Charashim

Charashim is a Hebrew place name meaning craftsmen. UPDV preserves it once in transliterated form (as Ge-harashim) and once translated (the valley of craftsmen), and in both passages the gloss attached to the name explains what it meant.

A valley named for its craftsmen

The name first appears in the Judahite genealogies: "And Meonothai begot Ophrah: and Seraiah begot Joab the father of Ge-harashim; for they were craftsmen" (1 Chronicles 4:14). Joab is identified as "the father of Ge-harashim" — the founding figure of a settlement whose inhabitants worked at trades, and the closing clause "for they were craftsmen" supplies the etymology in the same breath as the name.

A returnee settlement

After the exile the same site reappears in the list of towns reoccupied by Benjamin: "Lod, and Ono, the valley of craftsmen" (Nehemiah 11:35). Here UPDV translates the name rather than transliterating it, and the placement next to Lod and Ono locates the valley in the coastal plain where Benjaminites resettled after the return.