Palestine A Four Thousand Year History by Nur Masalha

British Jewish historian Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier (1888–1960), who immigrated to the UK in 1907, was a long-time Zionist and a close friend and associate of Chaim Weizmann. He also worked as political secretary for the Jewish Agency in Palestine (1929–1931). Namier was born Ludwik Niemirowski in what is now part of Poland, and his devotion to Zionism did not prevent the Anglicisation of his name. While name changing among British or American Zionist Jews who emigrated from Eastern Europe became part of the process of Anglicisation or Americanisation, name changing in Palestine among Zionist settlers began during the Mandatory period and became an integral part of the Hebrewisation and biblicisation of the immigrant settlers (Brisman 2000: 129). The initiative was begun by Yitzhak ben-Tzvi, the second President of Israel, and by a directive written by Ben-Gurion to army officers that it was their moral duty to Hebraicise their names as an example. As a result the Army set up a Hebrew Names Committee to propose Hebrew names to officers and soldiers in the Army. A booklet was compiled by Mordechai Nimtsa-Bi (1903‒1949), the head of the Names Committee. The compilers offered four groups of suggested Hebrew name: family names, names of Taanim19 and Amoraim,20

biblical names and Hebrew personal names. A similar list was compiled a few years later by Yaakov Arikha under the title, Behar likha shem mishpaha ‘Ivri (Select for yourself a Hebrew family name). The booklet, published in Jerusalem in 1954 by the Israeli Academy for the Hebrew Language (which had replaced the Hebrew language Committee of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, see below) included advice on how to change family names, and lists of Hebrew names serving as an example (Brisman 2000: 129).