One Of The Most Miraculous Events In Human History: The Rebirth Of Hebrew As A Living Language

Photo Credit: Saul Jay Singer

Eliezer Ben Yehuda (1858-1922), the “Father of the Modern Hebrew Language,” is best known for one of the truly great socio-linguistic events in world history: his virtually single-handed revival of Hebrew as a spoken language, which for centuries had been used only for Jewish prayer. He accomplished this at a time when there was not a single person who conversed in Hebrew as a mother tongue, when the resurrection of a dead language had never occurred in all human history, and when virtually no one else believed it possible. His philosophy may perhaps best be summarized by a famous quote in which he combines his fervent Zionism with his obsession with a return to Hebrew as a lingua franca: “Just as the Jews cannot really become a living nation other than through their returning to their ancestral land, so too, they are not able to become a living nation other than through their returning to their ancestral language.” As one commentator pithily observed, “before Ben Yehuda, Jews could speak Hebrew; after him, they did.”

Moreover, as a founding father of modern Zionism, Ben Yehuda was also a strong advocate of the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination, and he firmly believed that the Jewish State and the Hebrew language were inextricably connected. He explained that establishing Hebrew as the Jewish national language was the only way that olim arriving from the four corners of the earth could hope to communicate with each other. An inspiring speaker, he became recognized as an important voice of the Jewish nationalist movement.

Born Eliezer Yitzchak Perelman to an observant Lithuanian family (his father was a Chabad Chasid), Ben Yehuda, showing signs of being a child prodigy and already well-versed in Torah and Talmud at age four, was sent to a yeshiva to become a rabbi. However, he later became attracted to the secular world, became a secularist, and completed his secular studies at Russian gymnasium (1877).

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Nonetheless, after reading Daniel Deronda (1876), George Eliot’s final novel in which the renowned author laid out her passionate call for a homeland for the Jewish people, Ben Yehuda concluded that the European concept of national fulfillment should also be applied to the Jews, and he began to plan for both his own aliyah and for the return of the Jewish people to Eretz Yisrael. He left Russia (1878), first going to Paris to study medicine (at the Sorbonne) planning to become more valuable to the Jewish community in Eretz Yisrael, but his tuberculosis prevented completion of his studies and he left for Eretz Yisrael in 1881, settling in Jerusalem.

Few people know that one of his first projects upon making aliyah was printing the first Hebrew daily wall calendar (1885). He printed the Shabbat page in red; featured Jewish historical events on each page; and changed the date to reflect the number of years that have passed since the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash in Jerusalem.

Deciding to write a book that would include useful Hebrew words, he began his monumental effort by reading all the major Jewish sources, including the Bible, the Mishna, the Tosefta, the Midrash Halacha, the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, the Kabbalah, the Aggadah, as well as ancient epigraphy, coins, prayers, Jewish piyyutim (poems), responsa from the time of the Geonim, Karaite literature, and science books from his time. Among the first words in his dictionary were the names of the vessels from Massechet Keilim (the Mishnaic tractate on utensils), and about half a million notes containing excerpts from various Jewish sources were later found in Ben Yehuda’s house. Most remarkably, Ben Yehuda’s dictionary was a solo project written by him alone, as he resolutely ignored broad criticism for his failure to engage a panel of experts or the like in the project.

After the commencement of his tuberculosis, he moved to Algeria, where he first heard Jews reading the Torah with a Sephardic pronunciation, and he decided to speak with them only in Hebrew, which improved his language skills. Upon his return to Eretz Yisrael, his plan for the rebirth of Hebrew emphasized spoken Hebrew at home, and he and his first wife, Devora, pledged to speak only Hebrew to each other and to raise their son, Ben-Zion, as the first all-Hebrew speaking child in modern history. His fanaticism in this regard was such that when his wife was dying from tuberculosis and, in desperation, he smuggled his Russian-speaking mother in to help the family, he refused to let her speak so much as a word to his children.

When the Jewish public in Eretz Yisrael learned about his fanatism in refusing to let his son even hear other languages, many believed that Ben-Zion would grow up to be a “disabled idiot.” Even famed Hebrew poets Yehuda Leib Gordon and Moshe Lilienblum believed that Hebrew would never again become a spoken language, and no less a personage than Herzl declared, after a meeting with Ben Yehuda, that the idea of Hebrew as the Jewish national tongue was “ridiculous.”

