Nissim Malul

Malul was born in Safed in 1892 to a family of Tunisian descent. When Malul was 8 years old, his father Rabbi Moses Hayyim, was appointed rabbi of the Jews of Tanta and Cairo. Malul was educated in Jewish schools in Cairo and Tanta and attended the American College of Tanta, studying Arabic literature, journalism, and philosophy. The Egyptian University (today known as Cairo University) appointed Malul as Hebrew lecturer in 1909, making him the first person to teach Hebrew at a university in Egypt.[1]

In 1911 Malul returned to Palestine and wrote for Hebrew and Arabic journals. The same year he became the correspondent of the Egyptian newspaper Al Muqattam in Haifa [2] and began writing for the paper. He attempted to promote the status of Hebrew in Egyptian higher education. Malul also began working for the Zionist Office in Jaffa, where his chief responsibility was to respond to anti-Zionist articles in Arab-Christian Palestinian newspapers such as Filastin and al-Karmil. Malul tried to establish a Jewish newspaper in Arabic, called Sawt al-‘Uthmaniyya (The Voice of the Ottomans), an initiative he believed would help quell Arab anti-Zionism. He partnered with his friend, fellow journalist, and Zionist thinker Shimon Moyal.[3] With Moyal and his wife Esther Azhari Moyal, Malul founded Ha-Magen (the Shield), an organization of Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews whose goal was to respond to anti-Zionist arguments in the Arabic press and translate them into Hebrew. The association claimed one of its goals was the creation of greater understanding between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, and the promotion of peaceful relations with Arabs.[4]

During World War I Turkish authorities suspected Malul of anti-Ottoman activities he was expelled to Damascus. From there he escaped to Egypt where he remained until the end of the war, serving as an officer of the Hebrew Battalion and a translator for the British. He returned to Palestine under the British Mandate. There, with funding from the Zionist Organization, Malul founded two Arabic newspapers, al-Akhbār and al-Salām. From 1922 to 1925 he was a member of the Zionist National Committee, and later he published in Ittiḥād al-ʿUmmāl, a Zionist-supported Arabic workers’ newspaper that attempted to raise class consciousness among Arab workers. From 1927 to 1929 he left Palestine for Iraq with his wife, Aliza, where he taught Arabic and Hebrew in a Jewish elementary school in Hila, Baghdad supported by the Anglo-Jewish Association.[1]

Malul authored several books in Hebrew and Arabic, including two plays and a Hebrew-Arabic/Arabic-Hebrew dictionary, and he translated works between Arabic and Hebrew. He died in Tel Aviv in 1959.

Malul published articles in the Hebrew newspaper Ha-Herut (Freedom), where he argued for the place of the Arabic language and culture within Zionism. He believed knowledge of Arabic was vital to the Zionist cause of fostering understanding with the Arabs of Palestine. He also advocated for Semitic Jewish nationalism, believing Arabic to be inseparable from Jewish culture, as they were both Oriental in origin.[3][5]

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