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Academic bibliography on place naming, branding, mapping issues in Israel and Palestinian territories

 

52 References in European languages only at this stage!

Each reference is followed by the concerned areas: (Israel and/or the Palestinian Territories, then the cities or regions)

and the main adressed themes,

as well as the summary from the authors, when available,

 

Ayyad, A. (2023) “Contested naming practices in the Palestinian–Israeli conflict: a translation perspective.“, Translation Studies, 1-19.

  • Israel ; Palestinian territories
  • Translation
  • Overall

Abstract: This article examines contested naming practices in the Palestinian?Israeli conflict from a translation perspective. Examples are drawn from two political plans, namely, the ?Tenet Plan? and the ?Disengagement Plan? and their different translations. The two plans were translated by different agents ? including governmental and non-governmental institutions as well as media outlets ? into Arabic and English and into Arabic and Hebrew, respectively. The analysis, informed by concepts and methods of Product-Oriented Descriptive Translation Studies and Critical Discourse Analysis, focuses on the translation of names given to places, events and actions, and protagonists of the Palestinian?Israeli conflict. These translations constitute a revealing site for analyzing contested naming practices that reflect the asymmetric power struggle between the two sides of the conflict, as well as their opposing political positions and competing narratives. Overall, this article highlights the importance of studying contested naming practices in their ideological, socio-political, historical, and institutional contexts.

Azaryahu, M. (2012). “Hebrew, Arabic, English: the politics of multilingual street signs in Israeli cities.” Social & Cultural Geography 13(5): 461-479.

  • Israel
  • Signage ; Dispute,
  • Overview

Abstract: In multilingual societies, not only the names in urban toponymic inscriptions display identity politics and reproduce nationalist discourses but also the languages used. This is clearly the case with multilingual street signs, where specific preferences underlie the choice and placement of languages and scripts, signifying the processes and relationships of political and social power. Applying a historical perspective, this paper explores the politics underlying language preference and script display policies on street signs in British Mandate Palestine between 1922 and 1948 and in Israel after 1948. The paper examines how display and placement of Arabic, English, and Hebrew on street signs has been susceptible to shifting policies drafted and executed by various branches of local and national government. It further analyzes disputes arising from specific policies. The historical perspective sheds light on how political and legal contexts have influenced the promulgation of policies, whereas the semiotic approach directs attention to how the display of languages on street signs encodes political messages and ideological meanings.

Azaryahu, M. (2012). “Rabin’s road: The politics of toponymic commemoration of Yitzhak Rabin in Israel.Political Geography 31(2): 73-82.

  • Israel
  • Public policies, Commemoration
  • Case Study

Abstract: Embedded into the language of the landscape and integrated into the routines of everyday life, toponymic commemorations belong to the political geography of public memory. The impact of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination on Israeli society and culture was made apparent in a space-time matrix of public commemorations, which introduced remembrance of the slain Prime Minister into the public sphere. This article focuses on the politics of Rabin’s toponymic commemoration, evinced in decision-making procedures at local and national levels of government in various stages of the commemoration project. It expands on toponymic commemoration as a measure of conciliation for a politically divided nation and as an arena where political struggles between Left and Right were waged. The article further elaborates on public criticism of the commemoration project, which was mainly directed against what seemed excessive commemoration and inappropriate naming practices. Focused on the extraordinary circumstances of the political assassination of a head of government, this paper offers insights into how toponymic commemoration in a politically divided society unfolds between a demonstration of national consensus and expression of political conflict. It also directs attention to the question of appropriateness of commemorative naming practices in a democratic society.

Azaryahu, M. (2012). Namesakes. History and Politics of Street Naming in Israel [in Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Carmel Publishing House. 

  • Israel
  • Street Naming
  • Overview

Azaryahu, M. (2004). “Naming the Streets of (Arab) Jerusalem during the British Period 1920-1948.” Horizons in Geography / אופקים בגאוגרפיה (60/61): 299-308.

  • Israel ; Palestinian territories ; Jerusalem
  • Hebraization; Colonial; Disputed
  • Case study

Abstract: The case of street names either introduced or proposed for Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem prior to 1948 represents a colonial rather than a nationalist pattern of street-naming, ft appears that the British authorities who were actively involved in regulating the street names of Jerusalem, were intent upon reducing nationalist undertones. The preference was for names that commemorated the history of Jerusalem and its status as a holy city to Jews, Christians and Muslims. With the history of Jerusalem being the primary organizing principle (though not the sole criterion for selecting historical names), the historical connotation on street signs was to a substantial extent articulated in local terms of the city’s long and turbulent history.
Notwithstanding the efforts of the British administration, the growing political tensions in Jerusalem in the last years of British Mandate rendered the continuation of efforts to name streets practically impossible. In his memoirs R. M. Graves admitted: “it was found impossible, for political reasons, to reconvene the latest Committee, and until better times come the problem of street-naming must remain unsolved”. However, in the aftermath of the 1948 war the political and demographic conditions prevailing in Jerusalem changed dramatically, and the renaming of streets in former Arab neighborhoods in western Jerusalem belonged to the transformation of this part of the city into the capital of the newly established State of Israel.

Azaryahu, M. and A. Golan (2001). “(Re)naming the landscape: The formation of the Hebrew map of Israel 1949–1960.” Journal of Historical Geography 27(2): 178-195.

  • Israel
  • Mapping, Hebraization
  • Overview

Abstract: 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.

Azaryahu, M. and R. Kook (2002). “Mapping the nation: street names and Arab-Palestinian identity: three case studies.Nations and Nationalism 8(2): 195-213.

  • Israel ; Jerusalem ; Haïfa ; Umm al-Fahm
  • Public policies, Arabic, Hebraization, Zionism
  • Overview ; Case studies

Abstract : The naming of streets is part of the ongoing process of mapping the boundaries of the nation. This article examines three sets of Arab-Palestinian street names (pre-1948 Haifa and Jerusalem and post-1948 Umm el Fahm) as locally constructed (texts of identity) in the historical and political context of their official creation. The investigation aims at charting the ideological orientations represented and the political messages entailed in these three different textual manifestations of Arab-Palestinian national identity. The analysis focuses on notions of historical and cultural heritage as expressed in the choice of street names. Finally, it offers an interpretative evaluation of this process, placing it within broader ideological and historical contexts.

Bar-Gal, Y. (1989). “Cultural-Geographical Aspects of Street Names in the Towns of Israel.” Names 37(4): 329-344.

  • Israel
  • Public policies; Hebraization; Zionism
  • Overview

Abstract: A comparative analysis of the street names of many towns in Israel shows the importance of Zionist ideology in the process of naming, although there is apparently a central core of names boasting a national consensus. As a result of the War of Independence (1948), most of the Arab and English street names were changed, an act symbolic of the Jewish and Zionist nature of the urban environment.

Bar-Gal, Y. (1989). “Naming city streets — A chapter in the history of Tel-Aviv, 1909–1947.” Contemporary Jewry 10(2): 39-50.

  • Israel ; Tel-Aviv
  • Public policies, Zionism
  • Case Study

Abstract : The first settler of Tel-Aviv wanted to bestow a cultural distinctiveness on their neighborhood, so that it would differ substantially from Jaffa, where they had lived previously. In the naming of streets they attempted to emphasize their new cultural commitment. From being a small neighborhood of a few dozen families, the city’s population grew within 30 years to about a quarter of a million inhabitants. This rapid growth involved the city administrators in a race to apply names to new streets. In 1910 there were only six city streets with names; 15 years later there were about 150, and at the end of the British Mandate over 350 streets had been named.

Ben-Israel, A. & Meir, A. H. (2008). “Renaming space and reshaping identities: The case of the Bedouin town of Hura in Israel”, HAGAR: Studies in Culture, Polity & Identities 8(2), 65-92.

