspect of the Hebraicization project as a special measure of nation-
building.
The decisions of the Commission were rendered official through their publication by
the government. The first results of the Commission’s work were published in the
government Year Book of 1951. The formal authority of the Governmental Names
Commission was anchored in a government decision and its affiliation with the Prime
Minister Office. Historically determined, the link with the Prime Minister Office not
only articulated the personal interest of Ben-Gurion in the Hebraicization of the
national map, but also rendered its activities and decisions authoritative.
An additional source for the authority of the Commission was rooted in the prestige
of its individual members. The list of nominated members included prominent experts
in the fields of geography, cartography, history, archeology, Hebrew language and
Jewish culture. The list of members of the Governmental Names Commission was
published in an official announcement of the secretary of the government from May 2,
1951.[26] It included A. Biran (archeology), M. Avi-Yona (historical geography), A.
Braver (cartography), Z. Vilnay (geography and history of the Land of Israel), Sh.
Yevin (geography), Y. Klosner (Jewish history and Hebrew literature), B. Meisler
(Archaeologist, a later president of the Hebrew University), Y. Weitz (a prominent
official of the Jewish National Fund), and Y. Ben-Zvi (a Zionist leader and the second
President of the State of Israel). Experts in specialized fields, e.g. hydrology and
urology were consulted when necessary. Among the members were nationally recognized
academics from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, in the 1950s the only university
in Israel. Their participation invested the work of the Commission with academic
prestige and also demonstrated academic commitment to a patriotic endeavor.

Phase I: the Negev, 1949–1950

The Hebraicization of the Negev, as it were, took eight months to accomplish. The
significance of this was in that it set in motion the Hebraicization of the Israeli landscape
as an officially promoted project and further provided a blueprint for the later extension
of the project to include the entire national territory. Personally committed to the
186 MAOZ AZARYAHU AND ARNON GOLAN

‘Hebraicization of Israel’ as an aspect of Zionist restoration, Ben-Gurion’s interest in

the geographical dimension of this project became manifest only after the establishment
of the State of Israel, and this in the framework of his vision of the Negev desert as a
Zionist pioneering vocation. Following his first visit as a Prime Minister to the Negev
in June 1949, Ben-Gurion concluded that Hebrew names for landscape features were
essential. In his diary he noted: “It is essential to give a Hebrew name to this places.
An ancient Hebrew name if there is one, and if not—a new one”.[27] As his military
secretary later recalled, Ben-Gurion was resolved “to stop the custom that all geo-
graphical features were called in Arabic names”.[28] For Ben-Gurion, the ‘Hebraicization
of the Negev’ was a necessary condition for and a first step in its integration into the
realm of Israeli sovereignty.
The Hebraicization of the Negev should also be understood in the context of the
political attempts made by Britain in 1948–1949 to separate the Negev from the realm
of Israeli sovereignty. In this context, the project was also meant to assert Israeli
presence in and control over the area. For those actively involved in the formation of
the Hebrew toponymy, their efforts were directed at the transformation of the Negev
into a friendly terrain:

The Negev, half of our country, was threatening in the foreignness of its place names,
mostly Arabic, and these were also distorted and confused, some of them meaningless,
some with negative connotations and even humiliating or condemning ones. These
names exuded foreign spirit. With the conquest of Eilat and the hoisting of the Israeli
flag in Eilat it became urgently needed to radically change the situation, to determine
Hebrew names, to abolish foreign sounds and to enrich the map of the Negev with
original names, close to the heart of the Hebrew defender of and settler in the Negev.[29]

Eight months after its establishment, the commission concluded its work with the
determination of 560 Hebrew place names for an area that, approximately half of
Israeli sovereign territory, stretched from Eilat in the south and the Gaza-Ein Gedi line
in the north. The 1:250 000 Hebrew map of the Negev was printed in August 1950.
The list of names was published in the Government Year Book 1951, which both
rendered them accessible to the public and emphasized their official status. In retrospect,
the chairman of the commission commented that the list of names provided “The first
fruit of the toil of the commission: a Hebrew map of the Negev, purified from foreign
names, in which every place has a Hebrew name”.[30]
The work of the commission was divided between two sub-committees and a
coordinating body (designated the central committee). The geographical sub-committee
gathered place names according to British maps in the scale of 1:250 000 (The British
survey of Palestine did not produce 1:100 000 maps for the area south of Beer Sheva)
and translated the Arabic names. The historical sub-committee prepared material about
possible identification of these names and their mentioning in different historical sources,
e.g. Old Testament, Talmud, Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions and Greek and Roman
literature.
The commission also determined the mode of selection of names by defining a set
of five priorities:[31] historical identifications; use of Biblical (Old Testament) names (not
necessarily place names); translation of Arabic Names; giving a Hebrew form to Arabic
names according to similarity of sound; and new, symbolic names. The restoration of
historical Hebrew names, though considered as the best option, was difficult to
accomplish because of the lack of reliable historical traditions. The Old Testament
provided 40 identifications, while non-Jewish historical sources provided some sug-
gestions, which, according to the commission, “no doubt concealed Hebrew names”.
 (RE)NAMING THE LANDSCAPE 187

