From Revenant to Demonym

Ever since I began promoting the term "revenant" to replace "settler" back in 2004, and see Tilley's letter here, there were those who could not make the switch.

Revenant means one that returns especially after a long absence, from revenir in the French.

Walter Scott employed it in Ivanhoe published in 1819

We Jews have returned to our historic homeland after an ethnic cleansing operation organized by Arabs under the leadership of the Mufti during the Mandate years of 1920-1948, carried out through a campaign of muderous terror, and then for another 19 years under the illegal occupation of the Hashemite Kingsom of Jordan which illegally occupied and annexed the area.

Well, I have a new one:

demonym

A demonym is a term for people who live in a particular place, a nationality word. It 

defines a person geographically.  As in:

"we are resident demonym Jews of Judea and Samaria"

And no, it is not pronounced with a dee but a deh.

^

Revenant. Demonym.

I had long ago championed the term of revenant instead of settler as in 

“he is a revenant resident of Judea and Samaria”.

Now it has been suggested to me to add

Demonym

A noun with a mid-19th century origin used to denote the natives or inhabitants of a particular country, state, city, etc.

It identifies a native of a certain geographical place or ethnic group. The term was resurrected in the 1990s as a descriptor of residency.

What say you?

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Revenants and Ghosts and Me

Remember my revenant post of 14 years ago (already?)?

It's core essence:

...why I think the word "revenant" should be used instead of "settler". 
a revenant is one who returns after a lengthy absence. A revenant can be any person who shows up after a long absence such as those who come back to their ancestral home after years of political exile. This is the classic definition although Sir Walter Scott used it in his novel the Fair Maid, to denote a ghost. It stems from the French "revenir," which means simply "to return". 

That 'ghost' connection disturbed some and others took advantage of it as if it made my term irrelevant.

Of course, that was before the Oscar Awards and Leo DiCaprio's performance.

But there actually is a 'ghost' in classic Zionist thinking.

Take this into consideration, from Leo Pinsker's Auto-Emancipation:

With the loss of their fatherland, the Jewish people lost their independence, and fell into a decay which is not compatible with existence as a whole vital organism. The state, was crushed before the eyes of the nations. But after the Jewish people had yielded up their existence as an actual state, as a political entity, they could nevertheless not submit to total destruction — they did not cease to exist spiritually as a nation. The world saw in this people the uncanny form of one of the dead walking among the living. 

The ghostlike apparition of a people without unity or organization, without land or other bond of union, no longer alive, and yet moving about among the living, — this eerie form scarcely paralleled in history, unlike anything that preceded or followed it, could not fail to make a strange, peculiar impression upon the imagination of the nations. And if the fear of ghosts is something inborn, and has a certain justification in the psychic life of humanity, what wonder that it asserted itself powerfully at the sight of this dead and yet living-nation ?

Fear of the Jewish ghost has been handed down and strengthened for generations and centuries. It led to a prejudice which, in its turn, in connection with other forces to be discussed later, paved the way for Judeophobia.

...Judeophobia is a form of demonopathy, with the distinction that the Jewish ghost has become known to the whole race of mankind not merely to certain races, and that it is not disembodied, like other ghosts, but is a being of flesh and blood, and suffers the most excruciating pain from the wounds inflicted upon it by the fearful mob who imagine it threatens them.

Judeophobia is a psychic aberration. As a psychic aberration it is hereditary, and as a disease transmitted for two thousand years it is incurable. It is the fear of ghosts; which, as the mother of Judeophobia, has evoked that abstract, I might say Platonic hatred, thanks to which the whole Jewish nation is wont to be held responsible for the real or supposed misdeeds of its individual members, and to be libelled in so many ways, to be buffeted about so disgracefully.

So, I'm still using the term revenant.

You?

P.S.

'Settlements' are communities.

'Settling' is actually resettling.

^

Revenant Justified

In 2004, over twelve years ago, I published an op-ed advocating replacing "settler" with "revenant".

