- published: 29 Dec 2015
- views: 0
Sabra (Hebrew: צבר, pronounced tsabar; ṣabra) is a term used to describe a Jew born in Israel; the term is also usually inclusive of Jews born during the period of the establishment of the state of Israel. The word "sabra" is Arabic and Hebrew. Immigrants to the British Mandate for Palestine began using it in the early 1930s, according to the The Dictionary of Slang (Hebrew) written by Israeli Rubik Rozental. The allusion is to a tenacious, thorny desert plant with a thick hide that conceals a sweet, softer interior, suggesting that even though the Israeli Sabra are rough and masculine on the outside, they are delicate and sensitive on the inside. In the United States, this cactus variety is known as the Prickly Pear. In 2010 over 4,000,000 Israeli Jews (70%) were Sabras, with an even greater percentage of Israeli Jewish youths falling into this category.
The term was used a lot politically by the Zionist movement, to celebrate the "New Jew" which the movement created. Unlike the "old Jew" who was born in exile, and was stereotypically bourgeois, the "New Jew" was stereotypically a kibbutz member (or a farmer in a Moshav). "The old Jew" spoke European languages or Hebrew with a heavy accent, while the Sabra spoke the Hebrew language as a mother tongue. Unlike the "Old Jew" who did not fight for his self-defense, the Sabra fought in the Jewish resistance movements, in the Palmach and after the establishment of Israel in the IDF.
A person is a being, such as a human, that has certain capacities or attributes constituting personhood, the precise definition of which is the subject of much controversy.[vague language] The common plural of "person", "people", is often used to refer to an entire nation or ethnic group (as in "a people"), so the plural "persons" is often used in contexts which require precision such as philosophical and legal writing.
In ancient Rome, the word "persona" (Latin) or "prosopon" (πρόσωπον: Greek) originally referred to the masks worn by actors on stage. The various masks represented the various "personae" in the stage play, while the masks themselves helped the actor's voice resonate and made it easier for the audience to hear.
In Roman law, the word "persona" became used to refer to a role played in court, and it became established that it was the role rather than the actor that could have rights, powers, and duties, because different individuals could assume the same roles, the rights, powers, and duties followed the role rather than the actor, and each individual could act in more than one role, each a different "person" in law.[tortured english][citation needed]