Altogether, 70 Hebrew names were ‘revived’ by the commission as designations of

ruins, springs, wells, rivers and settlements. In addition, Hebrew place names that could
not be geographically located were used, commonly to designate the big dry rivers of
the Negev. Another option was to name geographical features after Biblical figures
(e.g. Patriarchs and Kings) or heroes of Jewish history. Thus, for example, topographical
features in the vicinity of Massada were named after Jewish heroes of the armed
struggle against Roman imperial rule. As for Arabic names, these were translated when
they reflected local topographical conditions, names of plants or animals or natural
phenomena.
Ben-Gurion praised the work of the commission in a letter he sent to the members
of the commission:

In the name of the government of Israel I am glad to convey acknowledgment of and

appreciation for the cultural and historical project undertaken by you—to determine
names to all areas of the Negev, its mountains, hills, valleys, rivers, passages, springs,
ridges, wells, and craters. You have banished the shame of foreignness and of an alien
language from half of Israeli territory and completed the job begun by the Israeli
Defense Forces: to liberate the Negev from foreign rule. I hope that you will continue
your work until you will redeem the entire area of the Land of Israel from the rule of
foreign language.[32]

Phase II: towards the 1:100 000 national map, 1950–1960

Between December 1950 and March 1951, the Negev Commission extended its work
northwards. In this stage, 170 new names were suggested, 25 of which were restored
historical names.[33] With the establishment of the Governmental Names Commission,
the Hebraicization of the Israeli landscape became an official national project. Ad-
ministratively the Governmental Names Commission adopted the guidelines formulated
by the Negev Commission. According to a draft proposal, its task consisted of “giving
Hebrew names to all places with Arabic names and also determining names to places
that have no name in the map”. As to Arabic names, and according to the already
established method, all place names that were personal names or nicknames had to be
abolished altogether. Names that articulated “natural phenomena, landscape features,
place characteristics” were to be translated, while names similar in sound to Hebrew
served as a basis for appropriate Hebrew names.[34] Names of villages and towns within
Israeli sovereign territory that were inhabited by Arabs were not Hebraicized, while
their historical Hebrew names, if such existed, were suggested as an option.
Whereas the Hebraicization of the Negev was conceived of as a geographically and
temporally limited project, the Hebraicization of the national map was an open-ended
assignment. Formally, the work of the commission was divided into two stages. The
first stage, concluded in 1955, produced the 1:250 000 map of Israel, which affixed
Hebrew names to important mountains, rivers and tels. The subsequent three years
were dedicated to the preparation of the 1:100 000 Hebrew map. According to a report
from 1958, the Governmental Names Commission determined some 3000 toponyms.[35]
At this stage, the Hebrew index of the map included 780 names for rivers and their
tributaries. Since the Bible mentioned only 16 rivers west of the Jordan, only a small
fraction of the names were restored names. However, 220 rivers were given Biblical
names, which gave a significant Biblical resonance to the hydrological map of modern
Israel. Among the names given to 520 springs, only 60 were Biblical or post-Biblical,
historical appellations. The list included 720 tels and ruins, of which 170 were definite
188 MAOZ AZARYAHU AND ARNON GOLAN