With a Hebrew-speaking child to raise, Ben Yehuda needed to find appropriate Hebrew words for the mundane things of everyday 19^th century life; in fact, much of the inspiration for many of his “everyday” words came when his Hebrew-speaking young son would point to objects and ask “mah zeh?” (“what is that?). He further appreciated that for modern Hebrew to become a truly functional language, it had to meet the needs of educated Jews and that there had to be a Hebrew vocabulary that included academic and scientific expression. Accordingly, he coined many hundreds of new words, thus facilitating both the development of modern Hebrew vocabulary and the naturalness of Hebrew expression.

Ben Yehuda’s greatest and most vociferous opponents were the charedim, who knew Hebrew best from their intense Biblical and Talmudic studies and were perhaps the best candidates to adopt Hebrew as a native language. However, they believed that it was sacrilegious to use lashon hakodesh (the “Holy Tongue”) for everyday mundane purposes. (In contrast, the religious Zionists agreed that Zionism and Hebrew are inseparable and they quickly adopted teaching Hebrew in their yeshivot.) Moreover, Ben Yehuda was a prominent figure in the secular Zionist movement, which the charedi world strongly opposed, and he actively promoted Western education, science, and modern literature, also an anathema to the zealot charedim. His printing presses sometimes printed close to Shabbat, which led to accusations by the charedim that he publicly desecrated the Sabbath.

To facilitate the ability of teachers to teach in Hebrew, Ben Yehuda initiated the idea of teaching Hebrew using Hebrew (“Ivrit b’Ivrit”) and he wrote several Hebrew textbooks for teaching secular subjects. He determined that the best way to disseminate his plan for the Jewish nation to communicate in Hebrew was through a newspaper – even though there was not yet any Hebrew word for “newspaper” (or “printer,” “subscriber,” and the like, for that matter). Accordingly, in 1884, he founded HaTzvi, his own weekly newspaper, and he commenced printing a list of a few new Hebrew words in each issue; by the end of the 19^th century, virtually every Jew in Eretz Yisrael could read and understand a Hebrew newspaper with little difficulty.

HaTzvi, however, generated great controversy as the result of the “Shemittah Affair,” when a substitute editor ran an article urging farmers in Eretz Yisrael to obey the Biblical command to let the land lie fallow every seventh year. Enraged farmers argued that this would mean the end of the Jewish settlements, which were already struggling to eke out the first crops in two millennia from the infertile soil of Eretz Yisrael. Ben Yehuda wrote a renunciation of the article, arguing that the survival of the Jewish people and the establishment of Jewish settlements was more important, at least for now, than the laws of shemittah.

Not surprisingly, this earned him even greater enmity from the charedi community. Ashkenazic rabbinic leaders joined the charedim in pronouncing a general ban on reading his newspaper, referred to him as a pagan and as “the great heretic,” and pronounced writs of excommunications against him in their synagogues. However, through the support of less zealous Sephardic Jews, he was able to continue to print and disseminate his influential newspaper.

Though a secular Jew, Ben Yehuda had believed that the major obstacle to his goal of unifying all Jews through Hebrew was the separation – indeed, the alienation – of the charedi community from general society. Accordingly, to promote the unity of the Jewish people, he and his wife had become strictly observant, including his donning religious garb and growing out his beard and peyot and his wife covering her hair. After the Shemittah Affair, however, he decided that outreach to the charedi community was futile, and he abandoned any pretense of observance, thereby providing further ammunition for his charedi opponents to use against him.

Furthermore, he began to publish articles demanding that charedi rabbis provide detailed accounts of all donations received and that, rather than living off the charity of others, they use the money to buy land for their yeshiva students to build homes and farms. He became extreme in his anti-religious outlook, even going so far as to officially register as “a national Jew without religion.”

The unsurprising result was even more bans and excommunication orders, the creation of a permanent rift between Ben Yehuda and the charedi community, and a material deterioration of his already challenged finances. Even when his wife obtained a much-needed position teaching Hebrew at one of Baron Rothschild’s Alliance schools, she was summarily dismissed when the charedi leadership threatened to impose a general ban on the school. The charedim even went so far as to attempt to physically block his wife’s burial on the Mount of Olives and to celebrate his death as the L-rd’s righteous revenge on a great sinner.

The hatred for Ben Yehuda in zealot circles was such that plans were hatched to murder him; in fact, he barely escaped with his life during an attack on him in the Old City of Jerusalem. The charedim misrepresented his articles to incite the Turkish authorities against him, which resulted in his being charged with sedition against the Ottoman Empire, publishing material hostile to the Sultan, and incitement to rebellion and revolution; he was sentenced to a year in prison, but was released during Chanukah after about two weeks. Although his arrest, incarceration, and release deepened the divide between charedi Jews and secular Zionists, Ben Yehuda emerged as a symbol of resistance to both religious coercion and imperial censorship.