  • Israel
  • Bedouin neotoponymy
  • Hura

Abstract: By exploring several layers of spatiality in the Bedouin town of Hura, this paper illuminates the process of constructing place and identities in the Bedouin community in the Negev. For this purpose we integrate two central themes in human geography-place naming and sense of place. We begin by locating these two theoretical issues in the experiential context of the Bedouins as a multi-marginalized displaced minority. In the empirical stage, we present three spaces of place naming in the town: institutional, residential and economic. We then discuss the “sense of place naming,” that is, we interpret the cultural process which underlies the mechanisms of constructing spatial meanings and representations in Hura. Under harsh and hastened urbanization, urbanized Bedouins seem to prefer two basic fields of associations as a new indoctrination tool to their spaces. First and foremost is a “powerful Islam,” which dominates institutional and residential spaces. The second is the Israeli-Western-capitalistic inclination, which dominates the economic-business arena. After a long period of non-naming occurrences, these new and ambivalent naming trends suggest that positive bonds to local space have developed among some residents of Hura. However, two major worlds of meaning which prevailed in Bedouin spatiality in their more nomadic phases in the past-tribal-kinship and ecological-natural-are excluded from their contemporary new representation, indicating new urban Islamic non-tribal culture ideals and identity aspirations.

Benvenisti, M. (2002). Sacred landscape: The buried history of the Holy Land since 1948. University of California Press.

  • Israel; Palestinian territories
  • Hebraization ; Arabic; Disputes, Contest, Claims
  • Overview

Abstract: As a young man Meron Benvenisti often accompanied his father, a distinguished geographer, when the elder Benvenisti traveled through the Holy Land charting a Hebrew map that would rename Palestinian sites and villages with names linked to Israel’s ancestral homeland. These experiences in Benvenisti’s youth are central to this book, and the story that he tells helps explain how during this century an Arab landscape, physical and human, was transformed into an Israeli, Jewish state.
Benvenisti first discusses the process by which new Hebrew nomenclature replaced the Arabic names of more than 9,000 natural features, villages, and ruins in Eretz Israel/Palestine (his name for the Holy Land, thereby defining it as a land of Jews and Arabs). He then explains how the Arab landscape has been transformed through war, destruction, and expulsion into a flourishing Jewish homeland accommodating millions of immigrants. The resulting encounters between two peoples who claim the same land have raised great moral and political dilemmas, which Benvenisti presents with candor and impartiality.
Benvenisti points out that five hundred years after the Moors left Spain there are sufficient landmarks remaining to preserve the outlines of Muslim Spain. Even with sustained modern development, the ancient scale is still visible. Yet a Palestinian returning to his ancestral landscape after only fifty years would have difficulty identifying his home. Furthermore, Benvenisti says, the transformation of Arab cultural assets into Jewish holy sites has engendered a struggle over the “signposts of memory” essential to both peoples.
Sacred Landscape raises troublesome questions that most writers on the Middle East avoid. The now-buried Palestinian landscape remains a symbol and a battle standard for Palestinians and Israelis. But it is Benvenisti’s continuing belief that Eretz Israel/Palestine has enough historical and physical space for the people of both nations and that it can one day be a shared homeland.

Bigon, L. and M. Ben Arrous (2021). Street-Naming Cultures in Africa and Israel: Power Strategies and Place-Making Practices, London, Routledge.

  • Israel
  • Signage, Public policies; Vernacular uses
  • Overview

This book is focused on the street-naming politics, policies and practices that have been shaping and reshaping the semantic, textual and visual environments of urban Africa and Israel. Its chapters expand on prominent issues, such as the importance of extra-formal processes, naming reception and unofficial toponymies, naming decolonisation, place attachment, place-making and the materiality of street signage. By this, the book directly contributes to the mainstreaming of Africa’s toponymic cultures in recent critical place-names studies. Unconventionally and experimentally, comparative glimpses are made throughout between toponymic experiences of African and Israeli cities, exploring pioneering issues in the overwhelmingly Eurocentric research tradition. The latter tends to be concentrated on Europe and North America, to focus on nationalistic ideologies and regime change and to over-rely on top-down ‘mere’ mapping and street indexing. This volume is also unique in incorporating a rich and stimulating variety of visual evidence from a wide range of African and Israeli cities. The materiality of street signage signifies the profound and powerful connections between structured politics, current mundane practices, historical traditions and subaltern cultures.

Bigon, L. and M. Ben Arrous (2018). “A Tale of Two Brazzas: Intertwining (Post-)Colonial Namescapes.Names: 1-14.

  • Israel ; Holon
  • Public policies, Vernacular uses
  • Case study

This article brings together and analyzes two toponyms: Brazzaville Street in Holon, Israel, and Quay of Brazza in Bordeaux, France. In the light of historical and contemporary developments at different points of time, geographies and socio-political contexts, the crisscrossing between both Brazza-related toponyms is useful in promoting a critical and more nuanced interpretation of space and nomenclature. In exploring the varied flows of power, ambiguities and tensions behind the two place names, and in bringing the Congo to the fore, the article also relates to geographies beyond Europe. This aspect of spatial intertwining contributes to the de-Eurocentrization of recent place names studies, which tend to be focused on Europe/the West and on nationalistic aspects. In addition, a variety of primary and secondary materials is employed, including visual and archival sources, and fieldwork.

Bigon, L. and A. Dahamshe (2014). “An anatomy of symbolic power: Israeli road-sign policy and the Palestinian minority.Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32(4): 606-621.

  • Israel ; Galilee
  • Signage, Public policies, Arabic
  • Overview

Abstract: Perceived as mundane and experienced as mere informative images, innocent and undisputable, road signs can constitute part of a highly invested political strategy for producing a linguistic landscape. This is especially true in multiethnic or multinational states, such as Israel, where the linguistic landscape is being constituted in a contested context. The focus of this paper is on the visual and linguistic representations of Arabic and Hebrew toponyms in the Israeli road-sign system of the Galilee region. They will be examined in terms of positioning and organisation, landscape salience, and modes of transcript. Embracing Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of ‘symbolic power’, our detailed analysis exposes the very anatomy of a bipartite rhetorical policy on the part of Israeli governmental agencies: on the one hand is spatial exclusion of the Palestinian memory through various visual and linguistic manipulations, tactics, and mechanisms at the expense of its own rich toponymic corpus. On the other, there is the establishment of theˇidentity and related imagery of the Hebrew-speaking majority, which supports the Zionist project, regional consciousness, and spatial appropriation. Keywords: road signs, toponymy, linguistic landscape, symbolic power, Israeli – Palestinian relations, Galilee

Birnbaum, E. (2023). “Street Renaming as a Means of Symbolic Insult and a Diplomatic Slap in International Relations”. Millennium, 03058298231171612. 

  • Israël
  • Toponymic diplomacy, Street renaming
  • Overview

Abstract: This article finds that states can use street renaming as an act of retaliation against other international actors (states and international organizations). Specifically, it shows how states can employ street renaming to symbolically insult and thus diminish their opponent’s sense of self. After situating the practice of retaliatory street renaming within the study of emotions in international relations (IR), and symbolic insults in diplomacy, in particular, the article surveys a multitude of cases in which states used street renaming to humiliate and defy other international actors. To further substantiate this thesis, the article then delves into one illustrative case: Israel’s 1975 decision to rename all streets carrying the name of the United Nations ‘Zionism Street’ in response to UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, which determined that ‘Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination’. The article concludes by calling for more scholarly attention to street renaming and other symbolic acts in IR.

Bittner, C. (2017). “OpenStreetMap in Israel and Palestine – ‘Game changer’ or reproducer of contested cartographies?Political Geography 57: 34-48.