historical identifications. The orographic Hebrew map consisted of 560 names for
mountains and hills. A report from the early 1960s related that hitherto the Commission
had affixed some 5000 Hebrew toponyms.[36]
An important aspect of the work of the Governmental Names Commission, as was
the case with its predecessor, the Negev Commission, was the systematization of Israeli
geography according to current scientific rules. This was mainly relevant in case of
rivers, where different sections of which had different Arabic names. The commission,
on the other hand, took care to produce conformity between geographical considerations
and toponymic arrangements, thereby investing the national map with geographical
order and consistency.
As a sovereign agency, the Commission was the sole authority in charge of the
naming procedure. In certain cases, however, the Commission consulted regional
geographical societies. Cooperation with local associations, however, was the exception,
and was possible only in areas of older Jewish settlement.[37] The Commission completely
ignored vernacular names already in use by local residents. This also meant that on a
national level, accumulated experiences and memories that were associated with and
evinced by vernacular place names were lost.
The Commission adhered to Hebrew purity. This was a simple matter when physical
landscape features were considered. The situation was more complicated with names
of settlements intended as commemorations. The Governmental Names Commission
did not allow foreign names to be commemorated as toponyms, even if it meant that
the historical referent was often obscure:

We have not until now determined foreign names to Israeli settlements, even when the
persons (to be commemorated) were most important in our eyes. . .there is no place for
an exception and there is no justification for a foreign name in the map of Israel.[38]

Aware of the difficulty in changing old habits, the Governmental Names Commission
was also concerned with the dissemination and inculcation of the names it rendered
official[39]. Ben-Gurion instructed the Israeli Army to publicize and use the new Hebrew
names. The High Command followed suit and lists with newly determined names were
distributed among army units. As the Commission acknowledged, road signs were an
efficient means for publicizing new names, especially those of new settlements. Already
in 1951 the Commission appealed to the Ministry of Education to “influence the
schools, their teachers and pupils, to take upon themselves the task to uproot the
foreign names and to root the Hebrew names”.[40] Apart from the publication of ordered
lists in the government gazette, regional lists of names were sent to the military offices,
regional and governmental authorities, including the Post, the Survey of Israel and the
Public Works Department, to educational institutions and various companies in charge
of development projects. Israel Radio, at that time a branch of the government, was
also prompted to engage in propagating the new names.[41]
The Commission was aware that the map was not only an objective but also a
powerful and indispensable means in its effort to propagate and inculcate the names:
“As long as the names did not appear in maps, they can not take possession in life”.[42]
In spite of the cooperation with the Survey of Israel, printing the Hebrew map and
making it available to the general public was conducted at a slower pace than the
determination of the Hebrew toponymy. Things were different with military maps, yet
these were classified and not accessible to the general public. Prepared in December
1948, the first Israeli military map of the Negev still depicted Arabic toponymy. The
1952 version of this same map was already in Hebrew. The first comprehensive
 (RE)NAMING THE LANDSCAPE 189

1:100 000 map of Israel that was printed by the Survey of Israel in 1958 was a hybrid
from the perspective of toponymy. Whereas the sheets depicting the Negev were already
Hebraicized, those depicting the northern half of Israel were overprinted on the English
maps prepared by the British Survey of Palestine in the 1940s. This meant that the
maps reproduced Arabic toponymy. The ‘Hebrew’ updating of these maps consisted
of the names of new Jewish settlements founded after 1948 and notes (in brackets) marked
abandoned Arab villages as “ruined”. Dubbed as a “new series”, the comprehenisve 1 :
100 000 Hebrew map of Israel was printed in 1963.
As was originally planned, the third stage of the work of the Commission was intended
to be the construction of the 1:20 000 map.[43] However, gradually the Commission’s mode
of operation changed. In contrast to its early history, when the Commission initiated
the naming procedure and attempted a systematic construction of the Hebrew map, in
its later history new names have been determined in a response to specific needs and
requests. One aspect of the Commission’s work was the naming of yet unnamed
landscape features. Approached by individuals and organizations, the Commission
determined Hebrew names for springs, hills, roads and junctions. This modus operandi
meant a continuous expansion of Hebrew toponymy, regardless of scale and geographical
order.
Another important aspect of the Commission’s later work consisted of determining
names for new Jewish settlements, many of them established in the territories occupied
by Israel following the 1967 war.[44] The original mandate of the Commission was
limited to Israeli territory only, and accordingly no consistent and comprehensive
geographical Hebraicization of the new territories under Israeli control followed.
Hebraization was applied in order to produce toponymical consistency on both sides
of the Green Line separating Israel proper from the West Bank. It was also applied
when no systematic toponymy existed in an area of dense Jewish settlement. Following
the imposition of the Golan Hights under Israeli law in 1981, which amounted to a
de-facto annexation, the entire area was toponymically Hebraicized.