You can read it here and it contains this:

But what should we term the Jews who live in the territories? A substitute for the word “settlers” has been hard to come by. I once introduced myself to a British Foreign Office Official at an appointment I had arranged at its London’s King Charles Street complex as a “Jewish civilian resident of a community located in Samaria”. Puzzled momentarily, he quickly interjected “but I thought I was to converse with a settler”. True, that was too many words, and therein is the problem. I think, though, that a more accurate noun perhaps has been found, one that is more relevant to the reality. 

It is revenant. 

According the American Heritage Dictionary, a revenant is one who returns after a lengthy absence. A revenant can be any person who shows up after a long absence such as those who come back to their ancestral home after years of political exile. This is the classic definition although Sir Walter Scott used it in his novel the Fair Maid, to denote a ghost. It stems from the French "revenir," which means simply "to return". 

Jews lived in the hills of Judea and Samaria for over 3500 years, as nomads, as tribal chieftains and as kings, priests and prophets. They were dispersed once and returned. They were exiled and returned....Eighty years ago, the world recognized unabashedly and with no disagreement the right of Jews to reestablish their historic homeland as a political entity. And following a brief 19 year long hiatus, Jews are once again living there. 

This, then, may be the word we need to employ. One word, of course, does not a victory make. Terminology is never terminal. Nevertheless, a major part of Israel’s Hasbara problem, especially in the medium of the electronic media and in academic and other political forums is its lack of ability to create a neutral space for discourse. Once the term “occupied” is tossed out in any gathering, any adequate response forces the speaker to deal with eighty years of detailed history, intricacies of international law and the interpretation of this or that Convention. 

If one is referred to as a settler, immediately the audience is disposed to consider the object as a near-monster, an oppressor, one who doesn’t belong and so forth. The person described as a “settler’ loses his humanity. He is a stereotype. Those who contend that Jews possess no rights in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, what should be called properly Yesha, have an easier task if they talk about a “settler”. A revenant, on the other hand, belongs. He has rights to the land, both his personal location and the collective geography. 

If one needs a humorous moment in the debate, the religious residents of Yesha could be referred to as reverent revenants. There are also irreverent revenants. Other residents could be irrelevant to the situation. 

Good linguistic advice is that to own a word, one should use it ten times. I have employed it seven times in this article. Perhaps you will join with me in multiplying its use? 

Also read this.

And now?

Merriam-Webster note:

Here are nine more notable words that sent people to the dictionary in 2016:Revenant

I rest my case.

^ 

Another Reason I Don't Like The Term "Settlers"

There's a TV ad with the line:

“We’re settlers son, we settle for things,” 

That is spoken by a father explaining to his son who asks why they can’t have DirecTV like their modern neighbors. 

As criticized

The campaign plays on the word, presenting a frontier-era family in a suburban neighborhood who stick to antiquated ways such as a horse-and-buggy and, oh yeah, cable.

Another opinion:

The ad is funny...But the real emotion of this spot goes much deeper than cheap laughs. The real emotion here is assumptive embarrassment, a weapon DirecTV has been using for years. This particular ad suggests that anyone using cable is that Dad on a tractor in his front yard, a settler.  Of course the creative idea is way over the top, but that makes the point sticky and tougher to take as a cable patron. And I’d wager some pretty hefty percentage of the cable viewers paused for a second and wondered, “Am I settling with cable?”

I am not embarrassed to reside in my ancestral patrimony, my historic homeland.  And if a certain term contributes to that perspective, then I'll be a resident, a revenant.

^

Revenant Comes Alive and Relevant Anew

You'll recall my term for the Jews who have returned after a long absence to our patrimonial lands of Judea and Samaria as I espoused it in 2004 - we are revenants.

Well, there's a movie to be released in January entitled The Revenant from this book.

I hope to take advantage of the opportunity provide to promot my term.

The trailer

The Revenant is the new film of director Alejandro González Iñárritu, the Academy Award-winning director, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy, about a frontiersman who sets out for revenge after his fellow travelers leave him for dead after a bear mauling. 

