Koloni ya Kizayuni ya Gedera, iliyoko kilomita 13 kusini mwa Rehovot, ilianzishwa na walowezi wa Kirusi mwaka 1884. Kama koloni za Rehovot, Afula na Hadera, ununuzi wa ardhi yake kutoka kwa wamiliki wa ardhi wa Kipalestina ulihusisha Yehoshua Hankin. Chama cha Kikoloni cha Kiyahudi kilipaa Gedera jina lenye sauti ya Kiebrania (Kiebrania: ‘ukuta’) kwa kuiga eneo linalodaiwa kutajwa katika Biblia ya Kiebrania. Jina Hadera, kwa upande mwingine, dhahiri lilitokana na al-Khadra, na al-Khdeira katika lahaja ya Kipalestina ya huko, neno la Kiarabu lenye maana ya ‘kijani’. Ingawa koloni hili kuu la Kizayuni (leo ni mji mkubwa wa Israel)

The Zionist colony of Gedera, located 13 kilometres south of Rehovot, was founded by Russian settlers in 1884, and like the colonies of Rehovot, Afula and Hadera, the purchase of its lands from Palestinian landlords involved Yehoshua Hankin. The Jewish Colonial Association gave Gedera a Hebrew-sounding name (Hebrew: ‘wall’) after a site supposedly mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. The name Hadera, on the other hand, clearly originated from al-Khadra, and al-Khdeira in local Palestinian dialect, Arabic for ‘green’. Although this key Zionist colony (today a major Israeli city)

alipewa jina lenye sauti ya Kiebrania, jina hili la Kizayuni halina maana yoyote katika Kiebrania (Bar On 1996: 38). Ardhi ya koloni ya Gedera ilikuwa imenunuliwa kwa msaada wa balozi wa Ufaransa huko Jaffa, Poliovierre.

was given a Hebrew-sounding name, this Zionist name makes absolutely no sense in Hebrew (Bar On 1996: 38). The lands of the colony of Gedera had been purchased with the help of the French consul in Jaffa, Poliovierre.

Wapalestina wa eneo la Qatra walikuwa wakilima ardhi kama wakulima wapangaji wakati walowezi wa Kiyahudi walipowasili, nao walichukizwa na uvamizi huo kwenye kile walichokuwa bado wanakiona kuwa ardhi yao. Qatra ilikuwa kitovu cha kale cha mamlaka ya kisiasa na kiuchumi cha Wapalestina ambacho, pamoja na maeneo mengine thelathini ya mijini katika mikoa inayopakana na Bahari ya Mediterania, kiliingia katika kipindi cha kupungua mwishoni mwa Enzi ya Shaba (Zevit 2003: 94), lakini kilistawi katika kipindi chote cha Kiislamu. Uchimbaji wa kiakiolojia katika Tel Qatra uligundua karakana ya kutengeneza vyungu kwa ajili ya utengenezaji wa mitungi ya Gaza.

Local Palestinians of Qatra had been cultivating the land as tenant farmers when the Jewish settlers arrived, and they resented the intrusion onto what they still thought of as their land. Qatra was an ancient Palestinian centre of political and economic authority that along with thirty other urban sites in regions bordering the Mediterranean Sea had entered a period of decline in the late Bronze Age (Zevit 2003: 94) but flourished throughout the Islamic period. Archaeological excavations at Tel Qatra discovered a pottery workshop for the manufacture of Gaza jars.

Kwa kimaana, jina la Gedera lilivyopewa na walowezi wa mwanzo wa Kizayuni lilifuata kwa karibu jiografia ya Kikristo ya kimaandiko na akiolojia ya Biblia ya karne ya 19, ambayo ilifanya kazi kutokana na masimulizi ya Biblia. "Eneo la kibiblia" lilipendekezwa kwa mara ya kwanza na Victor Guérin (1868‒1880, 1881–1883), mwanaakiolojia wa Biblia na mtaalamu wa jiografia ya kimaandiko wa Kifaransa aliyetembelea Palestina mara kadhaa, na ambaye kazi zake mara nyingi zilirejelea vifungu kutoka Biblia ya Kiebrania na vyanzo vya Kiyahudi kama vile Mishna na Talmud, pamoja na kazi za wachunguzi wa kimaandiko wa kipindi hicho kama Edward Robinson. Wao, kama Wakrusedi na mahujaji wa zama za kati katika kitabu cha Maurice Halbwachs La Topographie légendaire des évangiles en terre sainte: étude de mémoire collective (1941), walitumia masimulizi ya Biblia na kuamua, kwa kiasi kikubwa kwa dhana tu, kwamba katika zaidi ya majina mia moja ya mahali pa kibiblia huko Palestina, haya ndiyo yalikuwa asili ya majina ya Kiarabu yaliyotumiwa na wakulima wa Kipalestina, fallahin (Robinson et al. 1860; Davis 2004; Macalister 1925). Guérin alihusisha jina la Gedera na kijiji cha Kipalestina cha Qatra (Fischer et al. 2008), ambacho kiliondolewa wakazi na kuharibiwa na vikosi vya Kiyahudi mwaka 1948. Wakati wa Mamlaka ya Uingereza juu ya Palestina, wakazi wa kiasili wa Kipalestina walikiita Qatrat Islam ili kukitofautisha na koloni la Kiyahudi la Qatrat Yahud (Qatra ya Kiyahudi), au Gedera, kama walowezi wa Kizayuni wenyewe walivyoliita. Katika miaka ya 1950, mtaa uitwao Oriel (nuru ya Mungu) ulianzishwa kwenye ardhi ya Qatra ya Kiarabu kwa ajili ya wahamiaji wapya wa Kiyahudi wenye ulemavu wa kuona.

