It’s well-known by now that the primary inspiration for the Draenei is Jewish culture. However, for those who are unconvinced, I will break down the basic proof of this statement.
1: The Draenei are led by a prophet leader who led them to safety from dire circumstances. Compare Velen to Moses.
2: They came to Azeroth on a ship called the Exodar (Exodus).
3: Their history is one of constant exile and difficulty, mirroring the struggles of Jewish people.
4: Many of their names and words associated with them come from Hebrew, or other languages associated with Jewish people.
Names like ‘Inaara’ and ‘Kaalif’ and ‘Idaar’ are Arabic in origin and were commonly used by Jews under Muslim rule during the Golden Age of Islam and names like ‘Merran’ and ‘Meiri’ (that are variants of the name Miriam, one of the most important prophets in Judaism and the sister of Moses), ‘Ezekiel’ (another name of an important prophet in Judaism), Joraal (Meaning ‘God will uplift’ in Hebrew, and the name of Superman’s father, another heavily Jewish-coded character created by two Jews) and ‘Behomat’ (Behemoth in the original Hebrew pronunciation, a sea monster mentioned in the Book of Job).
(Source:http://thenaaru.tumblr.com/post/137924157177/thetomatofaerie-the-thing-that-i-love-about-the)
5: The track ‘Malach’ from the Warlords of Draenor soundtrack, which itself has a Hebrew name meaning ‘messenger’, features a nigun (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigun) at around the 50 second mark.
With this made clear, I can now move on to the main gist of this post: some fun headcanons, and a response to a slight elephant in the room.
Headcanons:
1: While Draenei do not have surnames, they use patronymics to distinguish between themselves. For example - Inaara, whose father is named Hatan, would be known as Inaara bat Hatan, while her brother Joraal would be known as Joraal ben Hatan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_name#Surname
2: Just as Judaism (besides the incredibly tiny Karaite sect) is Rabbinic in nature (teachers of the scripture interpret matters, debate is common and encouraged), Draenei worship of the Light is heavily based on discussion and interpretation, and different Exarchs will interpret the word of a Naaru in a certain manner. Dogmatism is heavily discouraged, and worshippers are encouraged to find their own truths in the scripture (this is specifically non-Orthodox, but Draenei don’t seem Orthodox to me).
3: Similarly, the Draenei approach to the Light places next to zero importance on evangelism. This is less ‘headcanony’, as we see a very clear difference in how the humans and Draenei act in this respect. Individual draenei see the Light as immensely important to themselves, but they do not enforce their beliefs on others.
4: The Draenei use an abjad (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abjad) script, written right to left. Perhaps they even use the Hebrew script, just as Common is written in a variant of Futhark.
The elephant in the room:
With all this in mind, the recent plot developments on AU Draenor might seem at first glance to be very problematic - depicting a Jewish-coded society becoming the oppressors in a manner that might seem like a poorly constructed and offensive commentary on modern Israel. However, the manner in which the AU Draenei become so zealous and militant is through their (implied) exposure to the words of Xe’ra. Their religion shifts from culturally tied tradition to an evangelistic dogmatic belief system. There is a clear intent of conversion behind their actions.
To put it simply; there is one very clear example in history where a group of Jewish people shifted to an evangelistic and dogmatic belief system after the introduction of a perceived savior and person of great spiritual importance - Christianity.
![:open_mouth:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/open_mouth.png?v=6" ":open_mouth:")