how to say “homeland” in Hebrew
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מוֹלֶדֶת
The Torah portion that will be read tomorrow morning by Jews the world over opens with G-d commanding Abram (before he is renamed Abraham) to “go and leave… the place of your birth… to a land that I will show you” – לֵךְ לְךָ… וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ… אֶל הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶך (lekh leh-KHAH… oo-mee-moh-lahd-teh-KHAH… el hah-AH-retz ah-SHEHR ahr-EH-kah).
That land, then called כְּנַעַן (keh-NAH-ahn), would become the homeland of the people of Israel.
The Modern Hebrew word for homeland – מוֹלֶדֶת (moh-LEH-det) – comes from that Biblical verse. The word’s root is י.ל.ד (y.l.d), meaning birth. And the Land of Israel is the Jewish מולדת, as it has been for thousands of years. Other nations and religions have revered and attempted to lay claim to this rain-dependent, rocky (but gorgeous when cultivated) land, but none have called it their מולדת – that is, until the Arabs living in then-Palestine (a name given to this land by the ancient Romans) did after Israel declared independence and they assembled themselves into a new Arab nation called the Palestinians.
שבת שלום וסוף שבוע נעים לכולם!
Shabbat Shalom and a pleasant weekend to all!
