Warming relations between Israel and Arab countries creates new application for Aravrit,....

Warming relations between Israel and Arab countries creates new application for Aravrit, script that combines Hebrew and Arabic

When Liron Lavi Turkenich designed a writing system combining Hebrew and Arabic characters as a final project in college, she probably could not have imagined that her script would become the focal point of Israel’s pavilion at the 2020 World Expo in Dubai.

But after the Abraham Accords, in which Israel signed diplomatic agreements to normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates, and the peace agreements with other Arab countries that followed, the need for Aravrit, Turkenich’s script that allows both Hebrew and Arabic to be read from the same text, has expanded. The sky is now the limit for Turkenich’s project.

“I would like to get to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It’s a kind of dream. I would be happy for someone to adopt ‘El Mahar.’ An outdoor sculpture demands attention just as a language creates attention,” Turkenich told Haaretz, referring to the sculpture featured in the Israel pavilion. “El Mahar” means “toward tomorrow.”

Turkenich was first inspired to create the writing system by her uprbinging in Haifa, one of Israel’s most integrated cities where Jews and Palestinians mix frequently and where Arabic is ubiquitous. But Turkenich realized that she tended to ignore that language, which she didn’t understand, and automatically paying attention to the Hebrew which she did.



more...