Etymologically the naming of Gedera by early Zionist settlers closely followed Christian scriptural geography and biblical archaeology of the 19th century which worked from the narratives of the Bible. The ‘biblical location’ was first suggested by Victor Guérin (1868‒1880, 1881–1883), a French biblical archaeologist and scriptural geographer who visited Palestine several times and whose works often referred to passages from the Hebrew Bible and Jewish sources such as the Mishna and Talmud as well as works by contemporary scriptural explorers such as Edward Robinson, who – like the medieval Crusaders and pilgrims in Maurice Halbwachs’ La Topographie légendaire des évangiles en terre sainte: étude de mémoire collective (1941) – using the biblical narratives, decided, largely through speculation, that in more than a hundred biblical place names in Palestine, these were the origins of Arabic names used by the Palestinian fallahin (Robinson et al. 1860; Davis 2004: Macalister 1925). Guérin linked the name Gedera to the Palestinian village of Qatra (Fischer et al. 2008) which was depopulated and destroyed by Jewish forces in 1948. During the British Mandate of Palestine it was referred to by local Palestinians as Qatrat Islam to distinguish it from the Jewish colony of Qatrat Yahud (Jewish Qatra) or Gedera, as it was called by the Zionist settlers themselves. In the 1950s, a neighbourhood called Oriel (light of God) was established on the lands of Arab Qatra for new Jewish immigrants with visual impairments.

Katikati ya ujenzi wa kumbukumbu ya pamoja ya Kizayuni – na baadaye utambulisho wa Waisraeli – iliyojengwa juu ya "kumbukumbu ya kibiblia" kulikuwa na mradi wa Yishuv wa kutaja majina ya mahali kwa lengo la kukumbuka, ulioanzishwa miaka ya 1920 ili "kurejesha" Kiebrania cha kibiblia au kuunda majina mapya yanayosikika kama ya kibiblia (Ra’ad 2010: 189). Kamati ya Majina ya JNF na Kamati ya Majina ya Serikali ya Israeli ya miaka ya 1950 zote mbili ziliongozwa kwa ujumla na jiografia ya kibiblia ya Victor Guérin (1868‒1880, 1881–1883) na kitabu cha Edward Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea (1841), ambamo alihoji kwamba majina ya mahali ya vijiji na maeneo ya Palestina, yanayoonekana kuwa ya Kiarabu, yalikuwa tafsiri za kisasa za Kiarabu za majina ya zamani ya Kiebrania.

Central to the construction of Zionist collective memory – and subsequently Israeli identity – based on ‘biblical memory’ was the Yishuv’s memorialising toponymy project which was established in the 1920s to ‘restore’ biblical Hebrew or to create new biblical-sounding names (Ra’ad 2010: 189). Both the JNF Naming Committee and the Israeli Governmental Names Committee of the 1950s were generally guided by the biblical geography of Victor Guérin (1868‒1880, 1881–1883) and Edward Robinson’s Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea (1841), in which he had argued that the place names of Palestinian villages and sites, seemingly Arab, were modern Arabic renderings of old Hebraic names.

Utambulisho wa "Kiebrania Kipya" ulikuwa na sehemu muhimu ya majina ya mahali ya Kiebrania ya Kizayuni na ramani za Israeli, ambazo hatua kwa hatua zilichukua nafasi ya majina ya Kiarabu ya Kipalestina (Cohen na Kliot 1981, 1992; Kliot 1989; Azaryahu na Golan 2001; Azaryahu na Kook 2002).

An important part of the ‘New Hebrew’ identity was the Zionist Hebrew toponymy and the Israeli maps which gradually replaced the Palestinian Arabic names (Cohen and Kliot 1981, 1992; Kliot 1989; Azaryahu and Golan 2001; Azaryahu and Kook 2002).