  • Israël ; Palestinian territories
  • Mapping ; Dispute, Contest, Claim
  • Overview

Abstract: In Israel and Palestine, map-making practices were always entangled with contradictive spatial identities and imbalanced power resources. Although an Israeli narrative has largely dominated the ‘cartographic battlefield’, the latest chapter of this story has not been written yet: collaborative forms of web 2.0 cartographies have restructured power relations in mapping practices and challenged traditional monopolies on map and spatial data production. Thus, we can expect web 2.0 cartographies to be a ‘game changer’ for cartography in Palestine and Israel. In this paper, I review this assumption with the popular example of OpenStreetMap (OSM). Following a mixed methods approach, I comparatively analyze the genesis of OSM in Israel and Palestine. Although nationalist motives do not play a significant role on either side, it turns out that the project is dominated by Israeli and international mappers, whereas Palestinians have hardly contributed to OSM. As a result, social fragmentations and imbalances between Israel and Palestine are largely reproduced through OSM data. Discussing the low involvement of Palestinians, I argue that OSM’s ground truth paradigm might be a watershed for participation. Presumably, the project’s data are less meaningful in some local contexts than in others. Moreover, the seemingly apolitical approach to map only ‘facts on the ground’ reaffirms present spatio-social order and thus the power relations behind it. Within a Palestinian narrative, however, many aspects of the factual material space might appear not as neutral physical objects but as results of suppression, in which case, any ‘accurate’ spatial representation, such as OSM, becomes objectionable.

Bittner, C. (2017). “Diversity in volunteered geographic information: comparing OpenStreetMap and Wikimapia in Jerusalem.” GeoJournal 82(5): 887-906.

  • Israël ; Palestinian Territories ; Jerusalem
  • Mapping; Dispute, Contest, Claim;
  • Case Study

Abstract: While the term “volunteered geographic information” (VGI) has become a buzzword in debates on the geoweb, online cartography and digital geoinformation, the scope and reach of VGI remains underexplored. Drawing on literature on social implications of VGI, this article, firstly, explores differences between VGI initiatives at the example of a comparative case study on social biases within data of OSM and Wikimapia in the fragmented social setting of Jerusalem, Israel. The results of this analysis turn out to be highly contradictive between both projects, which challenges widely accepted assumptions on the imprint of social inequalities and digital divides on VGI. This observation guides, secondly, a discussion of diversity within the category of VGI. Arguing that mapping communities, data formats and knowledge types behind VGI are extremely dissimilar, the paper proceeds by questioning the consistency and utility of VGI as a category. Seeking for a more comprehensive typology of VGI, Edney’s notion of cartographic modes will be presented as an approach towards a more contextualized understanding of VGI projects by embracing their underlying cultural, social and technical relations. Consequently, the paper suggests empirical research on the cartographic modes of a broad series of VGI projects through qualitative and quantitative methods alike.

Brocket, T. (2021). “Governmentality, Counter-Memory and the Politics of Street Naming in Ramallah, Palestine.Geopolitics 26(2): 541-563. 

  • Palestinian territories; Ramallah
  • Public Policies ; Commemoration; Counter Memory
  • Case study

Abstract: Growing body of research has shown the geopolitical significance of place naming, yet recent contributions have called for new conceptual and methodological approaches. Drawing on mixed-methods research examining place naming processes, this study analyses Ramallah Municipality’s street naming project in the occupied Palestinian territories. It argues that the naming project was bound up with the municipality’s desire to develop a governable and modernized de facto capital city in the context of quasi-statelessness and occupation. Moreover, the naming project formed an opportunity for the municipality to inscribe Palestinian counter-memory on the landscape in the context of Palestinian cultural and material dispossession. However, residents of Ramallah viewed the new toponymic regime as a project of the perceived Palestinian ‘elite’ that served to erase local memory in a rapidly changing city. This analysis of the construction, reception and negotiation of street naming as a process reveals much about the internally contested process of state formation under occupation and the political geography and geopolitics of Palestine/Israël.

Calderón, M. (2022). “Erinnerungs-, Orientierungs- und Hinweisfunktion Jerusalemer Verkehrsflächennamen mit französisch-sprachigen Elementen im Rahmen toponomastischer Linguistic-Landscape-Forschung.apropos [Perspektiven auf die Romania](8): 53-92

  • Israel; Jerusalem
  • Etymology, Commemoration, Signage
  • Case study

Abstract: This article deals with hodonyms in Jerusalem that include French elements. By distinguishing between top-down and bottom-up texts displayed in public spaces, and between the sometimes differing perspectives of decision makers and their advisors on the one hand, and the public on the other hand, it examines the impact of the hodonymic functions of memory, orientation and indication on Jerusalemites. In accordance with recent developments in Linguistic Landscaping, the corpus includes both photographs and interviews.

Carey, S. T. (2014). Behind the Linguistic Landscape of Israel/Palestine: exploring the visual implications of expansionist policies. Master of Art, The University of Texas at Austin.

  • Israel; Palestinian territories
  • Linguistic landscape ; Signage ; Public Policies ; Dispute, Contest, Claim
  • Overview

Abstract : The concept of the Linguistic Landscape (LL) is a relatively new and developing field, but it is already proving to illuminate significant trends in sociocultural boundaries and linguistic identities within heterogeneous areas. By examining types of signage displayed in public urban spaces such as street signs, billboards, and advertisements, scholars have gained insight into the inter and intra-group relations that have manifested as a result of the present top-down and bottom-up language ideologies. This paper applies LL theory to the current situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories through a discussion of the various policies that have shaped the Linguistic Landscape. It will begin my examining the Hebraicization of the toponymy after the creation of Israel, then discuss the conflict over the LL, which can be seen in several photographs where the Arabic script has been marked out or covered. Moving forward, this work addresses the grammatical errors on Arabic language signs, which reflect the low priority of Arabic education in Israel. Finally, this project expands upon the LL framework by looking at the economic relationship between Israel and the Palestinian territories and how it is reflected in public places, such as supermarkets, which display an overwhelming presence of Hebrew.

Through the use of photographic evidence of the LL from the region which shows the prevalence of Hebrew place names, Israeli economic goods, and negative attitudes towards the use of Arabic on signage, this paper takes a multidisciplinary approach to examining the history and policies that shape the language that is visible in public urban spaces. The relationship between the state and the Linguistic Landscape sheds light on the power dynamics in this multilingual space. As Hebrew is given preferential treatment, despite the official status of both Hebrew and Arabic, Israel continues to dominate the social space with the use of Hebrew in order to assert their claims to the land. In addition to investigating the power dynamics that are reflected on visual displays of language in this region, this works serves as a meaningful contribution to the Linguistic Landscape by expanding its methodology and units of analysis.

Carraro, V. (2021). Jerusalem Online: Critical Cartography for the Digital Age, Springer Nature.

  • Israel; Palestinian territories ; Jerusalem
  • Mapping ; Dispute, Contest, Claim
  • Heuristic case study

Abstract: The book addresses the rapid shifts which have taken place within cartography, and argues that no amount of technological sophistication will lead to neutral representations, and that as such critical cartography provides a solid foundation for questioning the power of maps. It considers the fragmentation, dynamism and opacity that characterise online maps, and argues for the need of new ways of thinking and researching maps. The book offers an approach grounded in ‘ontological’ social theory and feminist technoscience, and illustrates it through the analysis of three Jerusalem-related mapping controversies. Using online media, historical maps and ethnographic work, each case study explores a different map provider and a recent mapping development: Google Maps and the distributed authorship of web-maps; Waze and algorithmic navigation; OpenStreetMap and crowdsourcing. The book is a key read to faculty and advanced students in Urban Studies and Critical Cartography. It will particularly appeal to those working in the digital geographies

Carraro, V. and B. Wissink (2018). “Participation and marginality on the geoweb: The politics of non-mapping on OpenStreetMap Jerusalem.” Geoforum 90: 64-73.

  • Israel; Palestinian territories ; Jerusalem
  • Mapping ; Dispute, Contest, Claim
  • Case study

Abstract : This paper contributes to the literature on participation and marginality on the geoweb by exploring the politics of non-mapping on OpenStreetMap (OSM). To this end, we reflect on our collaboration with Grassroots Jerusalem (GJ) – a Jerusalem-based Palestinian non-governmental organization (NGO) – and their engagement with OSM. Specifically, we draw on observations from mapping workshops with Palestinian youth, and on the analysis of GJ’s involvement in the dispute about the name ‘Jerusalem’ on OSM. We address the following research questions: How should we understand Palestinian underrepresentation on OpenStreetMap? What does this imply for the conceptualisation of participation and marginality in the geoweb literature? We suggest that the underrepresentation of Palestinian mappers stems in part from the project’s technical and linguistic barriers, and in part from a deliberate ‘exit’ tactic linked to Palestinian anti-normalisation efforts. These findings challenge prevailing understandings of (non)participation as the product of exclusion alone, and indicate that geoweb scholars should pay greater attention to non-users, and their engagements with crowdsourced projects from an outsider position.