Evaluations and conclusions

Hebrew revival: the Israeli perspective
Initiated in 1949 and promoted by the state, the Hebraicization of Israel’s national
map was conceived as a patriotic project. The recovery of the historical geography of
the Jewish past in the land and the toponymic commemoration of Zionist history
figured prominently in the shaping of the Hebrew national map. However, the primary
objective of the project was to incorporate the language of the landscape into the sphere
of Hebrew revival and to guard Hebrew purity:

The Names Commission is fully sure of the justice of its practice to determine only
Hebrew names and in not giving a place to foreign language in the names of Israeli
settlements, and will further stand in guard of the Hebrew name in the map of Israel.[45]

Producing a comprehensive Hebrew toponymy was an unequivocal act of symbolic

appropriation of the national territory. Hebraicizing place names had featured in
previous stages of Jewish history in the land. The Old Testament relates the renaming
of a Canaanite city by the Israelites after its conquest (Judges 1:17); the Hasmoneans,
who recovered Jewish national independence in the second century  also Hebraicized
Hellenistic (Greek) place names in the territories they conquered.[46] Such historical
precedents, though not explicitly mentioned in the context of the Hebraicization of the
190 MAOZ AZARYAHU AND ARNON GOLAN

Israeli map, nevertheless provided historical and patriotic legitimacy to the Zionist
Hebraicization project.
A product of official cultural engineering, the Hebrew national map was a substantial
contribution to the symbolic foundations of Israeli nationhood. Intended to become
an integral part of everyday language, however, this also meant that the high symbolic
charge assigned to the Hebrew toponymy in the stage of its introduction was later
concealed because of the apparently mundane context of its continuous use. Intended
to conflate the Hebrew language with the geography of Israeli sovereignty, the success
of the Hebraicization project was not in the availability of Hebrew designations or the
ingenuity invested in the construction of particular appellations, but rather in the
popular acceptance of the newly constructed toponyms.
The Names Commission considered the inculcation of the new Hebrew names an
essential part of its work. The combined efforts of official and unofficial agencies and
organizations reinforced the Hebrew map as an authoritative text of the national
homeland. As such, the Hebrew map was an important means of socialization, and its
success among Hebrew speakers was secured in the long run, even if veteran Israelis
further referred to places in their former, Arabic names.
As a national project, the consequent Hebraicization of the map in the 1950s belonged
to a stage of nation-building, when linguistic purism was ideologically founded within
the framework of Hebrew revival. Hebraicization was evident in various spheres of
culture. As late as the 1960s, names of British and American rock groups were
Hebraicized. Later on, the pressure to Hebraicize gradually subsided. In September
1995, for instance, the Israeli Foreign Ministry abolished the regulation requiring state
officials to Hebraicize their family names.[47] In contrast to the erosion of the significance
assigned to Hebrew purity as a patriotic obligation, the ultimate success of Hebrew
toponymy was its acceptance by Hebrew speakers as a self-evident aspect of the national
map and the unreflected use of Hebrew as the language of the landscape.

The language of the landscape: Arabic versus Hebrew

The number of Hebrew toponyms introduced by the Governmental Names Commission
far exceeded the number of Arabic toponyms that existed in the 1940s. Geographical
systemization and the naming of yet unnamed features notwithstanding, the production
of the Hebrew national map consisted to a large extent of a renaming procedure, with
the result that at least for Hebrew speakers, Hebrew replaced Arabic as the predominant
language of the national landscape. However, Arabic toponyms, such as the names of
villages and towns populated by Arabs in Israel, further prevailed in the official
toponymical index. Another phenomenon, though rare, was the use of Arabic toponyms
as historical references. This was especially relevant for battlefields of the 1948 war,
the most prominent example being ‘bab-el-wad’ (Arabic for ‘the gate to the valley’).
On the road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, bab-el-wad was the setting of fierce
fighting during the Israeli War of Independence. As a reference to history and myth,
bab-el-wad has figured prominently in Israeli patriotic lore. The Hebrew toponym (a
translation from the Arabic) refers to contemporary geographical conditions.
Hebrew and Arabic toponymies are to a substantial extent linguistically interrelated.
The Governmental Names Commission was committed to the retrieval of ancient
historical names, and especially Hebrew ones, when such existed. Based upon the notion
that many Arabic names demonstrated toponymical continuity, the Commission also
considered Arabic names as a default when Hebrew names were determined, if by way
 (RE)NAMING THE LANDSCAPE 191

of exact translation of meaning or preserving their sound.[48] Interestingly, borrowing

