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THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND ZIONIST LEADERS

OUR SERIES ON LEADERS WHO HAVE SHAPED ZIONISM OVER THE LAST 150 YEARS
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda

liezer Yitzchak Perlman (later have a profession to sustain himself. communication between Jews who
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda) was born in He discussed his plan for a Jewish moved to Israel from various regions
ELuzhki, Lithuania. He attended national movement with some of the world. Ben-Yehuda regarded
a Jewish elementary school where he Hebrew writers but they were not Hebrew and Zionism as symbiotic:
studied Hebrew and Tanach from the interested. “The Hebrew language can live only if
age of three. Ben-Yehuda’s father, a we revive the nation and return it to
Chabad Chasid, died when Eliezer was While in Paris, Ben-Yehuda studied the fatherland,” he wrote.
five years old. At the age of 13, he was various subjects at the Sorbonne
sent to his uncle to attend the yeshiva University – including the history To accomplish the task, Ben-Yehuda
in Polotsk. The head of the yeshiva, and politics of the Middle East. It insisted with the Committee of the
a maskil in secret, introduced him to was in Paris that he met a Jew from Hebrew Language that, “In order to
secular literature. To save him from Jerusalem, who spoke Hebrew with supplement the deficiencies of the
heresy, his uncle sent him to study in him. It was this conversation that Hebrew language, the Committee
Glubokoye, in the Vilna district, where convinced him that the revival of coins words according to the rules of
Ben-Yehuda made the acquaintance Hebrew as the language of a nation grammar and linguistic analogy from
of Samuel Naphtali Herz Jonas, also a was feasible. Semitic roots: Aramaic and especially
Chabad Chasid, who was writing for from Arabic roots.”
Hebrew periodicals. Jonas persuaded Ben-Yehuda raised his son, Ben-Zion
him to prepare for secondary school Ben-Yehuda (the first name meaning
matriculation, and his eldest daughter, “son of Zion”), entirely in Hebrew. He
Deborah, taught him Russian. After did not allow his son to be exposed
a year of preparation, he entered the to other languages during childhood.
Dvinsk Gymnasium, from which he He even berated his wife for singing
graduated in 1877. a Russian lullaby. Ben-Zion thus
The Russo-Turkish War (1877–78) became the first native speaker of
and the struggle of the Balkan nations modern Hebrew as a mother tongue.
for liberation planted in Ben-Yehuda
the idea of the revival of the Jewish During World War I, when Jamal
people on its ancestral soil. He Pasha, the Turkish commander in
maintained that the Jewish people, Palestine, outlawed Zionism, Ben-Ye-
like all other peoples, had a historic huda left for the United States. There
land and a historic language. What In 1881, Ben-Yehuda immigrated to he wrote his book ?תירבע ורבד יתמיא דע
was needed was to actuate a national Palestine, then under Ottoman rule, (“Until When was Hebrew Spoken?”
movement that would restore Israel to and settled in Jerusalem. Upon arrival, 1919). He returned to Palestine in
its land and to its language. He wrote he officially adopted the pseudonym 1919. Together with M. Ussishkin,
in the preface to his dictionary: “In Ben-Yehuda, which he had previously he prevailed upon Herbert Samuel,
those days, it was as if the heavens used in his literary activities. He the British High Commissioner, to
had suddenly opened, and a clear, found a job teaching at the Alliance declare Hebrew one of the three offi-
incandescent light flashed before Israelite Universelle school. cial languages of the country.
my eyes, and a mighty inner voice Motivated by the surrounding ideals In December 1922, Ben-Yehuda, 64,
sounded in my ears: the renascence of renovation and rejection of the died of tuberculosis, from which
of Israel on its ancestral soil.” He diaspora lifestyle, Ben-Yehuda set out he suffered most of his life. He was
was determined to settle in Eretz to develop a new language that could buried on the Mount of Olives in
Yisrael, and in 1878 went to Paris replace Yiddish and other regional Jerusalem. His funeral was attended

to study medicine so that he might dialects as a means of everyday by 30,000 people. 

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