Cohen, S. B. and N. Kliot (1981). “Israel’s Place-Names as Reflection of Continuity and Change in Nation-Building.” Names: A Journal of Onomastics 29(3): 227-248.

  • Israel
  • Public Policy; Hebraization, Zionism
  • Overview

Cohen, S. B. and N. Kliot (1992). “Place-Names in Israel’s Ideological Struggle over the Administered Territories.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82(4): 653-680.

  • Palestinian territories
  • Public Policy; Hebraization ; Zionism ; Commemoration ; Dispute, Contest, Claim, Competition
  • Overview

Abstract: This paper deals with the symbolic role of place-names as expressions of ideological values. Names are symbolic elements of landscape that reflect abstract or concrete national and local sentiments and goals. In the case of Israel, the selection of place-names has become a powerful tool for reinforcing competing national Zionist ideologies. Implicit in this competition are two major Israeli place-name themes: the message of essentialism or continuity, and epochalism or change. Essentialism is expressed in Hebrew placenames and in a variety of other symbols that project Israel as the sole heir to the Holy Land. In this context, Biblical and Talmudic place-names are reintroduced or reinforce the bonds between the Jewish community in Israel and the land, as emphasized by the Likud party when in power, in alliance with the orthodox religious wing and nationalist parties of the extreme right. Epochalism is expressed through place-names that reflect modern Zionist settlement values and military heroes, or the renewed interaction of Jews with their land through identification with nature. This was the approach of the founders of the State of Israel; it continued while the Labor party was in power, and is likely to be reintroduced with Labor’s return to power. We explore the process of naming places as a mechanism for landscape transformation in the territories captured by Israel in the Six Days War of 1967-the Golan, Gaza, and the West Bank. In these regions, the conflict between Jewish and Palestinian/Arab national symbols is most prominent, and the differences within the two Zionist camps over the future relationship of the Territories to the State of Israel are most pronounced.

Dahamshe, A. (2021). “Palestinian Arabic versus Israeli Hebrew Place-Names: Comparative Cultural Reading of Landscape Nomenclature and Israeli Renaming Strategies.Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies 20(1): 62-82.

  • Israel; Paletinian territories
  • Public policies, Vernacular uses
  • Overview

Abstract: This article compares Palestinian (Arabic) and Israeli (Hebrew) names of natural features in Palestine/Israel. Based on postcolonial reading and critical toponymy, I argue that despite the dominance of the Jewish nationalist narrative the nomenclature includes ‘intermediate categories’ that attest to subversive linguistic practices, bottom-up communication aspects, and sociocultural realities. These aspects are analysed through five main categories: unification; uniqueness; male rhetoric replacing female identity; sanitization; and linguistic imitation. The article adds to the literature largely focused on the political aspect of the Jewish settlement names that replaced Palestinian names in that it shows how Zionist naming of natural features included the cultural perspectives of the Palestinian names in order to appropriate them for internal Jewish cultural needs.

Dahamshe, A. (2018) “Symbolic Distinctions in Traditional Palestinian Toponymy: Class, Gender, and Village Prestige in Palestinian Space in Israel.Narrative Culture 5(1).

  • Israel; Arabic villages
  • Etymology, Indigenous Knowledge ; Zionism; Competition
  • Overview

Abstract: This article analyzes the Arabic toponymy of Palestine, based on folk tales and memories of Palestinians living in Israel. The discussion is interpretative and has a dual purpose. First, it aims to shed light on class and gender power relations and the issue of the village’s image. Second, it examines the differential relation of Palestinian society to the landscape, as reflected in names of places versus natural features. The starting point is the assumption that toponymy is the result of two parallel processes: names articulate reality and identity, but at the same time, they are also profoundly influenced by the approach of the naming culture to its space. The reading of Palestinian names is a tactic that gives space to popular and peripheral knowledge categories, exposing the limitations of toponymical research in Israel that has tended to focus on the names recently imposed top-down by Zionism, to the neglect of Palestinian spatial constructions. Finally, it empowers the indigenous population by giving voice to their perception of space. The names evoking this perception testify to the ideological and cultural uses of place names, as opposed to the names of natural features used by Palestinian society. The system for naming was a complex system of spatial distinctions and classifications that privileged hegemonic class and gender values by marginalizing feminine or lower-class images.

Dahamshe, A. and Y. Mendel (2021). “The Language of Jewish Nationalism: Street Signs and Linguistic Landscape in the Old City of JerusalemJerusalem Quarterly (87): 12-37.

  • Israel; Palestinian territories
  • Public policies ; Signage, Linguistic Landscape, Hebraization ; Competition ; Dispute
  • Case study

Abstract: The Old City of Jerusalem is likely the most hotly contested geographical location in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The linguistic landscape in the Old City, including street names and signs, can shed light on power relations and political agendas within the conflict. This article examines the linguistic landscape of the Old City after the Israeli occupation of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) in 1967. It focuses on five different areas: four quarters (Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Armenian) and al-Haram al-Sharif/ Temple Mount compound. Based on an examination of several hundred street signs, the authors’ findings indicate a clear dominance of Hebrew in signage throughout the Old City, evident in different linguistic aspects. Two linguistic behaviors were also obvious: firstly, in the Jewish quarter, the linguistic landscape promotes an Israeli nationalistic discourse including physical erasure of the Arabic language and Palestinian existence; secondly, all other areas lack national Palestinian content and aspirations. This indicates the official Israeli view that there is an exclusive Jewish right to national identity while Palestinians must make do with religious identity only. Our analysis of signs in the Old City indicates two Israeli-oriented, complementary features: pro-active Jewish-Israeli nationalization, and an Orientalist, British-inspired, colonial and religious-centered attempt to de-politicize the East.

Eisenberg, R. L. (2006). The Streets of Jerusalem: Who, What, Why?, Devora Publishing.

  • Israel ; Palestinian territories
  • Etymology, Dictionary
  • Case Study

Elitzur, Y. (2013). Toponyms: in the Land of Israel”. In Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics Online. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.

  • Israel ; Palestinian territories
  • Etymology ; Hebraization
  • Overview

Abstract: 1. Introduction
2. Greco-Roman, Arab and Crusader Names: A Marginal Group
3. The Sources
4. Derivational Patterns of Place Names in the Bible and Contemporaneous Sources
5. The Meanings of Place Names
6. Archaic Vestiges
7. Exceptional Change
8. Two-word Place Names
9. Place Names and Versions of the Bible
10. Identical Names in Several Different Places
11. Homiletical and Etiological Explanations of Place Names
12. Is the Preservation of Place Names Rule-governed? A Regional Perspective?
13. Place Names of the Types Kafr X and Dēr X
14. Wandering Names
15. Names That Have Been Preserved in More Than One Version
16. Modern Hebrew Place Names

Friedman, S. (2011). “La réserve de Neot Kedumim en Israël : l’écriture d’un paysage.Terrain(56): 120-135.

  • Israel
  • Hebraization, Forests
  • Case Study

Abstract: The Neot Kedumim reserve in Israel: the writing of landscape. The natural reserve of Neot Kedumim links plants and landscape with Jewish cultural and social values. The original project which led to the creation of the reserve was in accord with the Zionist ideal and the creation of the State of Israel. More recently it has changed so as to respond to the desire of Diaspora Jewish tourists in search of identity. This has led to plantations and landscape management which would illustrate both history and traditional texts.