Arabic words for constructing Hebrew words was already considered an appropriate
measure by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the celebrated ‘renewer of the Hebrew language’. Ben-
Yehuda mentioned the affinity of “essence, character and spirit” between Hebrew and
Arabic and considered these two Semitic languages “as almost one language”.[49] For
him, this “will explain and justify as self-evident the principle I held to borrow in full
hands from the Arabic language in order to fill the deficiencies in our language wherever
its treasure did not provide a root from which a desired word can be nicely derived”.
In the framework of the Jewish-Arab national conflict, the language of the landscape
is a fundamental issue since it concretizes abstract arguments over historical rights and
territorial claims. Whenever a place is claimed by both national communities, referring
to it by either its Hebrew or Arabic name serves as a shibboleth. For example, the
contested Jewish neighborhood in Eastern Jerusalem whose construction began in the
Spring of 1997, where a reference to which as Har Homa (Hebrew) or Jabl abu Ghneim
(Arabic) was not a mere geographical or a linguistic gesture but amounted to a political
statement.
In the context of the Jewish (Israeli)—Arab (Palestinian) dispute over the land, the
question as to what the original language of the landscape was is invested with
extraordinary political significance and emotional charge. An Israeli prevalent view,
based upon conventional scientific knowledge yet undifferentiated and hence ex-
aggerated, maintains that “All (my emphasis) Arabic names are distortions of the
original Hebrew”.[50] A differentiated view on the complex relationship between Arabic
and Hebrew place names as an aspect of the national conflict was presented in
1988 by Miron Benvenisti, a leading Israeli analyst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Exceptional in his empathic apprehension of the interests and grievances of both sides,
Benvenisti also observed that “ironically the Hebrew map was preserved in the mouth
of the people whose settlements we came to erase” and further argued that “without
this adhesiveness to the ancient names we could not have reconstructed our Hebrew
map”.[51]
A popular Arab-Palestinian view upholds that the Hebrew names of virtually all
Jewish settlements built in the course of Zionist activities are illegitimate replacements
of earlier Arabic place names. Such an allegation was already made by a leading figure
in the Supreme Arab Committee in his testimony to the Anglo-American Commission
of Enquiry on Palestine in 1946, namely, before the foundation of the State of Israel[52].
A recent example is an educational quiz organized by the National Palestinian Council
in 1996. One of the questions was “What is the real name of the Palestinian cities
destroyed and in their stead the following cities were founded: Tel Aviv, Ashdod,
Ramat Gan, Netanya”? (Tel Rabia, Isdud, Salame and Um Haled).[53] As this example
demonstrates, the legitimacy of Hebrew names is not dependent on when the settlements
that bear these names were founded. Interestingly, of the four places mentioned, only
Ashdod was founded after Israeli independence; Tel Aviv was founded in 1909.
It should be noted that as a national (re)naming project, the Hebraicization of Israel’s
landscape was an aspect of the transformation of the landscape during and following
the 1948 war which assumed dramatic proportions in the areas controlled by Israel.
From a Zionist perspective, the de-population of Arab areas and the Jewish settlement
of abandoned Arab villages and neighborhoods belonged to the revival of the ancient
Jewish homeland. From an Arab-Palestinian point of view, the depopulation of Arab
villages during and following the 1948 war and their physical destruction in the early
1950s amounted to the “de-signification of Palestine cultural landscape”.[54]
Eradicating the names of abandoned Arab villages from the official index was not a
192 MAOZ AZARYAHU AND ARNON GOLAN