In the 27 Elul (September 24) 1897 correspondence exhibited here, Ben Yehuda writes from Jerusalem to Gershom Bader that the ultra-Orthodox and anti-Zionist zealots are, sadly, more dangerous that “our Gentile enemies:”

I have received your correspondence to which I hereby respond. I requested of Mr. Yudilovitz, who has your photograph, that he should send it to you and also that he choose one of the essays from “HaTzvi,” because he has all the HaTzvi papers and he is most expert in its essays more than me, and I am certain that he will soon also send you both the photograph and the essay. As to the matter of the brief histories, I have already written to you that we didn’t have it, but printers are now issuing the third edition and, when it is finished, I will send you two copies.

It interests me very much to know the reason for the estrangement between the “Zionists” and many other people who also seem to be warm and loyal Chovevei Tzion (lovers of Zion). Truly, it disturbs me greatly that besides the battle against our Gentile enemies, we are required to fight against our zealot enemies, who are more dangerous than the former. Moreover, among the Lovers of Zion in some places there is estrangement, and only because they fear tarnishing the name of Chibat Tzion do they, when one speaks of his companion, use ellipsis… I have great distress about this matter.

Author, playwright, editor, and Hebrew, Yiddish, German, and Polish journalist, Bader (1868-1953), was an important mid-nineteenth-century East European Haskalah figure, political commentator, and Hebrew and Yiddish literary writer. Though he maintained a religious lifestyle, Bader was an enthusiastic supporter of Chibat Tzion and he was sharply critical of the pro-chasidic and conservative policies of the ultra-Orthodox community, sharing with Ben Yehuda a mutual disdain for the anti-Zionist charedi “zealots.”

David Yudilovitz (1863 – 1943), whom Ben Yehuda mentions in our letter, was a Zionist activist with Chovevei Tzion, a teacher in Rishon Le-Tzion, and a close friend of Ben Yehuda’s.

Ben Yehuda’s singular literary contribution is undoubtedly his dictionary – for which, ironically, no Hebrew word existed. His main source of income was from subscriptions to HaTzvi, but that proved inadequate not only for the development and sale of his dictionary, but even to provide for his family, so he had to rely on financial support from others, including his father-in-law. His financial salvation ultimately came in the form of an angel: the Nadiv Hayadua (“the Well-Known Benefactor”), Baron Edmond de Rothschild who, though deeply skeptical that Hebrew would ever again become a widely spoken language – and who forbade the teaching of Hebrew in his own schools in Eretz Yisrael – nonetheless admired Ben Yehuda’s work and dedication. It was this support, along with ambitious fundraising work by his wife, that enabled the poverty-stricken Ben Yehuda to continue to publish HaTzvi and to devote himself to continuing his work on his dictionary.

Turning himself into a scientific lexicographer, he was determined that each word would have its roots in Biblical sources to the greatest possible extent. However, in many cases, there were no analogs – one estimate is that the Hebrew Bible contains only 6,259 unique words, while modern Hebrew has about 80,000 – so he had to create new words from whole cloth. He compiled his dictionary using strict philological rules, and the results of his arduous labor was his 17-volume A Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew. The first volume was published in 1908, and four additional volumes were published prior to his death. During the 1929 Arab riots in Jerusalem, the residents of Talpiot were forced to flee for safety, including Ben Yehuda and his family, and they left with a British police escort to retrieve the draft manuscripts of the dictionary from boxes just before the Arab rioters reached the house. The final volumes of the dictionary were completed and published under the leadership of his wife and son, Ittamar Ben-Avi.

Exhibited here is a rare and remarkable Ben Yehuda letter, a handwritten correspondence addressed to Nachum Sokolow, then editor of Ha-Tzfira in Jerusalem:

 

Jerusalem, 20 Shevat 1896,

1826 years since our exile [i.e., since the destruction of the Holy Temple in 70 C.E.]

In a short while, the first leaves of my great work, “Dictionary of the Hebrew Language,” will come out of the printing press and I would be honored to send to you to review this sample and for you to let me know your thoughts on it, and if you find, as I hope you will, that it is appropriately worthy and deserving, you will give it positive mention in your beloved newspaper and will rouse the public to support (what is in my opinion) this precious treasure so that I may bring to light this great work which requires considerable funds to print it.

And now, I will ask you to do a great kindness for me and publish the attached advertisement several times in your newspaper. And I believe that for such an announcement, one should pay in full, but right now I am short and cannot act accordingly, and I request kindness from you, and your heart should be certain that I will, at every possible opportunity where I can serve you in any matter, I will do so willingly and with great joy. Alas, were I only financially able to pay for the advertisement and I am not, G-d forbid, seeking a free gift.

