Am ha'aretz

Am ha'aretz (עם הארץ) or the people of the Land is a term found in the Tanakh. When "the people" is singular and "the land" refers to the land of Israel, it refers to Jews. When "the peoples (plural) of the land (singular)" (Hebrew ammei ha'aretz) it refers to non-Jews, and when both words are plural (ammei ha'aretzot, lit. "peoples of the lands") it refers to the peoples of gentile lands.

The Talmud applies "the people of Land" to uneducated Jews, who were deemed likely to be negligent in their observance of the commandments due to their ignorance, and the term combines the meanings of "rustic" with those of "boorish, uncivilized, ignorant".

In current parlance, Am ha'aretz (or AMHA) refers to a movement arising from the early pioneers in Israel and their love of the land. Members of AMHA in Israel tend to be in elite military units and kibbutzim and reflect the traditional values of the secular Israeli pioneers. The leaders of AMHA are called Shoftim, and are elected by the membership. AMHA has also spread to the USA in recent years, where the first Shofet outside of Israel now resides.

In the Tanakh, the term "the people of the land" (Hebrew am ha'aretz) refers to a special social group or caste within the kingdom of Judah. Among the activities of the Biblical am ha'aretz was the revolt against Athaliah. By contrast, the plural ammei ha'aretz or ammei ha'aretzot refers to foreigners, either the nations of the world (gentiles) or the native Canaanite population living within Eretz Yisrael.

In the Second Temple period, the "people of the land" (am ha'aretz) are contrasted with those returning from the Babylonian captivity, "Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building". It is unclear whether the term refers to the people of Judah who remained behind and adopted syncretistic views, or to non-Hebrews. Rubenstein (2003) considers that in Ezra and Nehemiah it designates the rural Jews who had remained in the land while the aristocratic and priestly classes were deported to exile in Babylonia. In the view of Kartveit (2009) the terms used in Ezra and Nehemiah may not be precise in their distinctions; there may be implication that the "people of the land" (Ezra 4:4) had intermarried with the "peoples of the lands" (Ezra 9:1 ammei ha'aretzoth), and there may be an equation or relation with the origin of the Samaritans.

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