mere by-product of the Hebraicization project but the result of a political decision. In
1951, namely, in an early stage of the Hebraicization project, Ben-Gurion was specifically
asked whether to refer to abandoned Arab villages by their names in the newly
constructed official toponymical index. Ben-Gurion’s answer was unequivocal: “No
names of places that existed should be included in the new map. When we will build
in the ruined place a new settlement we will give it a name and publicize it in maps”.[55]
In his systematic documentation of these Arab villages, Khallidi also refers to their
renaming: “The Hebrew names of these latter (abandoned Arab villages) replaced their
Arabic predecessors; sometimes faintly and mockingly (my emphasis) echoing them”.[56]
Exile and physical destruction notwithstanding, Arab Palestinians adhere to “Arab(ic)
names of places that either were removed from the geographical landscape and replaced
by Jewish settlements or by Arab names that commemorate religious figures and
founders of settlements”.[57] Israeli Arabs further use Arabic as the language of the local
landscape. Manifest in books and maps, the recovery of the historical geography of
Arab Palestine and Arabic toponymy in particular has been also an aspect of Arab-
Palestinian nation-building[58]. The juxtaposition of Israeli and Arab-Palestinian maps
seems to confirm the incompatibility of the Arabic and the Hebrew maps of the disputed
land. Of much interest in this context is the possibility of a ‘toponymic co-existence’
on the level of maps, where places are denoted by both their Arabic and Hebrew names.
One recent example is a map of Israel in an atlas for Arab pupils in Israel, wherein
both Arabic and Hebrew (albeit in a smaller script) toponyms are given.[59]

Conclusion
Embedded into the symbolic foundations of Israeli nationhood, the (re)writing of the
national map in Hebrew was more than an act of translation or transcription. The
construction of the national map amounted to writing a Hebrew text rather than to
rendering an existing text in Hebrew. In this sense, the Hebrew map was a primary
text of Zionist restoration. Its importance in this context was in integrating the language
of the landscape in the sphere of the emerging Hebrew culture and in integrating Zionist
ideology into the spatial practices of everyday life. As an aspect of state formation, the
Hebraicization of the landscape highlighted the symbolic (re)appropriation of the Jewish
homeland in the framework of national independence. Being an official text, the
Hebraicized national map asserted the Jewish identity of the state of Israel as a
conflation of the cultural and the territorial aspects of Jewish sovereignity.
As reported by Hanna Bitan, the coordinator of the Governmental Names Com-
mission, altogether 7000 Hebrew names were officially determined until 1992. Ar-
ticulating the official view, she explained:

The work of the commission gives a tangible expression to the strong link between the
Jewish people and its land. The members of the commission consider their work as a
mission that entails a scientific-moral commitment to determine and revive the Hebrew
names on the map of the land according to the geographical-historical truth of the
Land of Israel.[60]

Conceived of as a restorative measure, the introduction of the official Hebrew map

challenged the status of existing Arabic toponymy as the only authoritative and
legitimate rendition of the landscape. From a Zionist perspective, the Hebraicization
of the landscape may be praised as a restoration of the Jewish past of the land and as
an aspect of Jewish national revival. From an anti-Zionist perspective it may be
condemned as symbolic erasure of the Arab past. However, as it became apparent, the
 (RE)NAMING THE LANDSCAPE 193

Hebrew map of Jewish Israel has not replaced the Arabic map of Arab Filastin. Arabic
toponymy further persists in the form of Arab folk geography and in Arab-Palestinian
maps that assert the validity of Arabic place names. Consequently, Hebrew and Arabic
toponomies persist as two versions of a shared and contested national homeland.

