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Eliezer Ben-Yehuda

eliezer ben-yehuda

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda

Founder of Modern Hebrew

(1858 - 1922)

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda is credited with the revival of Hebrew as a modern tongue spoken by the Jewish nation. He was born Eliezer Yitzhak Perelman, in the Lithuanian village of Luzhky in 1858. He began learning Hebrew from a very tender age as part of a thoroughly religious upbringing. He excelled in his studies and ultimately was sent to a talmudic academy (yeshiva) in the hope that he would become a rabbi. However, like many promising young Jews of the time in Eastern Europe, he became interested in the secular world and ultimately exchanged the yeshiva for a Russian gymnasium, completing his studies as an external student in 1877.

Influenced by nationalist struggles across Europe, Ben-Yehuda came to the conclusion that the European concept of national fulfilment should also be applied to the Jews. This vision remained with him, as he wrote, "the more the nationalist concept grew in me, the more I realized what a common language is to a nation..." Thus he dedicated himself to this goal: the rebirth of the nation of Israel in its own land, speaking its own language.

Eliezer changed his surname to Ben-Yehuda when he began his political activity with his first essay, "A Burning Question," which was published by the Hebrew periodical, "The Dawn," in 1879. Making good on his essay's call to emigrate to the Land of the Fathers, Eliezer moved to Jerusalem in 1881, meeting and marrying his childhood sweetheart, Deborah Jonas. Together, Eliezer and Deborah established the first Hebrew-speaking home in Eretz Yisrael, and their son, Ben-Zion (who became known by his pen-name, Itamar Ben-Avi) was the first child in modern times to be nurtured with Hebrew as his native language.

Eliezer made friends and allies in Jerusalem, and before long established two organizations: "Tekhiyat Yisrael" - the Rebirth of Israel - and "Safa B'rura" - Clear Tongue - to implement his goals. Soon after his arrival in Jerusalem, Ben-Yehuda accepted a teaching position at the Alliance School which became the first school where some courses were taught in Hebrew, due to Eliezer's insistence that Hebrew be the official language of instruction for Jewish subjects. Ben-Yehuda wrote for "Hakhavatzelet" (The Lily), a Hebrew literary periodical, and launched "Hatzvi" - The Deer - the first Hebrew weekly newspaper to report what was happening throughout the land. For this paper Eliezer needed to coin new Hebrew words for objects and verbs that did not exist previously.

Ben-Yehuda founded and presided over "Va'ad HaLashon", the forerunner of the Hebrew Language Academy, and worked 18 hours a day on his "Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew." In 1910 he published the first of six volumes that saw light before his death in 1922. After his death his widow and son Ehud continued publishing his manuscript, a task which was completed in 1959 (17 volumes). The dictionary lists all the words used in Hebrew literature from the time of Abraham to modern times.

(Sources: Jewish Virtual Library, The Jewish Agency for Israel)

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