With feelings of boundless grace and respect, I await your thoughts and judgment on my work.

In a P.S., Ben Yehuda adds a request to publish in Ha-Tzfira an advertisement for his newspaper, HaTzvi, to help defeat its major competitor, Ha-Chavatzelet which, he writes, is against Chibat Tzion, the early founding organization promoting aliyah and settlements in Eretz Yisrael.

Nachum Sokolow (1859-1936) was the first in the history of the Hebrew press and literature to create a vast reading public, encompassing both maskilim and religious Jews. He became a regular columnist for Ha-Tzefirah (1876), and, after becoming editor of the paper, he turned it into Herzl’s most loyal Hebrew publication. Through his writing, his deep roots in the Jewish world, and his passionate efforts on behalf of the Zionist movement, he became one of the outstanding Zionist figures.

To assist with his dictionary and to solve various problems of terminology, pronunciation, spelling, and punctuation, Ben Yehuda founded the Va’ad Halashon (Hebrew Language Council, 1890). The success of his endeavor was implicitly recognized by the British Mandate Authority when, on November 29, 1922, it recognized Hebrew as an official language in Eretz Yisrael. According to Article 82 of the Palestine Order in Council, “The English, Arabic, and Hebrew language shall be the official languages or Palestine,” marking the first time in modern history that Hebrew was given official status by an international legal authority. For the first time, Hebrew could be used in government documents and courts, in school curricula and public signage, in passport and legal identification documents, and on official stamps and currency. This was a crowning achievement for Ben Yehuda, who would die only a month later.

The Va’ad Halashon was the forerunner of today’s Hebrew Language Academy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, which continues Ben Yehuda’s legacy as the supreme arbiter and authority on approving new Hebrew words. It also maintains Hebrew grammatical standards, promotes linguistic research, and passes on all matters pertaining to the Hebrew language.

Ben Yehuda’s death from the tuberculosis that he battled much of his life marked a pivotal moment in Jewish and Zionist history, with his passing being seen as not just the loss of an important scholar but as the end of the beginning of a linguistic revolution. He was buried on the Mount of Olives; his funeral was attended by a large and diverse crowd, including religious figures (including some from the charedi community, although the charedi leadership officially boycotted the funeral), Zionist leaders, scholars, students, and thousands of ordinary citizens.

The Hebrew inscription on his gravestone, like much of his life, proved highly controversial; some wanted to characterize him as a national prophet or national redeemer, while others insisted simply on “The Reviver of the Hebrew Language,” which ultimately became the minimalist inscription, ironically modest for such a transformative figure. His gravesite remains a place of historical interest and symbolic importance, and Hebrew Language Day, which is celebrated in Israel and around the world and falls on the date of Ben Yehuda’s birth on the 21^st of Tevet, is a day of awareness and celebration of the use of the Hebrew language and its advancement.

Almost every city in Israel has a “Ben Yehuda Street,” with the most famous in Jerusalem and others in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Safed, Be’er Sheva, and Netanya. Beit Ben Yehuda, the Eliezer Ben Yehuda House in Jerusalem – the home where he lived and worked in the last years of his life – has been preserved and functions today as a museum of his life and work, a cultural center promoting Hebrew dialogue, and a venue for lectures, exhibitions, and educational events.

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Exhibited here is a small pamphlet featuring Ben Yehuda and “Three of his Principal Teachings: A national center in Eretz Yisrael; a national life of consolidation and unity; and spoken Hebrew and literature in the daily life of the community.” Among his famous sayings included in the pamphlet are: “Speak Hebrew and you will revive it!”; “One nation, one land, one language”; and “Judaism will be of the Hebrew Land of Israel, or it will be nothing.” An Appeal to the Jewish Child includes “The contempt for the language is intolerable”; “defend the Hebrew language against those who desecrate it and are indifferent to it!”; and “Join the ranks of those who defend the language and who fight for it!” The document also contains a poem in Ben Yehuda’s memory:

TO THE IMPASSIONED ZEALOT
In Memory of Eliezer Ben Yehuda

You cast off the shackles of slavery,
you are disgusted by exile;
you traveled to your land –
and sought independence.

You dissipated power and light,
a knight in battle;
and you enlightened those who went astray –
until the darkness of your grave.
[i.e., all your life]

You have prophesied a magical vision,
a wondrous end for your people;
day-by-day you hoped –
will your dream come to fruition?

You were an exemplar to your people,
a paradigm for the entire nation;
you brought a dead language to life –
stimulated a dumb nation to speak.