Israeli/Israelite

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

Whose idea was it to call the new citizens of the modern state of Israel “Israelis” instead of “Israelites”.
Why not stick to the old name and reinforce the connection to the past?

[psychonaut]

@The_Flying_Dutchman

Whose idea was it to call the new citizens of the modern state of Israel “Israelis” instead of “Israelites”.

Probably the Israel [sic] government:

@Encyclopaedia Judaica

According to official government usage, Israel (and not Israeli) is the adjective relating to Israel: Israeli is a citizen (or permanent resident) of the State of Israel.

[Shmendrik]

@The_Flying_Dutchman

Why not stick to the old name and reinforce the connection to the past?

Because the old name was already in use as a somewhat offensive synonym for “Jew”.

[Simplicio]

Israelite is still in use term to mean Jews in general, regardless of whether they live in Israel or not. So calling actual citizens of Israel by the same term would’ve been confusing.

@The_Flying_Dutchman

Why not stick to the old name and reinforce the connection to the past?

The early Israeli leaders were largely secular, and not as interested in presenting the Jewish state as a successor to the ancient Israeli state as some of their successors would be.

[Alessan]

@Simplicio

The early Israeli leaders were largely secular, and not as interested in presenting the Jewish state as a successor to the ancient Israeli state as some of their successors would be.

Well, yes and no. They may not have been religious, but they were romantics with a deep, abiding love for the bible - as a national epic, not as a religious text - and for Israeli history. They had no problem declaring modern Israelis the descendants of Joshua and Gideon, King David and the Maccabees.

[Shmendrik]

@Simplicio

Israelite is still in use term to mean Jews in general, regardless of whether they live in Israel or not. So calling actual citizens of Israel by the same term would’ve been confusing.

The early Israeli leaders were largely secular, and not as interested in presenting the Jewish state as a successor to the ancient Israeli state as some of their successors would be.

What Alessan said. Here’s the beginning of the Israeli Declaration of Independence:

@Ben Gurion et al

The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.

After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.

Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses. Pioneers, defiant returnees, and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country’s inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood.

[psychonaut]

@Shmendrik

Because the old name was already in use as a somewhat offensive synonym for “Jew”.

The OED doesn’t list any offensive usages of the term. Which isn’t to say that none existed, of course—can you give a pre-1948 example sentence where word “Israelite” was used as a term of offense, but the substitution of “Jew” would have made the reference neutral?

[Randy_Seltzer]

I asked my tour guide in Isreal, “What’s the difference between an ‘Israeli’ and an ‘Israelite’?”

He quickly answered, “About four thousand years.”

[Shmendrik]

@psychonaut

The OED doesn’t list any offensive usages of the term. Which isn’t to say that none existed, of course—can you give a pre-1948 example sentence where word “Israelite” was used as a term of offense, but the substitution of “Jew” would have made the reference neutral?

At Israelite Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com Collins dictionary has “4. an archaic and sometimes offensive word for a Jew,” but you’re right, I don’t know if it had that possible connotation in 1948. I couldn’t find a reference to the offensive meaning elsewhere, and there’s also an American Jewish newspaper called The American Israelite, so it must not be a very strong connotation.

[chappachula]

Here’s a minor point that may be interesting: the Hebrew language forms adjectives out of nouns by adding the letter “i”

So the word “Israeli” in English rings with a sort of a parallel to the Hebrew version of the same word (which is pronounced “yisraeli”)

[psychonaut]

@chappachula

Here’s a minor point that may be interesting: the Hebrew language forms adjectives out of nouns by adding the letter “i”

So the word “Israeli” in English rings with a sort of a parallel to the Hebrew version of the same word (which is pronounced “yisraeli”)

But English does exactly the same thing (assuming of course that you were referring to a phonemic rather than orthographic addition—Hebrew doesn’t have a letter <i>), both for demonyms and for adjectives generally: smell → smelly, fun → funny, Pakistan → Pakistani, and so on.

[Polycarp]

“Israelite” = decendant of Jacob (Israel), son of Isaac. Membrer of any of the 12 Tribes. (“Jew” = descentant of Judah, or in a boader sense of Judah, Benjamin, or Levi). Genealogical question. Also, subject of either the united kingdom under Saul, David, and Solomon, or the Northern Kingdom (with Judahite (==> Jew the Southern one) at the breakup after Solomon’s reigh ended. Historical political question.

Israel(i) = citizen, or resident, of Eretz Israel, the post-1948 Republic. Contemporary political question.

[barbitu8]

25% of Israelis are Arabs. Israeli means a citizen of Israel, and a citizen of Israeli may be of any religion. Israelites were all members of the same religion.