Israel and Jerusalem in other languages: names and the six districts

Israel: from the patriarch to the state

The name Israel, Hebrew יִשְׂרָאֵל, is usually read as "El persists" or "El rules". In the Hebrew Bible it is the name given to the patriarch Jacob, and from him it passed to the people and to the land. The oldest artefact that names Israel as a group is the Merneptah Stele from Egypt, dated to the late thirteenth century BCE.

When the state was founded in 1948 its name was put to a vote. Eretz Israel, Zion, Judea and Ever were also proposed; Israel, suggested by David Ben-Gurion, won six votes to three. The official form is מדינת ישראל, Mədīnat Yiśraʾel, State of Israel, and in Arabic دولة إسرائيل.

Across the languages in the table the name varies little. Latin writes Israel or Israhel, Greek Ἰσραήλ, Turkish İsrail, Polish and Czech Izrael, Maori Īharaira. A few list a different second name: Swahili Uyahudi beside Israeli, Hausa Yahudawa beside Isra’ila, Vietnamese Do Thái beside I-xra-en, Icelandic Gyðingaland beside Ísrael; Ganda has only Buyudaya.

Yerushalayim, al-Quds, Hierosolyma: the names of Jerusalem

Jerusalem has two families of names. The first descends from the Hebrew ירושלים, Yərūšalayim: Old Aramaic Yọrūšalẹ̄m, Syriac ܐܘܪܫܠܡ, Greek Ἱερουσαλήμ and Ἱεροσόλυμα, Latin Hierosolyma, and from there the Jerusalem, Jérusalem and Gerusalemme of the European languages. Old Norse turned it into Jórsalir, Welsh into Caersalem, Maori into Hiruhārama.

The second family is Arabic. القدس, al-Quds, the holy, and بيت المقدس, Baytu l-Muqaddas, the holy house, are followed by Turkish Kudüs and Kudsişerif, Persian قدس (Qods), Somali Quddus, Malay Baitulmuqaddis, Hausa Baitil muƙaddas. Arabic itself keeps the biblical line as well, in أورشليم (Ūršalīm), and the old name إيلياء (Īliyāʾ).

Some languages list both families side by side. Tajik gives Байтулмуқаддас and Иерусалим, Kazakh Иерусалим and Құдіс, Uyghur four forms from يېرۇسالېم to قۇددۇس, and Tamazight ⵓⵔⵛⴰⵍⵉⵎ (Urcalim) beside ⵍⵇⵓⴷⵙ (Lquds).

The flag of Israel

The flag was adopted on 28 October 1948: a white field with two horizontal blue stripes, recalling a tallit, and a blue Star of David in the centre. The law fixes the size at 160 by 220 centimetres, a ratio of 8:11, though 2:3 versions are common. The colour is described only as dark sky-blue, so real flags range from navy to light blue.

Tel Aviv, תל־אביב in Hebrew, appears in two ways in Arabic: تل الربيع (Tallu r-Rabīʿ) and تل أبيب (Tall Abīb). Persian likewise keeps two forms, تل آویو and تل ابیب, while Yiddish writes תּל־אָבֿיבֿ with full vowel points.