TEL AVIV (JTA) — Middle East peace may remain out of reach, but at least the Hebrew and Arabic languages have found a compromise. Israeli typography designer Liron Lavi Turkenich has created a stylized writing system that merges the two ancient alphabets, allowing Hebrew and Arabic speakers to read the same words. Her hope is…
(JTA) — The Anti-Defamation League called on the Huffington Post’s Arabic-language edition to remove a blog post claiming a Jewish woman poisoned the Prophet Muhammad with arsenic. The ADL has been urging the site to take down the article since shortly after it was published Nov. 29, the organization said in a press release on Thursday….
When it comes to making an emphatic point, Israeli Jews often reach for Arabic. From telling someone “Let’s go,” (“Yalla!”) to expressing surprise (“Walla!”) Arabic is a part of daily speech for Hebrew speakers. Modern Hebrew is heavily influenced by Arabic, borrowing both words and grammar from the language. Israeli musician Meir Ariel commented on…
A simple tote bag created by Haifa designers Sana Jammalieh and Haitham Haddad is sweeping the internet as a commentary on global anti-Arab sentiment. Black Arabic script on the bag reads: “This text has no other purpose than to spread terror in the hearts of those who are afraid of the Arabic language.” Nader al-Sarras,…
Homeland, Homeland, Homeland. How many times do I have to tell you? You need to hire an Arabic speaker. Like, yesterday. Otherwise, you might end up in some pretty sticky situations. You might call your own show “racist.” In Arabic. By accident. Oops! In the most recent episode of the hit TV spy drama, a…
A trio of sisters wearing hot pink hijabs piles into a dusty white Jeep and rambles across the desert. At home in the village, a man with a closely-cropped white beard shaded by his military cap whips a lash upon the cracked, sandy ground, while an elderly woman with sunken eyes and gold-painted fingernails puffs…
Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican from South Carolina who hopes to win the White House in 2016, made headlines this week when an AIPAC dinner in Boston, “Everything that starts with ‘Al’ in the Middle East is bad news.” The senator then gave some examples: “Al-Qaida, Al-Nusra, Al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula.” It was a…
Call it a confirmation bias. Everywhere I turned this year, I saw a new expression of Arab Jewish identity. The revival seems to be happening across all fields — literature, food, music — yet somehow nobody’s talking about it. As an Arab Jewish writer (my family hails from Morocco, India and Iraq), I couldn’t be…
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