The Revival Of Hebrew - Zionism U

The Revival Of Hebrew Eliezer Ben-Yehuda Religious Scholarship Hebrews Survival Poems, Plays and Stories

Scientific and medical literature E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com Eliezer BenYehuda It flashed before my eyes like lightning I heard a strange voice calling within me: The resurrection of Israel

and its language in the Land of Our Fathers! --Eliezer Ben-Yehuda E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com Importance of Language I have decided that in order to have our own land and political life it is also necessary that we have a language to hold us together. That language is Hebrew, but not the Hebrew of the rabbis and scholars. We must have a Hebrew language in

which we can conduct the business of life. --Eliezer Ben-Yehuda E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com A Bad Diagnosis "I have the feeling of a person condemned to death. For this reason I work without sleep to put

onto paper the reasons it is so important for the Jewish world to become inflamed with the idea of returning to the land of our forefathers. -- Eliezer Ben-Yehuda E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com A Burning Problem

If we care at all that the name of Israel should not disappear from this earth, we must create a center for the whole of our people --Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1879) E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com

A Hebrew Revival Will our language and literature last much longer if we do not revive it, if we do not make it a spoken language? Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, (1880) E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com Aliyah 1881: Ben-Yehuda moves with his

wife Deborah to the Land of Israel. E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com In Eretz Israel If that day a thought could have transported me back to Europe, I would

have vanished in a flash. --Deborah Ben-Yehuda E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com Too Many Tongues We Jews speak 70 different languages, yet not one of us speaks our

own language! Today the languages of the ghetto cling to us like leprosy. --Eliezer Ben-Yehuda E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com First Native Speaker Ben-Yehuda isolates his son so that he will

only speak Hebrew. The child becomes the first native Hebrew speaker in 1,000 years. E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com Ha-Tzvi On October 24, 1884, the first edition of Ben-Yehudas Hebrew

newspaper Ha-Tzvi appears. E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com Tensions With Orthodox Ben-Yehuda criticizes Halukka stystem whereby Orthodox community lives off charity from abroad.

They put Ben-Yehuda under a cherem, or rabbinical ban of excommunication. E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com Tragedy Strikes Ben-Eliezers wife Deborah dies in 1891. Three of his children die the next year from

an epidemic. E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com Herzls Disbelief "We cannot converse with one another in Hebrew. Who amongst us has a sufficient acquaintance with

Hebrew to ask for a railway ticket in that language? Such a thing cannot be done." --Theodor Herzl (1896) E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com Second Aliyah As long as we live, the Hebrew word is our soul and without it we have no life." --Yosef Haim Brenner, Second Aliyah writer

E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com The Dictionary It was virtually a thesaurus indeed, an encyclopedia of the Hebrew language, a monumental work of scholarship. --Howard M. Sachar, Historian

E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com Herzliya Gymnasium In 1905, the first Hebrew high school is founded. E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com War of the

Languages You can send word to Berlin that blood will flow on the steps of the technical school in Haifa if this order is not changed at once! -- Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, (1913) E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com

A Final Word Nefesh -- the Hebrew word for soul. E-Zion Inc. | www.ZionismU.com