a yeshiva in Paris—a rabbinic school, as it was expected he would become a rabbi due to his scholarship.


Te providential discovery of a copy of Robinson Crusoe translated into Hebrew and his failing health due to tuberculosis altered the course of his life, his name, and the voice of a nation. Reading Crusoe in Hebrew sparked Ben-Yehuda’s life-long vision to see this wonderful, ancient language go beyond ceremonial purposes to everyday conversation, which he saw as the heritage of the Jewish People and necessary for reestab- lishing the Land of Israel.


A Vision That Would Not Die At the age of 22, Eliezer felt the full weight of impend- ing death. He adopted his new surname, Ben-Yehudah (“son of Judah”), and began writing impassioned ar- ticles for the rebirth of Israel and her native language, Hebrew, in a Jewish publication based in Vienna.


Ben-Yehudah wrote to his future wife, Deborah:“I have the feeling of a person condemned to death and I so much wish to find a way to uter my last words. For this reason I work now without sleep to put onto paper the reasons why it is so important for the Jewish world to become inflamed with the idea of returning to the land of our forefathers and working for the freedom to which we are entitled. 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. Tat 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. It will not be easy to revive a language dead for so long a time.”


“I have the feeling of a person condemned to death and I so much wis to find a way to utter my last words. For this reason I work now without sleep to put onto paper the reasons wh y it is so important for the Jewish world to become inflamed with the idea of returning to the land of our forefathers and working for the freedom to which we are entitled. I have decided that in order to have our own land and political life it is also necessar y that we have a language to hold us to gether. That lan- guage is Hebrew, but not the Hebrew of the rabbis and scholars. W must have a Hebrew language in which we can conduct the business of life. It dead for


speak it and perhaps persuade them all to speak it. I wish to start work on the language. Te time is so short; the work to be done is so great. Palestine—or Israel, as I prefer to call it—is the place.”


When Ben-Yehudah and Deborah arrived in Jaffa in 1881, he informed his wife that their family would speak only Hebrew, thus establishing the first Hebrew- speaking household in nearly two-thousand years. A year later, their son, Ben-Zion Ben-Yehudah (“son of Zion, son of Judah”), was born and was raised speaking Hebrew exclusively.


Israel Adopts Hebrew Te conversion of biblical Hebrew to common usage posed many challenges. How do you say jelly sandwich or lightbulb in Hebrew? Out of this daily challenge, Ben-Yehudah compiled a seventeen- volume dictionary of modern He- brew with words and phrases he had created adapting Hebrew to modern life. For instance, he created the word chasmal for electricity from the biblical word for “sparks coming off Ezekiel’s chariot.”


will not be eas y to revive a language so long a time.”


“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.”


Baron Edmond James de Rothschild likely saved his life, financing Ben-Yehuda's way to Algiers to recover from tuberculosis, aſter which he determined to move to Israel, asking his future wife, Deborah, to leave her comfortable family home and come “be the first Hebrew mother in Israel in nearly two thousand years.”


Ben-Yehudah explained: “Tere are times in the his- tory of a nation when it is not the clever ones who are important, but those who have vision to see through the dark curtain of actuality. I am not very happy us- ing Russian and French as my languages. I want to be somewhere where I can speak Hebrew and hear others


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Once, long before the Balfour Decla- ration was issued, Ben-Yehudah said to his wife: “Old men talk about what is going to happen aſter their death. Such maters have never interested me. I only pray that I shall live long enough to see the rebirth of Israel as a nation and the use of our own language on our own soil.”


Eliezer Ben-Yehudah was one of the rare, fortunate men who lived to see at least part of his dream fulfilled. Before his death in 1922, from one Hebrew-speaking household, he lived to see Hebrew become the language of the courts, the theatre, business, and society in the Land he stubborn- ly called Israel.


“For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD to serve him with one consent.”


Quotes taken from Tongue of the Prophets, by Robert St. John, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY, 1952 (out of print).


—Zephaniah 3:9 KJV ] Jewish Voice Today 15


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