Grunebaum, H. (2014). “Landscape, complicity and partitioned zones at South Africa Forest and Lubya in Israel-Palestine.” Anthropology Southern Africa 37(3-4): 213-221.

  • Israel ; Lubya/Lavi
  • Hebraization; Erasement ; Public policies ; Contest
  • Case studies

Abstract: In the historical and ideological contests of settler colonial conquest, the making of ‘landscape’ out of land and territory is a powerful instrument in the visual and discursive constructions of nationalist perspectives. This article examines one such site, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) ?South Africa Forest? in the Galilee, Israel-Palestine, cultivated upon Lubya, a destroyed Palestinian village. The article explores the significance of trees in dominant narratives of modern political Zionist discourses and non-Israeli Jewish nationalist discourses, in particular. It examines the modes of complicity to which JNF tree-planting has given rise and argues that a state-aligned seaming of spatial divisions, cognitive boundaries and ideological partitions enables the Nakba, the Palestinian Catastrophe, to be ‘erased from space and consciousness’ (Kadman 2008). The article then turns to the film, The Village under the Forest (2013), which focuses on Lubya and South Africa Forest in order to examine what narrative and visual decisions were made in the film’s attempt to address complicity with the erasures and bifurcated spatial imaginaries of Israel-Palestine’s landscape.

Halayqa, I. (2000). Natural and cultural factors influenced the toponyms of Al-Shuyoukh town in Hebron district, Birzeit University. Edited Master thesis.

  • Palestinian Territories; Hebron District

After studying the 131 place names included in my Master thesis I came to the conclusion that two significant factors influenced their origins, concurrently impelling their evolution to their current form: the natural and the cultural factors. The nomenclatures were subjected to multiple, mixed and overlapping cultures and peoples, acting in a particular and specific landscape. The outcome of my research is the three clear results stated here: First, the role of the landscape is obviously the solid foundation of people’s creation of place names. Second, the lexemes contained in the place names have common attestations and meanings in the Semitic languages, mainly those lexemes related to land, topography, architecture, agriculture and pastoral activities, yet vary in their phonetics3 . On the other hand, some of the place names contain lexemes not used in the current colloquial, therefore belonging to ancient times and cultures. Third, the current dialect, to which these place names belong, is certainly a mixture of two dialects, the dialect of two families who came from Ashkelon (Asqalan) some four hundred and fifty years ago and previous inhabitants who were already there in the 13th century A. D., each one probably created place names affected by its own cultural and historical background

Helles, A. S., Moser, S., & Carkner, C. (2024). “The politics of toponyms in Gaza, from the Egyptian Administration to Hamas rule”. GeoJournal, 89(3), 113. 

  • Palestinian Territories; Gaza
  • Etymology; Public policies; Contest, Arabic
  • Case Study

The research examines how toponyms in Gaza have been shaped by the changing politics, values, and priorities of ruling elites under four successive leaderships starting in 1948 with the Nakba, or permanent displacement of the majority of Palestinian Arabs. Toponyms in Gaza, or the naming of streets, parks, and other urban features, constitute an important part of Palestinian nation building, resistance to the Israeli occupation, cleansing the landscape of elements deemed ‘un-Islamic’, or instilling a sense of nostalgia or civic pride. While scholarly attention has been paid to toponyms in the West Bank and elsewhere in the Middle East, there are no studies that focus on toponyms in the Gaza Strip. The study of toponyms of the four successive regimes that have ruled the Gaza Strip (the Egyptian Administration, Israeli Occupation, Palestinian Authority, and Hamas rule) provides insights into the politics of memory and the politics of naming. Despite being a geographically small part of Palestine under a highly restrictive occupation, toponyms demonstrate the variety of views and perspectives among Palestinians within the Gaza Strip and the many often conflicting ways in which they are inscribed on public space, as well as drawing attention to the differences and similarities between political regimes.

Helman, A. (2006). “Civic Involvement and Street-Naming in Inter-War Tel Aviv.Jewish Culture and History 8(2): 29-52.

  • Israel; Tel Aviv
  • Participation; Public Policies; Zionism
  • Case study

Abstract: During the 1920s and 1930s, the autonomous Jewish municipality of Tel Aviv received constant requests, demands and complaints about the city’s street names. Archival documents and other historical sources indicate popular involvement in the process of naming and renaming the streets of the ?First Hebrew City?, as various urban segments, organisations, firms and individuals tried to express particular priorities and values within the comprehensive Zionist ideal. Rather than being imposed by municipal institutions upon a passive public, the hegemonic messages conveyed in Tel Aviv street names were negotiated and confirmed in a vivid dialogue.

Lehec, C. (2020). Sur les Murs de Palestine. Filmer les graffitis aux frontières de Dheisheh. Genève, MétisPresses.

  • Palestinian territories ; Dheisheh
  • Graffitis ; Contest
  • Case Study

Abstract : Le graffiti palestinien a une histoire et des spécificités aussi particulières que méconnues. Né dans les camps de réfugiés à la fin des années 1960, le graffiti y est encore largement répandu aujourd’hui. Il est pratiqué par des graffeurs ne se revendiquant pas tous comme artistes et mobilisant des thèmes éminemment politiques. Sur les murs de Palestine nous emmène au sein du camp de Dheisheh pour nous révéler les dessous de ce mouvement aux prises avec les multiples enjeux de la frontière, dans un espace où celle-ci est systématiquement contestée.

Ce livre nous raconte également l’histoire de la création d’un film documentaire, coréalisé avec la cinéaste palestinienne Tamara Abu Laban, qui explore les rues
du camp et fait entendre ses voix. Grâce à une approche inédite, cette production audiovisuelle pose les conditions mêmes de la recherche et parvient à créer les outils les plus appropriés pour penser les frontières dans leurs formes diffuses, jusqu’à l’échelle des corps qu’elles contraignent.

À travers le récit et le parcours d’une chercheure au plus près de son terrain d’étude, cet ouvrage fait l’éloge du travail en collectif et contribue au renouvellement de la méthodologie d’enquête, en décortiquant la dimension politique qui s’y cache.

Leuenberger, C. and I. Schnell (2020). The Politics of Maps: Cartographic Constructions of Israel/Palestine, Oxford University Press.

  • Israel; Palestinian territories
  • Mapping ; Nationalism; Zionism
  • Overview

Abstract: This book traces how the geographical sciences have become entwined with politics, territorial claim-making, and nation-building in Israel/Palestine. In particular, the focus is on the history of geographical sciences before and after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, and how surveying, mapping, and naming the new territory became a crucial part of its making. With the 1993 Oslo Interim Agreement, Palestinians also surveyed and mapped the territory allocated to a future State of Palestine, with the expectation that they would, within five years, gain full sovereignty. In both cases, maps served to evoke a sense of national identity, facilitated a state’s ability to govern, and helped delineate territory. Besides maps’ geopolitical functions for nation-state building, they also became weapons in map wars. Before and after the 1967 war between Israel and its Arab neighbors, maps of the region became one of the many battlefields in which political conflicts over land claims and the ethno-national identity of this contested land were being waged. Aided by an increasingly user-defined mapping environment, Israeli and Palestinian governmental and non-governmental organizations increasingly relied on the rhetoric of maps to put forth their geopolitical visions. Such struggles over land and its rightful owners in Israel/Palestine exemplify processes under way in other states across the globe, whether in South Africa or Ukraine, which are engaged in disputes over territorial boundaries, national identities, and the territorial integrity of nation-states. Maps, no less, have become crucial tools in these struggles.

Leuenberger, C. and I. Schnell (2010). “The politics of maps: Constructing national territories in Israel.” Social Studies of Science 40(6): 803-842.

