Abstract
This article introduces “Kol ha-Nekudot”/“All the Points”/“Kull al-Nuqaṭ,” a digital humanities project and pedagogical resource currently under development. Drawing its name from the classical Zionist tendency to refer to communities as “points on the map,” “All the Points” is an interactive series of online maps depicting the Jewish, Palestinian Arab, and other communities that have existed in the Israeli-Palestinian region in any given year from 1840 to the present. “All the Points” provides basic information about each community and, by using colors and shapes, visually distinguishes among the kibbutz, moshav, Arab village, and many other community types and sub-types. Specifically in this piece, I explain various features of the enterprise, e.g. the respective rationales for its time range, geographical purview, and classificatory scheme; the ways in which the user can interact with the maps by adjusting the time bar, selecting the base map, and filtering in and out various settlement types; the manner in which data is obtained; and how various challenges posed by “All the Points” have been addressed. In addition, I discuss the project’s specialized, curated maps, focusing in particular on three thereof, namely those depicting the “Wall and Tower” communities of the late 1930s, the modern history of settlement on the Golan Heights beginning in 1878, and settlements of the imagination - i.e., fictional communities that exist only on the page, screen, or stage. Finally, accompanying images provide a visual impression of “All the Points” and its maps.