From a synopsis of the book on which the film is based

Based Loosely based on true eventson a true incident of heroism in the history of the American West...A Philadelphia-born adventurer, frontiersman Hugh Glass goes to sea at age 16 and enjoys a charmed life, including several years under the flag of the pirate Jean Lafitte...In 1822, at age 36, Glass escapes, finds his way to St. Louis and enters the employ of Capt. Andrew Henry, trapping along tributaries of the Missouri River. After surviving months of hardship and Indian attack, he falls victim to a grizzly bear. His throat nearly ripped out, scalp hanging loose and deep slashing wounds to his back, shoulder and thigh, Glass appears to be mortally wounded...Even though his death seems certain, Henry details two men, a fugitive mercenary, John Fitzgerald, and young Jim Bridger (who lived to become a frontier hero) to stand watch and bury him. After several days, Fitzgerald sights hostile Indians. Taking Glass's rifle and tossing Bridger his knife, Fitzgerald flees with Bridger, leaving Glass. Enraged at being left alone and defenseless, Glass survives against all odds and embarks on a 3,000-mile-long vengeful pursuit of his ignominious betrayers. Told in simple expository language, this is a spellbinding tale of heroism and obsessive retribution.

This should be grand.  The word doesn't mean a literal ghost, as som claim, but someone thought gone who has come back, as I wrote.  Just as we Jews, banned from our homeland, have returned.



 (kippa tip - Zalmi)

^

Remember My Revenant?

I suggested (11 years ago) and use "revenant" as the proper term to describe Jews who have come back to repopulate Judea and Samaria, the heart of the Jewish homeland.

Jews lived in the hills of Judea and Samaria for over 3500 years, as nomads, as tribal chieftains and as kings, priests and prophets. They were dispersed once and returned. They were exiled and returned. Despite foreign conquerors, they persisted in returning under the most difficult of political, religious and economic conditions. Their civilization was created in the area as was their literature. Their three most important cities are there. 

The Torah and the New Testament use the terms Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The Quran records God’s command that the Jews should live in the Promised Land. Eighty years ago, the world recognized unabashedly and with no disagreement the right of Jews to reestablish their historic homeland as a political entity. And following a brief 19 year long hiatus, Jews are once again living there. 

This, then, may be the word we need to employ. One word, of course, does not a victory make. Terminology is never terminal. Nevertheless, a major part of Israel’s Hasbara problem, especially in the medium of the electronic media and in academic and other political forums is its lack of ability to create a neutral space for discourse. Once the term “occupied” is tossed out in any gathering, any adequate response forces the speaker to deal with eighty years of detailed history, intricacies of international law and the interpretation of this or that Convention. 

Well, NT sent me this:

• revenant •  Pronunciation: re-vê-nênt
Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. Someone returning after a long absence. 2. Someone returning from the dead.

Notes: Today's Good Word is remarkable in its rarity. How commonly do we say, "Welcome, stranger" or (down South) "I haven't seen you in a coon's age" to someone we haven't seen in a long time? Well, everyone we say such things to is a revenant—especially if we thought they were dead.

This word is a lexical orphan, except it may be also be used as an adjective, as 'a revenant cousin'.

In Play: Rip Van Winkle, of course, is the most famous revenant, but then all ghosts are equally good revenants. The frequency of circumstances in which we meet revenants belies its rarity: "Family reunions are enjoyable for all the revenants you see." This word may be applied jokingly to someone who has missed work for several days: "Well, look who's decided to come to work: our old revenant, Charlie!"

Word History: Today's Good Word is another contribution by the French language. In French revenant is the present participle of revenir "to return". Revenue, that which is returned, is the feminine past participle of the same verb. This verb comprises re- "back, again" + venir "to come". Venir, believe it or not, goes back to the same source as English come: Proto-Indo-European gwe(m)- "to go, come". Greek bainein "to walk" shares the same origin.

I knew I was right, using the right word.  My right word.

^

My Use of Revenant Strengthened

My almost decade-old term for a Jew who returns to reside in his historic homeland after a forced absence is

revenant.

