`Am Ha-aretz

''Am haaretz'' () or the people of the Land is a term found in the Hebrew Bible and (with a different meaning) in rabbinic literature. The world usually is a collective noun in Biblical Hebrew but occasionally pluralized as עמי הארץ ''amei ha-aretz'' "peoples of the land" or (in Late Biblical Hebrew) super-pluralized as עמי הארצות ''amei ha-aratzot'' "peoples of the lands". In Mishnaic Hebrew and later, the term is used as a euphemism for "ignoramus", such that an individual ignoramus is an ''am ha-aretz'' and multiple are ''amei ha-aretz.'' In Modern Hebrew, the usual plurals are ''am ha-aretz'' and ''amei ha-aretz'' but the super-plural ''amei ha-aratzot'' is occasionally used. In Yiddish and Yeshivish, it is often pluralized עמי הארצים ''amei ha-aratzim'' or עמרצים ''amaratzim''.

Tanakh

In the Tanakh, the term "the people of the land" (Hebrew ''am ha'aretz'') refers to a special social group or caste within the Kingdom of Judah. Among the activities of the biblical ''am ha'aretz'' was the revolt against Athaliah. By contrast, the plural ''ammei ha'aretz'' or ''ammei ha'aretzot'' refers to foreigners, either the nations of the world ( gentiles) or the native Canaanite population living within Eretz Yisrael.

In the Second Temple period, the "people of the land" (''am ha'aretz'') are contrasted with those returning from the Babylonian captivity, "Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building". It is unclear whether the term refers to the people of Judah who remained behind and adopted syncretistic views, or to non-Hebrews. Rubenstein (2003) considers that in the Book of Ezra and Nehemiah it designates the rural Jews who had remained in the land while the aristocratic and priestly classes were deported to exile in Babylonia. In the view of Kartveit (2009) the terms used in Ezra and Nehemiah may not be precise in their distinctions; there may be implication that the "people of the land" (Ezra 4:4) had intermarried with the "peoples of the lands" (Ezra 9:1 ''ammei ha'aretzoth''), and there may be an equation or relation with the origin of the Samaritans.

Rabbinic Judaism

Usage of the term ''am ha'aretz'' in the Hebrew Bible has little connection to usage in the Hasmonean period and hence in the Mishnah. The Talmud applies "the people of Land" to uneducated Jews, who were deemed likely to be negligent in their observance of the commandments due to their ignorance, and the term combines the meanings of "rustic" with those of "boorish, uncivilized, ignorant".

In antiquity (Hasmonean to the Roman era, 140 BCE–70 CE), the ''am ha'aretz'' were the uneducated rustic population of Judea, as opposed to the learned factions of the Pharisees or Sadducees.

The ''am ha'aretz'' were of two types, the ''am ha'aretz le-mitzvot'', Jews disparaged for not scrupulously observing the commandments, and the ''am ha'aretz la-Torah'', those stigmatized as ignoramuses for not having studied the Torah at all.

The ''am ha'aretz'' are denounced in a very late and exceptional passage in Talmud Bavli Pesahim 49, where they are contrasted with the '' chachamim'' ("wise") and ''talmidei chachamim'' ("wise students", i.e. scholars of the Talmud). The text contains the rabbinical teaching that no man should marry the daughter of an ''am ha'aretz'' because if he should die or be exiled, his sons will then also be ''ammei ha'aretz'' (see Jewish matrilineality). A man should rather sell all his possessions in order to afford marriage to a daughter of a ''talmid chacham''. Marriage of a ''talmid chacham'' to a daughter of an ''am ha'aretz'' is compared to the crossbreeding of grapevine with wild wine, which is "unseemly and disagreeable".

The ''am ha'aretz'' is often contrasted with the chaber - a term used to describe someone scrupulous enough in Jewish law (namely laws of ritual purity and tithes) for an observant Jews of Second temple times to eat by their house. It too later evolved into a term to describe Torah knowledge - in this case a high degree of it.

See also

* Diaspora Jew
* '' Ger toshav'' ("resident alien" in Hebrew)
* '' Goy'' (non-Jew in Hebrew)
* Hellenistic Judaism
* Heresy in Judaism
* Pagan
* Sabra
* Who is a Jew?
* Zera Yisrael

References

Sources

*Mayer Sulzberger, ''The Am Ha-aretz, The Ancient Hebrew Parliament: A Chapter In The Constitutional History Of Ancient Israel'' (1910)
*A'haron Oppenheimer, ''The ʻam ha-aretz: a study in the social history of the Jewish people in the Hellenistic-Roman period'', vol. 8 of Arbeiten zur Literatur und Geschichte des hellenistischen Judentums, Brill Archive, 1977, .

External links

Am ha’aretz
by Rabbi Julian Sinclair, October 28, 2008.

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Hebrew words and phrases in the Hebrew Bible
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Jews in the Land of Israel