Re: Mitzrayim (was: New To List)

On 13 Feb, Steg Belsky wrote:

> On Wed, 12 Feb 2003 10:47:42 +1300 Wesley Parish
> <wes.parish@...> writes:
> > Mizraim, best known nowadays as the name of one of the branches of
> > the Middle-Eastern Jewish community - Mizrahim, the people of Mizraim.
>
> > Wesley Parish
> -
>
> I guess you're using |z| for /ts/ ?
> That's generally transliterated |tz| or |ts|, so the country is Mitzrayim
> and people from Mitzrayim are called Mitzrim.
> The Modern Arabic name for Egypt is Misr, with an emphatic |s|.
> "Mitzrayim" seems to be the dual form of "Misr", possibly refering to
> Upper & Lower Egypt.  The name may be associated with the root TzR,
> "narrow".
    And |Mizrahim| means "Easterners",  from the Hebrew |mizrax|,
or "east". Ultimately from the root z-r-x, meaning "red"  (and from
that, "glowing").
     In Israeli usage, this term generally refers to Jews
from Arabic-speaking countries. Probably a shortened form:
(Middle-)East, although from an Israeli perspective, many of
the Arabic-speaking countries (including Egypt) are _west_ of here!
Jews from Morocco, for example, are considered |Mizrahim|
but Morocco is not only west of here, ironically
a lot of it is (south)west of England too ( from where,
AFAIK, we derive the term "Middle-East")!


Dan Sulani
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