As I explain, it is based on the French revenir.

Some, based on its current usage for "ghost", deprecate me.

Well, this was sent to me by a dear friend, a companion in the use of intellect and rationality:

The Yalta myth, inflated by Ms. West with the unfounded new flourish that Harry Hopkins was a Commie spy, like the unspeakable fraud that Truman, not Stalin, started the Cold War, is a revenance of the psycho-Roosevelte-mentia virus.

 

The source. 

^

Defining "Settler"

At a new web site devoted to definitions, I found this:

settler

“In the majority of cases such lands are either cleared or partly cleared, and the settler is able to put in a crop right away, providing he obtains possession at a seasonable time."

Definitions
American Heritage Dictionary:

1. noun One who settles in a new region.
2. noun One who settles or decides something.

Examples

"Prime Minister Olmert called the settler rampage a "pogrom," the word used to describe anti-Semitic violence in 19th and early"
"This settler was walking alone, needing no group to support him either physically or morally."
"Last week, a settler was killed, ostensibly in retaliation for the murder According to an Israeli human rights organization, only a handful of cases of murder were investigated. " — Palestine Blogs aggregator
"'A settler is always an outsider who does not have the same claim as other people of a country," said Mulder. " — IOL: News
"Olmert called the settler attacks "brutal and unacceptable" and declaring that "pogroms against non-Jewish residents" would not be tolerated. " — It's Almost Supernatural

The proper word is revenant.

Almost But Not Quite Revenant

Found in Canada's Globe & Mail:

Brendan Flanagan at Angell Gallery

$2,000-$12,000. Until Oct. 10, 890 Queen St. W., Toronto; 416-530-0444

The title of painter Brendan Flanagan's new exhibition, now at Toronto's Angell Gallery, is Revenant - a word, that, despite its wide use in popular culture, I nevertheless had to look up. One quick Google, however, reveals that the word primarily means "a folkloric corpse that returns from the grave."

Revenant is apparently also a comic horror film, a video game, a record label, a character in some other video game called Soul Calibur III, a comic book (2000-08), and the title of the 13th episode of a TV series called Legend of the Seeker.

So along comes this young, Toronto-based painter (Flanagan is 26) and, fuelled by the clattering, oozing, gibbering throng of the zombie-esque, walking-dead just over his shoulder, proceeds to paint these hectic, disturbing, chromatically shrieky paintings...

(Kippah tip: SL)

Now, as you of you know, a revenant is someone who returns to his/her ancestral home after a long absence. That's the true primary definition:


rev·e·nant: (rĕv'ə-nənt)
1. One that returns after a lengthy absence.

rev·e·nant (rv-nnt)
n.
1. One that returns after a lengthy absence.

rev·enant (rev′ə nənt)
noun
a person who returns, as after a long absence

And being in Canada, he could find the word used in this March 16, 1999 judgment of a Supreme Court case and there's no ghost there:

27291 - CITY OF SEPT‑ÎLES v. CANADIAN UNION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES, LOCAL 2589, LABOUR COURT, 2862‑3775 QUÉBEC INC. AND SERVICES SANITAIRES DU ST‑LAURENT INC.

Droit du travail ‑ Droit administratif - Accréditation - Contrôle judiciaire - Concession partielle d’une entreprise - Entretien ménager - Transmission des droits et obligations selon l’art. 45 du Code du travail, L.R.Q. 1977, ch. C-27 - Rétrocession et concessions successives d’entreprise - Transfert de l’accréditation visant les employés affectés à l’entretien ménager lors d’une première concession d’entreprise par Ivanhoe inc., conformément à l’art. 45 - Fin du contrat - Ivanhoe confiant ensuite à quatre nouveaux entrepreneurs l’entretien ménager - La Cour d’appel a-t-elle erré en refusant d’intervenir pour casser les décisions des instances inférieures qui ont conclu à l’application de l’art. 45 à des contrats de fourniture de services, revenant ainsi à la notion fonctionnelle de l’entreprise qui avait été rejetée dans U.E.S., local 298 c. Bibeault, [1988] 2 R.C.S. 1048, et dans Lester (W.W.)(1978) Ltd. c. Association unie des compagnons et apprentis de l’industrie de la plomberie et de la tuyauterie, section locale 740, [1990] 3 R.C.S. 644...

