Skip to footer

Israelis offer a 'Yom Huledet Sameach' to Ben Yehuda, resurrector of Hebrew language

Eliezer Ben Yehuda, who transformed Hebrew from the rusty language of ancient Israel and the Bible into the dynamic, dominant language of modern-day Israel, would be 155 years old today.

|
Ariel Schalit/AP
This December, 2012 photo shows visitors at the Mahane Yehuda market, one of Jerusalem's free tourist attractions. Beyond its earthly past, Jerusalem has an impossible beauty with broad appeal. For residents and tourists, secular and religious souls, city slickers or nature lovers, there is always an unexplored alleyway, street corner or vista that will show you the city as you’ve never seen it before.
  • By Christa Case Bryant Staff Writer

| Jerusalem

If it weren’t for Eliezer Ben Yehuda, I wouldn’t be able to order ice cream, ask directions to the local furniture store, or discuss Gaza bombings in Hebrew.

Since I’m a new journalist in Israel who happens to love ice cream and arrived here with only one piece of furniture to my name, that would be grave indeed.

So I for one am grateful for Mr. Ben Yehuda, who was born 155 years ago today in the Russian empire.

Legend has it that the man was not only brilliant, but a little crazy. And you would have to be, if you were planning to try to resurrect an ancient language after roughly 2,000 years and expect it to become the primary spoken language of a country that didn't even exist yet.

But the Sorbonne-educated Ben Yehuda did just that – well before the state of Israel was founded in 1948, and even before Lord Balfour of Britain made his famous promise to the Zionists in 1917 to help establish a Jewish homeland.

Of course, Hebrew was the language of the Torah – the biblical books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy – as well as other religious writings. So many Jews were familiar with it. But they didn’t use it to talk about things like grocery shopping or even politics.

Where to start? With your family, of course. When Ben Yehuda arrived in Israel with his family, he banned his wife and children from speaking any other language. According to tradition, his family was the first to speak exclusively Hebrew in the home.

He also helped start schools and Hebrew-language newspapers, and published the first dictionary of modern Hebrew, often drawing on biblical words to coin modern terms. Ultra-Orthodox Jews pushed back hard, arguing that Hebrew is a holy language and not to be used to discuss the mundane. Many of them still prefer to speak in Yiddish when discussing daily affairs.

But Hebrew is nevertheless the dominant language in Israel today, although Arabic is an official language as well.

But I digress.

You were wondering about how to order ice cream, right?

G'lida. That’s your ticket.

Todah (thank you), Ben Yehuda.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Israelis offer a 'Yom Huledet Sameach' to Ben Yehuda, resurrector of Hebrew language
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2013/0108/Israelis-offer-a-Yom-Huledet-Sameach-to-Ben-Yehuda-resurrector-of-Hebrew-language
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe