Page 36 - HaMizrachi #26 Tu Bishvat USA 2021

THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND ZIONIST LEADERS

OUR SERIES ON LEADERS WHO HAVE SHAPED ZIONISM OVER THE LAST 150 YEARS The Celebration
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda of Eretz Yisrael

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

had suddenly opened, and a clear, surrounding ideals of renovation and guages of the country.
incandescent light flashed before rejection of the diaspora lifestyle, In December 1922, Ben-Yehuda, 64,
my eyes, and a mighty inner voice Ben-Yehuda set out to develop a new died of tuberculosis, from which he
sounded in my ears: the renascence language that could replace Yiddish suffered most of his life. He was buried
of Israel on its ancestral soil.” He was and other regional dialects as a means on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
determined to settle in Eretz Yisrael, of everyday communication between His funeral was attended by 30,000
and in 1878 went to Paris to study Jews who moved to Israel from various people. 

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