The Revival of Classical Tongue: Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the Modern Hebrew Language 9783110879100, 9789027924957

Table of contents :
Introduction
I. The Hebrew Language Before Ben Yehuda
II. Ben Yehuda Before Palestine
III. Ben Yehuda in Palestine
IV. The Seven Steps of Ben Yehuda
V. The Revival of Hebrew in the Schools
VI. The Effectiveness of Ben Yehuda’s Seven Steps
Hebrew Language Bibliography
English and European Language Bibliography

Citation preview

Contributions to the Sociology of Language

Edited by

Joshua A. Fishman

Ben Yehuda at work on his Dictionary

The Revival of a Classical Tongue Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the Modern Hebrew Language JACK F E L L M A N Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

1973 - M O U T O N - THE H A G U E - PARIS

© Copyright 1973 in The Netherlands, Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 73-81544

Printed in The Netherlands, by Mouton, The Hague

Contents

Introduction I. The Hebrew Language Before Ben Yehuda II.

7 11

Ben Yehuda Before Palestine

18

III.

Ben Yehuda in Palestine

27

IV.

The Seven Steps of Ben Yehuda

36

V. The Revival of Hebrew in the Schools VI.

The Effectiveness of Ben Yehuda's Seven Steps

94 112

Hebrew Language Bibliography

140

English and European Language Bibliography

148

20 ι

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• Merhavya

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1870. First Jewish agricultural school

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1891. Bialystok Jewish settlement f •.„.j,

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Jewish Population 24,0 00 1882 85,000 1914

ν-, First purchases of land in 1855 by Sir Moses Montefiore, for Jewish settlers First settlements by Russian Jews, escaping from pogroms, 1882 Ä ^ Rumanian Jewish settlements, 1882 Polish Jewish settlement ,1883 Bulgarian Jewish settlement, 1896 φ Other settlements by 1914

From: Martin Gilbert, Jewish History Atlas, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969, 79. Note that the spelling of various place-names is not exactly the same as used in the text, as a different transliteration system was used.

Introduction

The revival of the Hebrew language is generally considered one of the outstanding sociolinguistic phenomena of modern times. The man most closely associated with this revival is Eliezer Ben Yehuda. This book will examine the role played by Ben Yehuda in the revival of Hebrew and will seek to assess objectively the significance of his contribution in this sphere. This is the first time a detailed study of Ben Yehuda has been undertaken using the available primary and secondary sources, both published and unpublished. In Hebrew there is no similar comprehensive study. There are several short articles and books, which are listed in the Bibliography, but these materials are fragmentary and scattered in several journals. The best single sources on Ben Yehuda besides his own short list of writings are the books published after his death by his second wife, his eldest son, and his eldest daughter.1 However, understandably these books are quite romanticized. As Kanaani has written concerning Ben Yehuda, "Even in his life he had become a legendary figure around whom were fashioned various tales. Fathers would tell their children about the great miracle walking there in the land of the forefathers... whose name was Ben Yehuda." 2 If this is true for Ben Yehuda in life, how much more so is it true in death, especially among those closest to him. In 1

Cf. the works by Hemda Ben Yehuda, Ittamar Ben Avi, and Devora Omer cited in the Bibliography. 2 Yaaqov Kanaani, "Eliezer Ben Yehuda: Detailed Bibliographical and Chronological Material", Mizrah U-Maarav 3 (1929), Special Edition, Jerusalem, 5. Here and throughout the book, all Hebrew quotations are translated by the author into English. Book titles, however, are transliterated according to the standard set by the Hebrew Language Academy.

δ

Introduction

European languages, very little material exists dealing with the subject, and this is listed in the English and European Language Bibliography. The single most comprehensive work and the one probably most generally known to western scholars is the study in English by Robert St. John, Tongue of the Prophets: The Life Story of Eliezer Ben Yehuda.3 However, this work, as St. John himself states, was compiled under trying conditions, being in essence an edited and translated version of an earlier work by Ben Yehuda's second wife mentioned above, plus her personal reminiscings while in a hospital shortly before her death. Moreover, St. John was a newspaper reporter, not a scholar, and, furthermore, he did not know Hebrew. Thus he could not check the accuracy of these reminiscings and could not get to important sources first hand. Also, although the book was completed in 1951, and published in 1952, St. John himself states that as late as 1948, "I knew as little about Ben Yehuda... as most Americans.... Ben Yehuda then was merely a name I had seen on street signs in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and in other Israeli communities."4 It is true that St. John sought an objective picture and worked for nearly a year in various libraries, employing a researcher who knew Hebrew to help. However, the book is generally somewhat fanciful and romanticized. As St. John himself notes, "It might better have been written by a Hebrew scholar." However, as he continues, "But no Hebrew scholar had done it. Besides, it would then have been a book interesting only to other Hebrew scholars."5 This book, then, is the first attempt to trace objectively through primary and secondary Hebrew-language sources the life and work of the man most closely linked with the revival of the Hebrew language, Eliezer Ben Yehuda. It is hoped that it will be of interest in this respect to Hebrew scholars. However, in a broader sense, it is hoped that this book will be of interest to other scholars, in particular, to linguists, language historians, and sociolinguists. The revival of Hebrew, although in many respects sui generis, would seem to have many partial parallels with other language revivals around the world. As Rabin writes, "The history of Hebrew is unique in that it is the only known case of a language which ceased to be spoken altogether, and after a long interval was brought back into spoken everyday usage. Its recent history offers, however, a number of features which illustrate the problems faced by other languages in Europe, Asia, and Africa." 6 Similarly, as Blanc writes, "The sociolinguistic processes that have taken place in Hebrew since its adoption as a vernacular... are, on the whole, analogous to those known from the more familiar cases of 3

Doubleday and Company (New York), 1952. St. John (1952), 9. β St. John (1952), 11. 6 Chaim Rabin, "The Revival of the Hebrew Language" (1969b), 1.

4

Introduction

9

'national language formation'." 7 Similarly, Ben Yehuda would seem to have many counterparts among other language revivers-reformers around the world. Haugen has been among the first to point out such possible parallels. As he writes, "Names like Korais in Greece, Aasen in Norway, Stur in Slovakia, Mistral in Provence, Dobrovsky in Bohemia, Aavik in Estonia, and Jablonskis in Lithuania come to mind. These men were part linguists, part patriots." 8 However, although there are various short articles and monographs on these revivers and revivals, they are for the most part scattered in various inaccessible journals, and, more significantly, no single comprehensive books are available. 9 By presenting a detailed study of Ben Yehuda, this book, then, provides a basis for similar full-length treatments of other linguist-patriots. Ultimately, one would hope to reach the stage for fruitful sociolinguistic comparisons of language revivers and revivals around the world, and for tentative formulation of an answer to the question: "What effect can an individual (or group of individuals) have on a language?" This book, then, hopes to provide one step in such an undertaking. As it will show, Ben Yehuda's effect on the revival of the Hebrew language was significant. However, in reviewing the available literature one can distinguish two schools of thought with respect to Ben Yehuda's significance. One school considers Ben Yehuda in very simplistic terms a modernday miracle maker who singlehandedly revived the Hebrew language from oblivion. St. John, for example, describes Ben Yehuda as "...a man who made it possible for several million people to order groceries, drive cattle, make love, and curse out their neighbors in a language which until his day had been fit only for Talmudic argument and prayer." 10 This school is represented mainly by non- or semi-professionals, such as St. John, and Ben Yehuda's family above, and also by people who generally do not know Hebrew. However, even the distinguished Hebrew and Semitic linguist N.H. Tur-Sinai has referred at least twice in print to the revival of the Hebrew language as a miracle. 11 The other school of thought considers Ben Yehuda the reviver of the spoken Hebrew language with no hint of 7

Haim Blanc, "The Israeli Koine as an Emergent National Standard" in: J. A. Fishman, C. A. Ferguson, and J. Das Gupta, ed., Language Problems of Developing Nations (New York, 1968), 237. 8 Einar Haugen, "Linguistics and Language Planning" in: William Bright, ed., Sociolinguistics (Mouton and Company, 1966), 58. 9 For some references, cf. the Bibliography in Haugen (1966). St. John (1952), 11-12. 11 Cf. his article "The Miracle of Modern Hebrew", India and Israel 5 (1953); 10 (1953), and his summary statement in his The Revival of the Hebrew Language (Jerusalem, 1960), 23: "The revival of the Hebrew language in Israel is the almost miraculous fulfilment of a religious vision of scholars and priests...an inspired vision...as part of the vision of prophets."