  • Israel; Palestinian territories
  • Mapping ; Nationalism; Zionism
  • Overview

Abstract: Within the last 2000 years the land demarcated by the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the Jordan Valley to the east has been one of the most disputed territories in history. World powers have redrawn its boundaries numerous times. Since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 within British Mandate Palestine, Palestinians and Israelis have disagreed over the national identity of the land that they both inhabit. The struggles have extended from the battlefields to the classrooms. In the process, different national and ethnic groups have used various sciences, ranging from archeology to history and geography, to prove territorial claims based on their historical presence in the region. But how have various Israeli social and political groups used maps to solidify claims over the territory? In this paper we bring together science studies and critical cartography in order to investigate cartographic representations as socially embedded practices and address how visual rhetoric intersects with knowledge claims in cartography. Before the 1967 war between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the Israeli government and the Jewish National Fund produced maps of Israel that established a Hebrew topography of the land. After 1967, Israel’s expanded territorial control made the demarcation of its borders ever more controversial. Consequently, various Israeli interest groups and political parties increasingly used various cartographic techniques to forge territorial spaces, demarcate disputed boundaries, and inscribe particular national, political, and ethnic identities onto the land.

Lewis, B. (1980). “Palestine: On the History and Geography of a Name.The International History Review 2(1): 1-12.

  • Israel ; Palestinian territories ; Palestine
  • Etymologie ; History
  • Overview

Abstract : Origin and history of the occurrences of the name Palestine

Maraqten, M. (2020). “Memory of Place: Names of Palestinian Towns and Villages between Historical Continuity and Zionist Eradication.” Tabayyun 33(9): 31-54.

  • Israel; Palestinian territories
  • Arabic place names ; Zionism ; Hebraization
  • Overview

Abstract: What are the places of Palestinian memory and what have they preserved for us? In which places has Palestinian history been stored? How were these places constituted? What is the human relationship to the land in Palestine across history? This research seeks answers to these questions and attempts to develop guidelines for investigating key locations of Palestinian memory based on historical documents. This research begins with a review of theoretical and methodological preliminaries to the study of Palestinian place-names based on Palestinian collective memory as formed by Palestinian cultural and communicative memory. The study then takes up discussion of the relationship between memory and history, reviewing identity of place and the importance of linguistic studies of Palestinian place names. Finally, it addresses the transformation of Palestinian space in the wake of the Nakba and the Zionist policy of obliterating Palestinian place names.

Marom, R. (2022). “Arabic Toponymy Around Ashkelon: The village of Hamama as a Case Study.” in Ashkelon – Landscape of Peace and Conflicts. R. Y. Lewis, D. Varga and A. Sasson (eds.), Ashkelon Academic College and Israel Antiquities Authority: 371-408.

  • Israel; Hamama
  • Arabic place names
  • Case Study

Abstract (Chapter in Hebrew):  The village of Hamama, situated between the cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon, was the second largest village, in both its territory and number of inhabitants, in the Gaza sub-district during the British Mandate period. The article surveys and discusses the Arab toponymy of Hamama, as part of the broader corpus of Palestinian rural toponymy in Ashkelon’s hinterland before 1948; and reviews the scholarly trends in the study of Arabic toponymy. In light of the toponyms, the article traces the social, geographical and historical characteristics of village toponyms, and assesses their connection to the area’s natural and man-made geographies. Underlying the Late Ottoman and British Mandate Corpus, is a limited stratum of pre-Ottoman village names. To this pre-existing stratum, new toponyms have been added, referring in some cases to families living in or around the village. The great importance of land, as the main means of production in Hamama’s agrarian society, is manifested by the many toponyms relating to the soil and its characteristics. Many names refer to various types of agricultural plots (gardens, orchards, vineyards, orchards and mawasi plots of land irrigated from shallow wells dug in sand dunes along the coast), in addition to the phenomenon of coastal wetlands (birak). Toponyms provide external evidence of the names of the village families, corroborating names known from the ethnographic literature. Furthermore, they reflect Hamama’s sacred geography, e.g. village shrines and their endowments. Finally, the article briefly discusses the ways in which new place names were derived from existing toponyms through grammatical construction and the addition of identifiers. It suggests that toponymic derivation was inspired in part by the process of registering and standardizing place-names for mapping, administration and taxation purposes.

Masalha, N. (2015). “Settler-Colonialism, Memoricide and Indigenous Toponymic Memory: The Appropriation of Palestinian Place Names by the Israeli State.” Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies 14(1): 3-57. 

  • Israel; Palestinian territories
  • Arabic place names ; Zionism ; Hebraization
  • Overview

Cartography, place-naming and state-sponsored explorations were central to the modern European conquest of the earth, empire building and settler-colonisation projects. Scholars often assume that place names provide clues to the historical and cultural heritage of places and regions. This article uses social memory theory to analyse the cultural politics of place-naming in Israel. Drawing on Maurice Halbwachs’ study of the construction of social memory by the Latin Crusaders and Christian medieval pilgrims, the article shows Zionists’ toponymic strategies in Palestine, their superimposition of Biblical and Talmudic toponyms was designed to erase the indigenous Palestinian and Arabo-Islamic heritage of the land. In the pre-Nakba period Zionist toponymic schemes utilised nineteenth century Western explorations of Biblical ‘names’ and ‘places’ and appropriated Palestinian toponyms. Following the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, the Israeli state, now in control of 78 percent of the land, accelerated its toponymic project and pursued methods whose main features were memoricide and erasure. Continuing into the post-1967 occupation, these colonial methods threaten the destruction of the diverse historical cultural heritage of the land.

Milshtein, M. (2022). Israeli-Arab Towns Are Enshrining Palestinian History, One Street Name at a Time, Haaretz. Tel Aviv.

  • Israel; Palestinian territories; Arab cities
  • Arabic; Palestinianization
  • Overview

Abstract: Streets, squares and institutions in Israel’s Arab towns are increasingly – and sometimes controversially – being named for personalities and traumatic events from Palestinian history

Milshtein, M. (2020). Memory of the Nakba in the Palestinian Public Sphere. Tel Aviv Notes – Contemporary Middle East Analysis. Tel Aviv, Moshe Dayan Center (MDC), 4p.

  • Israel; Palestinian territories
  • Arabic; Palestinianization
  • Overview

Abstract: The author examines how the collective memory of the Nakba has become anchored in the Palestinian public sphere.

Pinchevski, A. and E. Torgovnik (2002). “Signifying passages: the signs of change in Israeli street names.Media, Culture & Society 24(3): 365-388.

  • Israel
  • Public policies; Zionism ; Hebraization, Commemoration; Dispute, Contest, Claims
  • Overview, Cases Studies

Abstract: Street names are mundane media through which the past is commemorated and introduced into the public sphere. Viewed from a semiotic perspective, street names constitute a spatial-text produced over time, capturing the political, social and cultural climates in which it is formed. In this article we propose an analysis of street names in four Israeli towns of different social, political and demographic backgrounds. The study is based on a two-stage analysis: an analysis of the local narratives and a hermeneutic reading of the street maps as spatial-texts. This is followed by a quantitative summary of street names according to categories. By studying practices of naming and renaming, and deciphering key elements in these spatial-texts, we conclude that street names reflect the changing character of the Israeli political, social and cultural orders. As such, they are indicative of shifts occurring in the social production of the Israeli collective memory.

Rainey, A. F. (1978). “The Toponymics of Eretz-Israel.Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research(231): 1-17.

  • Israel; Palestinian territories
  • Etymology, Hebraization, Arabic
  • Overview

Abstract: A monography on the toponyms and their origins in “Eretz-Israel”

Said, A. (2022). “Traduction des toponymes : Outils lexico-narratifs ou obligation sociopolitique ? Le cas de la traduction des toponymes dans The Times of Israël et WAFA”. Revue Traduction et Langues 21(2), 109-128.

