Isolated Nation: Language Orientation and the Sephardi Intellectual Circle of Late Ottoman Palestine

Abstract

This article focuses on Esther Moyal neé Azhari and Dr. Nissim Ya’acov Malul, two members of a Sephardi intellectual circle in late Ottoman Palestine. This circle was unique from and related to its counterparts among European Zionists, non-Jewish Mashriqis, and the broader Sephardi community within and outside of Palestine. This study investigates the language orientations of these two intellectuals in order to demonstrate the contours of the Ottomanist, Nahdawi, and Zionist intellectual traditions from which they drew. This entails a review of the scholarship of the late Ottoman Mashriq in general, and this circle in particular. The article then introduces Azhari and Malul, their relationship to this circle, and their connections to Ottomanism, the Nahda, and Zionism. The study then analyzes their orientations towards language as expressed in a speech by Azhari and in an essay series by Malul. Through an analysis of Language Orientation, this study demonstrates that the unique intellectual synthesis and activities of Azhari and Malul distinguished them from European Zionists, non-Jewish Mashriqis, the Sephardim in Palestine, and the Sephardi community outside of Palestine.