A TOUR OF PALESTINE; THE YEAR IS 1695
by Avi Goldreich
© Copyright
(Translated from
the Hebrew by Nurit Greenger.)
The time machine is a
sensation that nests in me when I am visiting Mr. Hobber old books
store in Budapest, Hungary. Hobber learned to know my quirks and
after the initial greeting and the glass of mineral water (Mr.
Hobber is a vegan) he leads me down the stairs to the huge basement,
to the Jewish "section."
The Jewish section is a room full of antiquity books on subjects
that Mr. Hobber sees to be Jewish. Among the books there are some
that are not even worthy their leather binding. However, sometime,
one can find there real culture treasure. Many of the books are Holy
Books that may have been stolen from synagogues' archives: Talmud,
Bible, Mishnah, old Ashkenazi style Siddur, and others. Customarily,
I open them to see who the proprietor is; who was the Bar Mitzvah
boy who received the book two hundred years ago and to whom did he
pass the book at the end of his days. It is simply curiosity.
Many of the books are written in the German language. They are
books of Jewish rumination written by Christians or assimilating
Jews. Sometime one can find a hand written Talmud volume that is
very expensive; thousands of Euros, set in the specially aired
cabinet. Hobber knows their value. Sometime one can find a bargain
such as the book Palestina by Hadriani Relandi -- its
original professional name Palaestina, ex monumentis veteribus
illustrata, published by Trajecti Batavorum: Ex Libraria G.
Brodelet, 1714. One can find such original books in only few places
in the world, also in Haifa University. Go to
http://libri-antichi.posizionamento-web.it/palaestina-ex-monumentis-veteribus-illustrata.html
for places where the book could be found and details about the
author, etc.
The author Relandi[1], a real scholar, geographer,
cartographer and well known philologist, spoke perfect Hebrew,
Arabic and ancient Greek, as well as the European languages. The
book was written in Latin. In 1695 he was sent on a sightseeing tour
to Israel, at that time known as Palestina. In his travels he
surveyed approximately 2500 places where people lived that were
mentioned in the bible or Mishnah. His research method was
interesting.
He first mapped the Land of Israel.
Secondly, Relandi identifies each of the places mentioned in
the Mishnah or Talmud along with their original source. If the
source was Jewish, he listed it together with the appropriate
sentence in the Holy Scriptures. If the source was Roman or
Greek he presented the connection in Greek or Latin.
Thirdly, he also arranged a population survey and census of
each community.
His most prominent conclusions
1. Not one settlement in the Land of Israel has a name that is of
Arabic origin. Most of the settlement names originate in the Hebrew,
Greek, Latin or Roman languages. In fact, till today, except to
Ramlah, not one Arabic settlement has an original Arabic name. Till
today, most of the settlements names are of Hebrew or Greek origin,
the names distorted to senseless Arabic names. There is no meaning
in Arabic to names such as Acco (Acre), Haifa, Jaffa, Nablus, Gaza,
or Jenin and towns named Ramallah, El Halil and El-Kuds (Jerusalem)
lack historical roots or Arabic philology. In 1696, the year Relandi
toured the land, Ramallah, for instance, was called Bet'allah (From
the Hebrew name Beit El) and Hebron was called Hebron (Hevron) and
the Arabs called Mearat HaMachpelah El Chalil, their name for the
Forefather Abraham.
2. Most of the land was empty, desolate, and the inhabitants few
in number and mostly concentrate in the towns Jerusalem, Acco, Tzfat,
Jaffa, Tiberius and Gaza. Most of the inhabitants were Jews and the
rest Christians. There were few Muslims, mostly nomad Bedouins.
Nablus, known as Shchem, was exceptional, where approximately 120
people, members of the Muslim Natsha family and approximately 70
Shomronites, lived.
In the Galilee capital, Nazareth, lived approximately 700
Christians and in Jerusalem approximately 5000 people, mostly Jews
and some Christians.
The interesting part was that Relandi mentioned the Muslims as
nomad Bedouins who arrived in the area as construction and
agriculture labor reinforcement, seasonal workers.
In Gaza for example, lived approximately 550 people, fifty
percent Jews and the rest mostly Christians. The Jews grew and
worked in their flourishing vineyards, olive tree orchards and wheat
fields (remember Gush Katif?) and the Christians worked in commerce
and transportation of produce and goods. Tiberius and Tzfat were
mostly Jewish and except of mentioning fishermen fishing in Lake
Kinneret -- the Lake of Galilee -- a traditional Tiberius
occupation, there is no mention of their occupations. A town like Um
el-Phahem was a village where ten families, approximately fifty
people in total, all Christian, lived and there was also a small
Maronite church in the village (The Shehadah family).
3. The book totally contradicts any post-modern theory claiming a
"Palestinian heritage," or Palestinian nation. The book strengthens
the connection, relevance, pertinence, kinship of the Land of Israel
to the Jews and the absolute lack of belonging to the Arabs, who
robbed the Latin name Palestina and took it as their own.
In Granada, Spain, for example, one can see Arabic heritage and
architecture. In large cities such as Granada and the land of
AndalucГa, mountains and rivers like Guadalajara, one can see
genuine Arabic cultural heritage: literature, monumental creations,
engineering, medicine, etc. Seven hundred years of Arabic reign left
in Spain an Arabic heritage that one cannot ignore, hide or
camouflage. But here, in Israel there is nothing like that! Nada, as
the Spanish say! No names of towns, no culture, no art, no history,
and no evidence of Arabic rule; only huge robbery, pillaging and
looting; stealing the Jews' holiest place, robbing the Jews of their
Promised Land. Lately, under the auspices of all kind of post modern
Israelis -- also hijacking and robbing us of our Jewish history.
Footnote
[1] From www.answers.com: "Adrian Reland (1676-1718), Dutch
Orientalist, was born at Ryp, studied at Utrecht and Leiden, and was
professor of Oriental languages successively at Harderwijk (1699)
and Utrecht (1701). His most important works were Palaestina ex
monumentis veteribus illustrata (Utrecht, 1714), and
Antiquitates sacrae veterum Hebraeorum."