  • Israel ; Palestinian territories
  • Translation
  • Overall

Abstract: Why is the city of al-Qods called « al-Qods » for the Palestinians and « Yerushalaim » for the Israelis, why is a street crossing this city called « Saladin Street » by the Palestinians and « Tsahal Street » by the Israelis, what happened at the top of the Temple Mount, or on the Esplanade of the Mosques/ al-Haram Ash Sharif? For more than 100 years, toponymy has become one of the criteria specific to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Through Mona Baker’s narrative approach, the article investigates the specificity of the translation of conflicting designations and examines the consciousness of translators in relation to the narrative role of toponyms in the construction and circulation of Palestinian culture and identity and their legitimation on an international scale. We have therefore chosen the Israeli newspaper the Times of Israel and the Palestinian news agency WAFA to highlight these issues. Toponymy serves to preserve the collective memory, since a name contains information about the past of the place, about the people who live there, and its reputation. It is a springboard that takes us beyond the name itself as a linguistic sign. In this spirit and based on deep historical and religious links that link designations to a particular culture, place names serve to legitimize and/or delegitimize the stories that surround them. Translation is therefore far from being an apolitical act, which is why we will try to highlight the treatment given to conflicting toponyms in translation through the analysis of some examples taken from the media mentioned. We will adopt Mona Baker’s approach to the analysis of translated passages. In other words, this article is an attempt to understand the narrative role of media translation when it comes to place names. The methodology is based on the potential relation between space, conflict and ideology. Multiple reflections are discussed, but we opted for the one that gives justice to the role of translators as resistants. We particularly mobilized Mona Baker’s strategy « framing by labeling » in an attempt to explain the initial narratives and the contribution of their translations whether to guarantee their continuity and/or repression beyond the linguistic borders. This is to finally try to bring answers to our main research question: What is the status of the translator / narrator specialized in media translation? Does he opt for domestication or foreignization in his translations of place names? Based on the observation of some selected passages and their respective translations in English and Arabic, the objective of our work of research is to highlight the semantic charge of the disputed double designations related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Through a comparative analysis of the strategies adopted in two different media outlets, we have demonstrated their preferences in their translations of place names, while explaining the narrative impact of these names on their readers according to the initial discourses they mobilize. In this spirit, we started with a brief introduction to explain the specificity of names translation then explained our research question accompanied with its source of inspiration. Then, we demonstrated the specificity of our case of study from a historical and political point of view, before we moved to a deeper explanation from a narrative point of view. To guarantee a better understanding of this aspect, we found it appropriate to represent the editorial line of each media as well as the identity issues behind place names. Finally, we moved to a thorough analysis of place names and their translations in The Times of Israel and WAFA before we represent our comparative analysis and the answers to our research question.

Sand, S. (2009). The invention of the Jewish people. Verso Books.

  • Israel
  • Etymology, Hebraization
  • Overview

Abstract: On the supposed common Jewish and Arab roots and the Hebrew origins of many Arab place names 

Shoval, N. (2013), “Street-naming, tourism development and cultural conflict: the case of the Old City of Acre/Akko/Akka”. Trans Inst Br Geogr, 38: 612-626.

  • Israel, Acre/Akko/Akka
  • Tourism, Branding, Hebraization, Arabic, Dispute
  • Heuristic Case Study

Abstract: Extensive research has been conducted on place names because they are one of the most significant markers of the intimate relationship between people and territory. Several studies on street names have already noted the use of place names as a form of symbolic capital in order to create and sell place distinctions for the purposes of prestige and profit. The literature, however, has not yet adequately addressed a different motivation in place-naming: the promotion of places for the purpose of tourism development. Furthermore, research in this field has yet to examine the ways in which local residents interpret and contest official street names with their own oral system of naming, focusing instead on the process of selecting and affixing place names and the cultural conflicts that arise from these political decisions. This article explores place-naming in the Old City of Acre (Israel) in light of tourism development processes, focusing not only on the motivations for the naming but also on the responses of local residents to the naming and to the struggle on the symbolic identity of the city that develop as a result. The first section of the article examines the historical process of bestowing official street names in the Old City of Acre as well as the existing system of place names used by the local Arab inhabitants of the Old City. The article’s second section studies the reactions and attitudes of the local population in the Old City to the relatively recent initiative of the Acre Development Company to assign official street names, chosen in the past, to the streets and alleys of the Old City.

Socquet-Juglard, M. (2022). “Persistence of Silenced Toponymic Landscapes in Disputed Territories : The Case of Arabic in West-Jerusalem.” Judaica. Neue digitale Folge 3: 1-20.

  • Israel; Jerusalem
  • Neighborhood naming ; Dispute, Contest, Claim ; Memory ; Signage
  • Case study

Abstract: The (re)attribution of place names plays a significant yet subtle role in the production of spatial and national identity. Since 1948, the Israeli administration has endeavoured to Hebraize (and therefore Judaize) the space in the Israel/Palestine region. Yet, Arabic names of major neighbourhoods within Jerusalem have survived while their Palestinian residents have not been allowed to return since they fled or were expelled in 1948. This article explores this toponymic paradox. After delving into the Israeli efforts to create and maintain an (almost) exclusively Hebraized landscape and the variety of ensuing toponymic clashes, this paper examines different reasons that might explain the ‘resistance’ of Arabic names in areas of Israel’s proclaimed capital city. Using concepts such as toponymic attachment and place identity, this paper reveals much about the strength of traditional naming practices versus imposed policies, including in contexts of disputed territories where the Other’s toponyms tend to represent a threat to One’s narrative of claimed land.

Tafakji, K. (2020). 31° Nord, 35° Est. Chroniques géographiques de la colonisation israélienne. Paris : La Découverte. 

  • Israël ; Palestinian territories
  • Cartography, Place Naming
  • Overview

Abstract: En Israël, certains villages arabes sont longtemps demeurés anonymes. Déplacés ou reconstruits, ils ne possédaient ni nom, ni route d’accès, ni infrastructures et étaient confinés sur d’étroites surfaces. La majorité d’entre eux a fini par être reconnue, notamment en Galilée et dans le sud d’Israël, dans le désert de Naqab, mais il a fallu du temps. Et une épuration ethnique. Parmi ces villages figure Abu al-Hija, au pied du djebel Mar Elias, proche de Haïfa dans le nord d’Israël. Fondé par un émir de l’époque ottomane, il abrite aujourd’hui cent cinquante résidents. Lors d’une de mes visites, ces derniers m’avaient raconté la destruction de leur village en 1948, et la fuite d’une majorité des habitants vers les camps de réfugiés de Jénine. Les résistants s’étaient réinstallés à quelques centaines de mètres des ruines, reprenant l’ancien nom d’Ein Hod. Mais, pendant des années, les autorités israéliennes refusèrent de reconnaître le village, et ses habitants ne jouissaient donc d’aucune infrastructure publique, pas d’accès à l’eau, à l’électricité, pas de nettoyage, tandis que leurs voisins juifs d’Ein Hod, implantés sur le site de l’ancien village, pouvaient profiter de tous ces services.
Les villages non reconnus sont totalement délaissés. Et ce n’est pas le seul fait d’Israël. Les autorités palestiniennes traînent aussi sérieusement les pieds, car la reconnaissance implique de lourds investissements, l’installation d’infrastructures, l’organisation d’élections, l’établissement de services publics…

Yaar-Waisel, T. (2023). “The Mystery of Hydronomy in the Land of Israel.” in Place Naming, Identities and Geography: Critical Perspectives in a Globalizing and Standardizing World. G. O’Reilly (ed.). Cham, Springer International Publishing: 147-164.

  • Israel
  • Hydronymy
  • Overview

Abstract: History, religion and politics have been used interchangeably in the selection of place names in the State of Israel from the beginning of the Zionist movement and even more explicitly, after the establishment of the state of Israel; this trend continues today. Similar factors are involved in naming water reservoirs. This chapter examines the history of sea names and their direct and indirect meaning, paying special attention to the role of the education system in shaping the perception of the country’s future citizens. In the southern part of the Land of Israel there is the Gulf of Eilat, known globally as the Gulf of Aqaba. Also, there is The Salt Sea which is the lowest place below sea level on earth and is known worldwide as The Dead Sea. Israel has only one lake, known as lake Kinneret, while for Arabs it is Lake Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee by Christians. This chapter illustrates that in contrast to the early decades of the state of Israel, nowadays economic potential and political interests in naming are gaining precedence.

