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ReDefining the Hebraic Identity of a New Nation
by Negation of the Golah (Exile)

An Excerpt from the Book:
Modern Hebrew
by Norman Berdichevsky

As dissatisfaction with the British Mandate grew, a clandestine underground emerged and began to contest the official Zionist leadership. These movements made more and more use of the term Ivri (Hebrew) as an adjective to express their instinctive attachment to the language, soil and landscapes of the homeland, their creativity in music, song, literature, dance, humor, as nationally Hebrew rather than Jewish. Zionism amounted to a revolution in traditional Jewish life and the majority secular elements sought to include every aspect of social, economic and political life. This was the most ambitious response to a challenge and dilemma facing an oppressed people.

The term was used prominently in the Biblical passage in which Jonah proudly asserts his identity Ivri anochi (I am a Hebrew!) Seeking to escape God's command to fulfill a mission, Jonah boards a ship bound for Tarshish. When the ship is struck by a storm, the sailors seek to discover why the gods have deserted them and threaten disaster:

And they said everyone to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah. Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; what is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? What is thy country and of what people art thou? And he said unto them, I am a Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. 

The passage was deemed the most appropriate to inculcate a sense of pride in the new Zionist movements attachment to land and language imitating Jonah, who first tried to hide his identity. These passages are part of the book of Jonah which is read in its entirety on Yom Kippur an indication of its importance. The Zionist movement embraced new cultural elements to separate and institutionalize a distinct Hebrew identity starting with language   and literature  but extending to personal and family names, and different attitudes towards male-female relationships, child care, courtship and marriage, work, clothing, sports, military training , seamanship  the home, a love of nature, the cinema , the nature of a new national identity based on the Biblical or pre-exilic past , even a different cuisine and cooking (figure 10) than in the Golah (exile) featuring eggplant, chickpeas, olive oil and citrus fruit.

Ben-Yehudas Campaign and the Fierce Opposition

The Zionist elite emerged at the end of the 19th century to propagate Hebrew, teach it in primary schools, and follow Ben-Yehudas pioneer work. They were all volunteers and powerless in the traditional sense of being without financial means, the support of the authorities, access to mass media, or organizational tools on their side. Resistance from the orthodox religious community in Palestine was immediate and determined.

The Orthodox in Jerusalem acted aggressively against Ben Yehuda they even refused to bury his children, and denounced him to the Turkish authorities leading to his imprisonment. In several of the agricultural colonies, teachers of Hebrew were threatened or expelled because they had gone too far by promoting Hebrew as the language of instruction in secular subjects.

Hebraization of Personal and Family Names

This renaming process started with Eliezer Ben Yehuda himself whose name had been Perelman before arriving in Palestine. Many new Hebrew speakers arriving in Palestine chose first names, not the traditional ones  from the Bible but those symbolizing hope, optimism, wild animals and nature such as Rina (Joy), Geulah (Redemption), Rakefet (Cyclamen), Narkis (Narcissus), Tikvah, (Hope), Zohar (Shining Light), Tal (Dew), Dror (Freedom),  Sahar (Dawn) Ilan (Tree), Nitzan (bud of a plant) Ayal and Ayala (a male and female Deer). Some even selected the names of shady characters from the scriptures not previously used by Jews in Europe such as Nimrod (mighty hunter), Boaz, Ehud and Yoav.

In 1944, the Zionist leadership and the Jewish National Council proclaimed it the "Year of Naturalization and the Hebrew Name" and published a booklet which contained guidelines on the creation of new Hebrew surnames. Many immigrants to modern Israel changed their names to erase memories of the oppressive Russian, Austrian, Polish exiles countries where Jews had often been humiliated. Although certain typical Jewish names  in particular ending -berg, -stein or -man are actually of German origin, and those ending  -sky and -vitz are Slavic, they nevertheless came to be regarded as reminiscent of a humiliating past. 

The switch to Hebrew surnames was spearheaded by the principal leaders of the Zionist Movement, so Schneor Zalman Rubashov became Shazar, Yitzhak Shimshelevitz became Ben-Zvi and Golda Meyerson became Meir. It is interesting to note that the Revisionist/Rightwing leaders within the Zionist Movement, such as Menachem Begin and Joseph Klausner, did not change their names and neither did Israels first president Chaim Weizmann. 

After the establishment of the State of Israel, Ben-Gurion, in an order to the IDF soldiers wrote: "It is desirable that every commanding officer (from Squadron Commander to Chief of Staff) should change his surname, whether German, English, Slavic, French or foreign in general, to a Hebrew surname, in order to be a role model for his soldiers. The Israel Defense Forces must be Hebrew in spirit, vision, and in all internal and external expressions." A "Committee for Hebrew Names" was established to supervise the implementation of the order, whose task was to assist in the choice of a Hebrew name.

The Zionist movement not only pleaded for Aliyah (immigration to Israel) but it also desired to create a new national identity in the image of a native Eretz-Yisraeli (Palestinian Jew in the language of the period 1920-1948) who would be different from the Yiddish speaking Jew of the Diaspora and the image of the non-productive shtetl. Israeli banknotes in the 1960s featured a trio of muscular young anonymous healthy men and women engaged in the military, agriculture, fishing and industry as symbolic of the new Israeli nation, and traditionally regarded as non-Jewish occupations.