Department of Geography
University of Haifa
Mount Carmel
Haifa 31905
Israel

Notes
[1] E. Gellner, Encounters with Nationalism (Oxford 1994) 166.
[2] S. B. Cohen, and N. Kliot, Israel’s place-names as reflection of continuity and change in
nation-building, Names 29 (1981) 227–248. See also Idem, Place-names in Israel’s ideological
struggle over the administered territories, Annals of the Association of American Geographers
84 (1992) 653–680.
[3] J. A. Fishman, Language and Nationalism (Rowley, MA 1972) 62.
[4] Ibid., p. 55.
[5] I. Even Zohar, Language conflict and national identity: a semiotic approach, in J. Halpher,
(Ed), Nationalism and Modernity: Mediterranean Perspectives (New York and Haifa 1986)
126–135.
[6] U. Eco, Einführung in die Semiotik (Munich 1972) 310.
[7] J Duncan and N Duncan, (Re)reading the landscape, Environment and Planning D: Society
and Space 6 (1988) 117–126.
[8] C. Stelzenmüller, Wer nicht glaubt, der lebt gefährlich, Die Zeit, 25 July 1997, 2.
[9] On Captain Cook’s naming activities in Australia, see P. Carter, The Road to Botany Bay
(New York 1988).
[10] J. Raban, The unlamented west The New Yorker, 20 May, 1996 60–81. On American place
names and naming patterns see also D. J. Boorstin, Names in profusion and confusion, in
Idem, The Americans: The National Experience (New York 1965) 299–306.
[11] M. Azaryahu, The power of commemorative street names, Environment and Planning D:
Society and Space 14 (1996), especially 313–319.
[12] E. Meyer, Die mittelalterichen deutschen Stadtnamen im Bereich der späteren preussischen
Provinz Schlesien und ihre heutige polnischen Entsprechungen, Mitteilungen des Beuthener
Geschichts- und Museums-vereins 50 (1992) 197.
[13] Ten Years’ Work in The Land of Israel, an illustrated booklet, published in 1931 in Jerusalem
by Keren Hayesod (Hebrew).
[14] E. Schweid, The Idea of Judaism as a Culture (Tel Aviv 1995) 300.
[15] On this practice, see G. Toury, Hebraicizing family names in the land of Israel as ‘cultural
translation’, in N. Gertz (Ed), Viewpoints: Culture and Society in the Land of Israel (Tel
Aviv 1988).
[16] Report on the work of the Governmental Names Commission, 4 April 1952, 3, Israel State
Archive [henceforth ISA] C/3788/5551.
[17] S. B. Saulson, Institutionalized Language Planning. Documents and Analysis of the Revival
of Hebrew (The Hague 1979) 65.
[18] For a detailed analysis see Y. Katz, 1995, Identity, nationalism, and place names: Zionist
efforts to preserve the original local Hebrew names in official publications of the mandate
government of Palestine”, Names 43 (1995) 103–118.
[19] In a newspaper article concerning cartography and politics, Avraham Braver, a prominent
Jewish geographer and a future member of the Governmental Names Commission, criticised
the seemingly inconsistent British policy concerning Biblical names in Palestine: “As if
stealthily, in Palestine the British allowed themselves to call Yerushalaim Jerusalem and
Yericho Jericho and Hevron Hebron as it is written in the translation of the Bible, and not
‘Al Quds’ and ‘Aricha’ and ‘Al-Halil’ as in Arabic. Yet in Shechem and Beit Shean and Ein
Ganim and many other places known to us and to the Englishman familiar with the Bible
194 MAOZ AZARYAHU AND ARNON GOLAN