Zadok, R.  (1985). “Notes on Modern Palestinian Toponymy.Zeitschrift Des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 101(2): 156–61.

On the non-Arabic origins oof the Arabic Palestinian Toponyms

  • Israel ; Palestinian territories
  • Etymology
  • Overview

Zadok, R. (1997). “A Preliminary Analysis of Ancient Survivals in Modern Palestinian Toponymy”. Mediterranean Language Review 9, 93-171.

  • Israel ; Palestinian territories
  • Etymology
  • Overview

The semantic content of toponyms have been thoroughly analyzed. Camparisan of the percentage of each category in a toponymic sample from the pre-Hellenistic period (‘A’, 968 toponyms), with that of toponymic sets attested in later documentation, e.g., (B) Hellenistic-Roman-Byzantine ( 1 30 toponyms) , and (C) late-Ottoman Palestine (5852 toponyms) – reveals only relatively minor differences, often reflecting the impact of the human factor which introduced name components referring to ‘culture’ alongside those relating to natural features. Thus the toponymy of Palestine during the late Ottoman period has a higher percentage of anthroponyms due to accumulation of ancient layers and a great number of tribal names as a result of continuous massive sedentarization of nomads. One also notes a correspondingly sharp decrease in theophoric names due to the total conversion of the population to monotheistic religions.
Thus the abundant documentation (almost 6000 toponyms) available for Palestine in the 1 870s and since can be legitimately used as a corpus for purposes of comparative study and for the investigation of ancient placenames in this region. The importance of ancient toponymical survivals as a linguistic source can be exemplified by the following cases out of hundreds.
Basically, toponymy is, at best, an indirect historical source. The only direct evidence consists of commemorative names, which tend to be very rare (all post- Byzantine, cf. 0.3 1 ) . Regarding chronological stratification, there is an ever-dwindling Canaanite-Hebrew substratum (this process can be traced in the early Arabic, Crusader and Ottoman documentation and an ever-increasing Aramaie layer ; thereafter, since the Islamic domination, an ever-increasing Arabic superstratum; with the complete Arabization of Palestine (presumably same time around 1 000 CE, definitely before 1 1 00 CE) the Aramaie toponymy is reduced to the status of an unproductive interstratum which, like the substratum, represents a steadily dwindling component. This process can be traced in the early Arabic, Crusader and Ottoman documentation from most Palestinian regions.
The transmitted survivals of pre-Hellenistic toponyms have been well-investigated; the discussion here will therefore focus on hypothetical survivals whose written attestation is poor or non-existent. Such Canaanite-Hebrew toponyms (well-preserved or somewhat transformed) are extant not only on the coast where Phoenician-Canaanite survived as late as the beginning of the Christian era ( e.g., iz-Zib, Sarafand and perhaps Qürtän), or in Judea where the survival of the Hebrew vernacular in the Hellenistic-Roman age is a disputed matter (e.g., Qaryüt, Breküt, Betmal:zslr, -mazmll and perhaps (Wadi-)Fukln). An especially interesting example is Sil:zlln (and poss. Kafr-Barlk) in Idumea, a region with a complex linguistic situation (Judaean Hebrew substratum, Arabo Edomite superstratum presumably not devoid of an Aramaie adstratum). Canaanite survivals are not absent in Galilee ( e.g., Mä rüz) and Transjordan (e.g., il-Yadüdi, Nawa) including the Hawran (e.g. , Hasrä which ends with Aram. -ä), regions which have become thoroughly aramaicized as early as the Hellenistic period. Cases of homonymy (e.g., Berüt in the northern Bashan) do not prove anything.

Western Aramaie was spoken from the Orontes valley in the north to Idumea in the south. Typically Aramaie toponymy was increasingly dominant in all parts of Palestine (including isolated cases in southern Transjordan where Nabatean was spoken) during the Hellenistic-Roman Byzantine age. There was some interaction between the Aramaie layer and the Canaanite-Hebrew substratum analogous to that which took place later between the Aramaie ‘interstratum’ and the Arabian superstratum. Several Aramaie re-interpretations of Canaanite toponyms are discernible. There exists a secondary (vs. primary and genuine) Aramaie interstratum. The secondary one consists of Aramaie loanwords in Arabic which remained potentially productive long after Aramaie stopped being the Palestinian vernacular. The earlier extinction of Aramaie in Palestine versus its persistence in certain parts of Syria-Lebanon is also discernible at the phonological and morphological levels: for instance, Ig/ > Ar ab. g is virtually absent in Palestine, and Philippi’s Law seems to have been more effective in Palestine than in Syria-Lebanon. In addition, instances of qtälllül in Cisjordan are rare, being mostly confined to Samaria, e.g., Betqäd, Jbära, contrary to what one encounters in Syro-Lebanese toponyrny.
This can be further indication of the earlier Arabization of Palestine. There is some limited evidence of dialectal diversity within the Aramaie interstratum: word-internal TJ ö vs. Cisjordanian and Syro-Lebanese ü : TJ Höna, Nöba vs. Cisj . Nüba, Leb. Hünln, 2.2.40, 42 . Samaritan Aramaie and Samaritan Hebrew ( more than Tiberian Heb . ) tend to add prosthetic vowels (a- , i-) before initial consonant clusters; this is copiously attested in the documentation: Ibtän, Iktäba, Iskäka, Idnibba, Ibzlq, lfrasln, Ijnisinya, Sahl-Ifiim and Der-ibzir in Samaria. Forms with prosthetic vowels are not rare in central TJ (adjacent to Samaria) , e.g., Isblra, Iskäbln and Isräs. Note Igzim is on Mt. Carmel which was partly inhabited by Samaritans. Isolated cases are Bet-Ijza and Ijirbit-Insil in Judea, Tall-Idbis in Philistia, Galilean lb{in and Blr-Insüba on the Hermon. Samarian spirantization (of -lbl-, -lbl) is extant in rAwarta, Qartawa and Yasüf ( < YSb ). Another phonological phenomenon found in Samaria is -t > -d. As is well-known, much of the contemporary settlement distribution took shape during the Byzantine period; this is not without consequences for the Palestinian toponymy. A case in point on the cultural level is the diffusion of Der names due to Christianization. The Arabic superstratum ( including transformed elements. Kafr, which was a productive appellative in classical Arabic was apparently still productive in 1 595/6 CE in northern Galilee and Samaria. Due to the ensuing Islamization and total Arabization, most names showing the component rpr were tabooed and substituted by Tayyiba (this probably occurred mainly in the course of the late Middle Ages) . The Arabic superstratum is naturally dynamic: not a few purely Arabic Palestinian toponyms which are still recorded in early Arabic sources are now extinct.
The Levantine toponyrny is basically Semitic with a small residue of a Graeco- Roman adstratum. The Crusader’s relatively short, almost episodic, period exercized minimal impact on toponymy of the region. Its ‘adstratum’ (Vulgar Latin) , as well as the Iranian (Persian and Kurdish) and Turkish ‘adstrata’ are negligible.

 

Zuckermann, G. a. (2010). “Toponymy and monopoly: One toponym, two parents-ideological hebraization of Arabic place names in the Israeli language.” Onoma 41: 163-184.

  • Israel ; Negev
  • Hebraization, Arabic
  • Heuristic case study

Abstract: This article analyses toponyms that simultaneously have more than one etymon (etymological source), championing hybridity and multiple causation. Special attention is given to toponymic neologisms proposed by the Geographical Names Committee for the Hebraization of Arabic toponyms in the Negev, the southern part of Israel, in 1950-1952. It contributes towards the development of a typology of onomastic neologization in general and toponomastics in particular. Based on examples from Israel’s efforts in building and defining itself as a nation—as well as from rejective and adoptive lexical engineering by Jews throughout history—this article explores the fascinating and multifaceted relationship between names and identity.

 


OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
neotopo (7 décembre 2022). Academic bibliography on place naming, branding, mapping issues in Israel and Palestinian territories. NEOTOPONYMIE/NEOTOPONYMY. Consulté le 11 novembre 2024 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/rrqh


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