[Labor law - Administrative law - Certification - Judicial review - Operation in part by another of an undertaking - Janitorial Services - Transfer of rights and obligations under s. 45 of the Labor Code, RSQ 1977, c. C-27 - Surrender and successive operation by others of an undertaking - Transfer of certification for janitorial employees under s. 45 when initially Ivanhoe operation of transferring to another undertaking - Termination of contract - then Ivanhoe Assigning janitorial services to four new contractors - Whether the Court of Appeal erred in Refusing to intervene and quash the lower court decisions holding that s. 45 applied to contracts for services, Thus returning to the functional concept of an undertaking, Which was dismissed in UES, Local 298 v. Bibeault, [1988] 2 SCR 1048, and Lester (WW ) (1978) Ltd.. v. United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry, Local 740, [1990] 3 SCR 644]

I refer you all to this post where I explain and insist that the meaning of revenant, of returning after a lenghty absence to a rightful legacy, should be applied to those Jews who have moved back into areas of their ancestral homeland, Judea and Samaria, the Golan and previously Gaza and other territories.

Again, Why I Don't Like the Term "Settlers"

The word to describe Jews living in Yesha, that is, Judea and Samaria, is revenant. Someone who returns after a long absence to his ancestral homeland.

Not "settler".

In a review in the Times Literary Supplement of James Belich's "REPLENISHING THE EARTH: The settler revolution and the rise of the Anglo-world", we read this:

...recent chroniclers and analysts of the Anglo-Americanization of the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the filters used have been those that show up the “imperialism” of the process...

...Belich’s approach brings out two further features...First, “settlerism” was transnational, in several senses, quite apart from the obvious one that it pushed beyond national frontiers. Other peoples did it besides Britons...

The second is that this kind of colonization was not necessarily a case of the centre “exploiting” the periphery. Settlers positively sought out “oldland” goods and capital rather than having them forced on them. They arguably gained more from the exchange than the metropoles did. At the very worst, “exploitation was mutual”. The cultural ties between them were also voluntary. It was the Australians who wanted to retain their British identity, rather than its being forced on them, and Britain which eventually cut the tie between them...

Belich’s own analysis of “Anglo” settlerism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries will be the most contentious section of this book. He is insistent that neither Britain’s early start (which in fact was quite late), nor her institutions, nor any particular virtues or other qualities of the “Anglos”, had much to do with it. Instead he relies on a strict typology of what he takes to be its different stages: “incremental”, “explosive”, “recolonisation”, and “decolonisation”, of which the middle two are further subdivided into “boom”, “bust” (the second) and “export rescue” (the third), which apparently operated in virtually every successful case of “Anglo” settlerism in this period...What he is describing here, surely, are the normal travails of free market capitalism as socialists see them, anywhere, including in metropoles (today, for example), but exaggerated in settler contexts because they were so free...

All this comes from uncoupling “settlerism” from “imperialism” (or from other sorts of imperialism: it depends on your definition), which is the most valuable insight of this book. One effect of it is to free the former from some of the stigmas attaching to the latter; but then, settlerism had quite enough stigmas of its own. Belich deals with most of them, and one in particular: the injury (to put it mildly) done to most of the indigenous races that stood in the settlers’ path...

Settlers went to places that were foreign to them, that were strange, that didn't belong to them.

We Jews came home, to the landscapes of our history, where we developed as a people, where our religion was fashioned, where our kings and prophets and priests acted and spoke, where our language and literature flowered.

No imperialists we; no exploiters; no strangers.

We live in the Land of Israel, in Judea, in Samaria, in its hills, and plains and along its shores.

We are revenants.