in their Hebrew names—they did not allow themselves such liberty”. See A. Braver, Haaretz,
29 June, 1937, 2.
[20] Y. Press to D. Ben-Gurion, 15 December 1948, ISA C/3783/5550.
[21] G. Kampffmeyer, Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina Verein 15 (1982) 1–33.; Y. Aharoni,
The Land of Israel in Biblical Times: A Geographical History (Jerusalem 1962). For a
comprehensive survey of Arabic toponyms, see N. Kliot, The meaning of Arabic place
names in Palestine and their comparison to the names of Jewish settlements, Ofakim
Begeographia 30 (1989) 71–79.
[22] Y. Aharoni, The Land of Israel in Biblical Times: A Geographical History (Jerusalem 1962)
97. On the continuity of names, see also Y. Ziv (1992) The war of names, Eretz Israel:
Studies in the Knowledge of the Land and its Antiquities, 23 (1992) 371.
[23] For a short history of the Commission, see H. Bitan, The Governmental Names Commission,
Eretz Israel: Studies in the Knowledge of the Land, 23 (1992) 367–370.
[24] Report on the accomplishments of the Governmental Names Commission for the beginning
of the year 5719 (1958–1959), September 1958, 1, ISA C/5551/3787.
[25] Letter M. Brechman to H. Even-Tov, deputy secretary of the Government, 8 September
1949, ISA C/3783/550.
[26] ISA C/3782/5550.
[27] Entry for 11 June 1949, in G. Rivlin and E. Oren (Eds), The War of Independence. Ben-
Gurion’s Diary III (Tel Aviv 1983) 989.
[28] Letter Z. Sherf, the secretary of the government, to Sh. Yevin, Head of Antiquities
Department, 22 November 1951, ISA C/5550/3782.
[29] Report on the activities of the Governmental Names Commission, the Negev commission
1949–1950, 4 April 1952, ISA C/5551/3788.
[30] Ibid., 3.
[31] Commission for the determination of geographical names in the Negev (1949–1950) 2, in
Report on the Governmental Names Commission, 4 April 1952, ISA C/5551/3788.
[32] Letter D. Ben-Gurion to members of the commission for the determination of names in the
Negev, September 6, 1950, ISA C/5550/3782.
[33] Report on the work of the Governmental Names Commission, 4 April 1952, 3, ISA C/3788/
5551.
[34] Draft proposal, the geographical committee, the Prime Minister Office, 1, ISA C/3783/5550.
[35] Report on the accomplishments of the Governmental Names Commission for the beginning
of the year 5719 (1958–1959), September 1958, 3, ISA C/3787/5551.
[36] The Names Commission (no date), ISA C/3787/5551, 1.
[37] Report of the Governmental Names Commission, 6 February 1955, 1, ISA C/3788/5551.
[38] Sh. Yevin, Protocol, session no. 71 of the Governmental Names Commission, 7 February
1955, 1, ISA C/3787/5551.
[39] Report on the activities of the Governmental Names Commission, September 1958, 4, ISA
C/3787/5551.
[40] Report on the activities of the Governmental Names Commission, 7 April 1952, 7, ISA C/
3788/5550.
[41] Letter B.-Z. Eshel to the secretary of the government, 7 September 1953, ISA 3782/5550.
[42] Report on the activities of the Governmental Names Commission, September 1958, 4, ISA
C/3787/5551.
[43] Ibid., 1. In a later report it was maintained that this stage was begun in 1960 (The Names
Commission (no date), ISA C/3787/5551, 1).
[44] On these see Cohen and Kliot, Place-names.
[45] Protocol, session no. 71 of the Governmental Names Commission, 7 February 1955, 2, ISA
C/3787/5551. These emphatic sentences came as a reaction to that the Knesset forced the
Commission to accept a commemorative place name that was not Hebrew.
[46] E. Ben-Yehuda, Prolegomena to the Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew
(Jerusalem 1940), 189.
[47] Diplomats can now keep their non-Hebraic names, Jerusalem Post, 15 September 1995.
[48] N. Kliot, The meaning of Arabic settlement names in the land of Israel and their comparison
with Hebrew settlement names, Ofakim Begeographia 30 (1989) 71–79.
[49] Ben-Yehuda, op. cit., 10.
[50] D. Bar-Ilan, Archeology used to bash Israel, Jerusalem Post, 5 April 1996, 9. In a similar
vein see U. Elitzur, Point out: Hevron, Schechem and Jerusalem, Yediot Ahronot, 30
September 1996, 5.
 (RE)NAMING THE LANDSCAPE 195

[51] M. Benvenisti, What is in a name, in Idem., The Sling and the Club (Jerusalem 1988), 136.
[52] In his testimony (March 12, 1946), Jamal Husseini also claimed: “Arab villages were
destroyed; houses, mosques and cemeteries were erased from the map of the mandate
government and in their stead there appeared Hebrew names of Zionist settlements”. Cited
in A. Karlebach (Ed), The Anglo-American Inquiry Commission for Palestine (Tel Aviv 1946),
Vol I, 352–365. On the reaction of Moshe Sharet of the Jewish Agency, who later became
Israel’s foreign minister and for a brief period also prime minister, see ibid., Vol. II, 531.
[53] R. Shaked, Who are the Zionist terror gangs? A personal computer is promised to the solver
Yediot Ahronot, 18 April 1996, 11.
[54] G. Falah, The 1948 Israeli-Palestinian war and its aftermath: the transformation and
de-signification of Palestine’s cultural landscape, Annals of the Association of American
Geographers 86 (1996) 256–285. For a different perspective see A. Golan, The transformation
of abandoned rural areas in Israel’s War of Independence, Israel Studies 2 (1997) 94–110.
[55] Note from Nechenmia Argov (the military secretary of Ben-Gurion) to the chairman of the
Governmental Names Commission, 25 June 1951, ISA C/3782/5550.
[56] W. Khalidi (Ed), All that Remains. The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated in
1948 (Washington DC 1992) xxii.
[57] Cohen and Kliot, Place names, p. 676.
[58] An example for a book that juxtaposes Hebrew and Arabic place names. A. Shukri,
Palestinian Sites between Two Periods and Two Maps (Shuafat 1992). An example for such
a map is The Temporary Borders of the Palestinian Authority (Amman 1993).
[59] M. Braver, Y. Bishara and H. Iraqi, Comprehensive Atlas for Arab Schools (London 1996).
[60] H. Bitan, The Governmental Names Commission, 369.