Happy 250th 4th of July! Spilling the Historical Tea on What Early Hebrew Media Actually Called the USA

The ארצות הברית is currently celebrating 250 years of independence this 4th of July, and for the occasion, we are dragging some of its forgotten alternative Hebrew names out of the historical archives.

The late linguist Reuven Mirkin showed that the ארצות הברית has been known by this name in the Hebrew press since as early as 1861. However, a quick dive into the newspapers on the "Historical Jewish Press" website reveals appearances of the phrase ארצות הברית אשר באמעריקא even earlier than that (המגיד, September 3, 1857). Interestingly, in newspapers of that era, the use of the phrase ארצות הברית also comes up to denote other political entities, such as the Swiss התַּאֲחִיד (confederation)—referred to as ארצות הברית בשווייץ (הכרמל, September 12, 1860).

Regardless, in early Hebrew journalism, printed in Eastern Europe and the Land of Israel in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the ארצות הברית was also called by several other names. Below are a few of them.

Let's actually start with a relatively late newspaper—דֹאר היום, which began publication under the editing of Itamar Ben-Avi in the summer of 1919. In its very first issue (August 8, 1919), we find the name המדינות המאוחדות של אמריקה, a literal translation of the full English name of the United States—The United States of America. In that same issue, we also find the phrase מדינות הברית. This phrase also translates the name of the ארצות הברית in the German-Hebrew dictionary by Shimon Menachem Lazar and Harry Torczyner (who is Naftali Herz Tur-Sinai) from 1927.

Even before that, in the newspaper הצבי, edited by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, we find the shorter name המדינות המאוחדות (January 9, 1900) as well as the phrase ארצות ממשלת הברית (January 5, 1900).

In contrast, the newspaper הצפירה used the phrase כנסיות הברית, sometimes on its own (January 1, 1900) and sometimes expanded: "And in the כנסיות הברית באמעריקא the Democrats' sect won, and Mr. קלעוועלאנד was elected פרעזידענט" (January 5, 1885; regarding the election of Grover Cleveland as President of the ארצות הברית in the elections held in November 1884). Additionally, the newspaper הצפירה also featured the phrase כנסיות הברית האמעריקאניות (January 1, 1895), as well as the word כנסת to denote a single state within the ארצות הברית: "The forest fires in the כנסת of Minnesota in America have spread over a large area" (October 14, 1910).

Other phrases were also found, such as ארצות הברית הצפוניות (המליץ, January 1, 1890) and אמעריקא הצפונית (המליץ, January 7, 1904; דֹאר היום, August 8, 1919), as well as the name of the continent אמעריקא on its own (המגיד, January 8, 1885; המליץ, January 7, 1904), all carrying the meaning of the 'United States'. The name אמריקה as a moniker for the ארצות הברית is familiar from foreign languages, and its use is still common today in both spoken language and literary texts. For example: "אמריקה, ורסנו, אמריקה" (in the sketch "The Messenger at the Bank" written by Yossi Banai for the HaGashash HaHiver trio), "How many songs can be written about אמריקה" (in the song "אמריקה" written and performed by Rami Fortis and Berry Sakharof).

We will end with one more word used to denote the meaning of 'a state in the United States'—גליל: "Three colonies still stand and exist to this day and are called by their names Alliance, Carmel, and Rosenhayn, all of them in the גליל of New Jersey near the cities of Vineland, Millville, and Bridgeton" (המגיד, January 9, 1890). And these are the names of the places mentioned in the news report in order, all in the southern state of New Jersey: Alliance, Carmel, Rosenhayn, Vineland, Millville, and Bridgeton.

Happy 4th אמריקה!