רוֹדָן

The word "רוֹדָן" (rodan) is a Hebrew word that was coined in 1931 (or shortly before) as a Hebrew alternative to the foreign word "dictator." It first appears in an article by writer Daniel Persky in the newspaper "Doar HaYom" in November 1931, where he refers to "Ana Khan, the rodan (dictator) of Persia." The origin of the word is in the biblical verb רָדָה (radah, "to rule, subjugate, chastise"). Interestingly, "rodan" appears in the Bible as the name of a people, probably inhabitants of the island of Rhodes: "And the sons of Javan: Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Rodanim" (1 Chronicles 1:7). The same name also appears in the Book of Genesis (10:4), but there it is written as "דֹדָנִים" (Dodanim) - apparently a copying error. And despite the similarity in spelling, there is no connection between the modern word "rodan" and the ancient name or the island of Rhodes. In 1935, linguist Yitzhak Avineri suggested using the word "רַדַאי" (radai) instead of "רוֹדָן" (rodan), but his suggestion was not accepted, and gradually "rodan" became the accepted word in Hebrew. Before the coinage of "rodan," other words were used in Hebrew to describe a tyrannical ruler, such as "עָרִיץ" (aritz) and "אַכְזָר" (akhzar), which were suggested by Haskalah writers in the late 18th and early 19th centuries as Hebrew alternatives to the European word "tyrant."