Seven Years Ago: Revenant

I was talking yesterday to a visitor who was also at the reception for Gov. Mike Huckabee and, she being a lawyer, was most interested in words, terms and their use. I sent her my article on employing the term "revenant" and then searched around and found this earlier one, published in the Jerusalem Post as an op-ed way back on September 29, 2002.

Well, a seven-year cycle is almost complete, so here it is:

Revenant is relevant

The American writer Carolyn Wells, who died 60 years ago, asserted "actions lie louder than words." Be that as it may, words still play an important part in the craft of fooling people. This is especially so in the Arab-Israel conflict.

To take one example, the proper nomenclature for the Jewish civilian residential areas in the disputed territories of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, as New York Times columnist William Safire has indicated, should be communities rather than the pejorative "settlements." Jews live in communities or, for that matter, in cities, towns and villages. They do not live in "settlements."

In his August 5, 2001 column, On Language, Safire wrote: "Words have connotations. In the disputed territory known as the West Bank, an Israeli village is called a settlement, implying fresh intrusion; a small Palestinian town, even one recently settled, is called a village, implying permanence." Of course, his use of "disputed" rather than "occupied," or for that matter, "liberated," in another example of the importance of the terminology one uses.

This phenomenon, of harnessing language to political ideology, is not exceptional nor is it new. In a volume discussing political geography, Richard Muir deals with an "image system" whereby a subjective perception of reality is promoted via language so as to achieve superiority either at negotiations or other actions that will help establishing borders to territories.

The use of "occupied" and of "settlements" and "settlers" is a projection of a desired reality. That Israel's official state institutions such as the Foreign Ministry's information services and their employees continue to use these very terms is unfortunate, to say the least.

But what should we term the Jews who live in the territories? A substitute for the word "settlers" has been hard to come by. I once introduced myself to a British Foreign Office official as a "Jewish resident of a community in Samaria." Puzzled momentarily, he quickly interjected "but I thought I was to converse with a settler." Clearly, a more accurate noun is needed, one that is more relevant to the reality.
It is revenant.

THE DICTIONARY defines a revenant is one who returns after a lengthy absence. A revenant can be any person who shows up after a long absence such as those who come back to their ancestral home after years of political exile. This is the classic definition although Sir Walter Scott used it in his novel The Fair Maid, to denote a ghost. It stems from the French "revenir," which means simply "to return."

Jews lived in the hills of Judea and Samaria for over 3500 years, as nomads, as tribal chieftains and as kings, priests and prophets. They were dispersed once and returned. They were exiled and returned.

Despite foreign conquerors, they persisted in returning under the most difficult of political, religious and economic conditions. Their civilization was created in the area as was their literature. Their three most important cities are there.

The Torah and the New Testament use the terms Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The Quran records God's command that the Jews should live in the Promised Land. Eighty years ago, the world recognized unabashedly and with no disagreement the right of Jews to reestablish their historic homeland as a political entity. [and the UN Resolution 181 on Partition also used Judea and Samaria - YM] And following a brief 19 year long hiatus, Jews are once again living there.

Revenant, then, may be the word we need to employ.

If one is referred to as a settler, immediately the audience is disposed to consider the object as a near-monster, an oppressor, one who doesn't belong and so forth. The person described as a "settler' loses his humanity. He is a stereotype.

Those who contend that Jews possess no rights in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, have an easier task if they talk about a "settler." A revenant, on the other hand, belongs. He has rights to the land, both his personal location and the collective geography.

Good linguistic advice is that to own a word, one should use it ten times. I have employed it four times in this article. Perhaps you will join with me in multiplying its use?

Why I Don't Like To Use "Settler"

This is why, a story from South Africa:-

Landslide endangers settler home

A HUGE landslide on the N2 near Grahamstown is threatening to topple a historic settler homestead that has stood for 170 years.

Remember, the term is revenant or resident.

Ever Heard the Term "Settler Nationhood"?

Reviewing Muqata's posting on the crisis at Barnard, I followed through and discovered this info.

Think I can get them to use "revenant"?