(lit. "people of the land"). Hebrew term possessing various connotations in the Bible. It can mean the indigenous population, e.g., of Egypt, Canaan, or Persia (Gen. 42:6; Num. 14:9; Est. 8:17); a Hittite representative council (Gen. 23:7, 12-13); foreign idolators (Deut. 28:10; I Kings 8:43; I Chr. 5:25); and Israelites as well, including both representative leaders (Lev. 20:2) and the lower peasant class (II Kings 24:14). By the Mishnaic period, however, am ha-arets was increasingly used in the derogatory sense of an uneducated man whose fulfillment of halakhic regulations could not be trusted, either because of his ignorance or his carelessness. Hillel declared that "an am ha-arets cannot be pious" (Avot 2:5); and a pious man (see ḥaver) of Second Temple times would refrain from eating the produce of an am ha-arets farmer, suspecting him of laxity in the separation of tithes (see also Demai). According to the rabbis, an am ha-arets was remiss in such matters as educating his children and reciting the Shema (Sot. 22a), neglected the laws of Purity and Impurity, and might be excluded from the Afterlife (Ket. 111b).
Some indication of the animosity displayed on either side may be glimpsed from a series of declarations in the Talmud (Pes. 49b) to the effect that such Jews hate scholars, are invalid witnesses, and deserve to be ostracized. Whether these often hyperbolical remarks point to an unbridgeable social gap seems doubtful. R. Meir showed respect for an am ha-arets who had obviously deserved the blessing of long life (TJ Bik. 3:3), while a common saying of the time was: "Let the grapes [scholars] pray for the leaves [ignorant folk], since without the leaves there would be no grapes" (Ḥul. 92a). The am ha-arets disappeared after the end of the tannaitic period. Nowadays, am ha-arets means simply an ignoramus, particularly in Jewish religious matters (Yid. amoretz).