10

Introduction

the miraculous. Rather, by analyzing the social, historic, and linguistic situation, this school posits certain reasons for the rise and success of Ben Yehuda and the revival. This school is represented mainly by professional Hebrew linguists and historians, in particular Chomsky, Dinur, Kanaani, Klausner, and Rabin.12 This book, in an attempt to be scientific, avoids terms connected with the miraculous and leans more toward the second school of thought. However, it will be claimed that Ben Yehuda was not the reviver of the spoken Hebrew language in any absolute sense. Ben Yehuda must be given sole credit and distinction for being the first to state the idea and the necessity of starting the revival and for being the first to show the feasibility of implementing it, by abandoning his former tongue, Yiddish, and speaking only Hebrew. To succeed in having the Hebrew language ultimately revived, however, Ben Yehuda needed and actively sought the help of many other interested parties who, mainly through their efforts and not those of Ben Yehuda, brought about the true revival of the language on a large scale. In order, then, to understand the ultimate success of the Hebrew revival, future studies along the lines of this book will have to be undertaken with regard to those persons who implemented Ben Yehuda's idea, including, among many others, David Yellin, Yehiel Mikhal Pines, Isaac Epstein, David Yudeleviz, Dr. Aharon Masie, Haim Zuta, and Rabbi Haim Hirschensohn. This book, then, treats one person's role in the Hebrew language revival, that of Ben Yehuda. It is hoped, however, that this book may provide a base, a firm first step, for a future undertaking on a grand scale of the roles of others, such as the above-mentioned, in the revival of the language. In order to assess Ben Yehuda's significance in the Hebrew revival, it has been thought most appropriate to present the material historically and chronologically, by sketching first at least a general picture of the period and setting which gave birth both to the man and his idea. The first chapter, then, aims to introduce the general reader to the sociolinguistic situation in the period before the rise of Ben Yehuda. The second chapter gives a brief outline of Ben Yehuda's early life as it is known from all-too-meager records. The third chapter then traces in detail Ben Yehuda's arrival in Palestine, the sociolinguistic situation there, and the beginning and unfolding of Ben Yehuda's campaign for the revival of the language. Chapters Four and Five analyze the main elements in this campaign. The final chapter evaluates the success of these elements' implementation and their significance for the revival and concludes with an overall assessment of Ben Yehuda's role in the revival of the Hebrew language. 12

Cf. their works cited in the Hebrew and English and European Language Bibliography.

I

THE HEBREW LANGUAGE BEFORE BEN YEHUDA

In order to assess the significance of Ben Yehuda's role in the revival of the Hebrew language, the meaning of the term 'revival' must be made clear from the outset. The term 'revival' as applied to a language can have many different meanings, depending upon the type of reversal or decline the language had previously undergone. For example, the revival of Irish is the attempt, hitherto unsuccessful, to sufficiently expand the use of Gaelic (previously limited to small and dwindling numbers of farmers and fishermen) to become ultimately the national language of Ireland. Similarly, the revivals of Indonesian and Melanesian seek to cultivate hitherto generally spoken languages as languages of literature and of science. The revival of Hebrew refers to a phenomenon related to these and other revivals, but still essentially different. The term 'Hebrew revival' refers to the successful introduction into common, spoken, general, everyday use of a hitherto written language, conceived thereby as a national and cultural symbol of the Jewish people. To explain this revival will be the purpose of this study. Although commonly thought so, even by linguists,1 Hebrew has never been a dead language as are, for example, today, Hittite or Akkadian, languages with no living native speakers and only a limited inventory of texts. Moreover, the revival of Hebrew was not an artificial resurrection 1

Thus, Charles F. Hockett, in his A Course in Modem Linguistics (1958), 368, writes: "Religious motives sometimes lead to a retention of styles of speech and writing which do not otherwise survive: this is illustrated by the continuing use in the Catholic Church of a late form of Latin... Shortly after classical times, relatively unchanged Latin survived only as a special religious idiom.... Hebrew was maintained in this special status for more than two thousand years, having otherwise died out altogether."

12

The Hebrew Language Before Ben Yehuda

from the dead. Indeed, there is no attested case in history where a language that had actually died, that is, had gone out of use in all forms of communication, was successfully revived. The Hebrew case is no exception. Hebrew 2 had been the everyday spoken language of the Israelite and Judean people for over 1300 years when, around the year 200 A.D., it died as a spoken language and was replaced by the two international languages of the time, Aramaic and Greek. However, although Hebrew died as a spoken language, it left behind in particular two sacred texts, the Bible and the Mishna, each of which represented a distinct style and use of the language. From then on until its reintroduction as a spoken language in Palestine in the 1880's, Hebrew was in no sense stagnant, however, these two textual styles serving, in various times and places, as norms for further active, creative writing. Thus the period ca. 200-500 in Palestine and the Near East in general produced a large output of fervent prayers in poetry (called in Hebrew piyyutim), written according to Biblical Hebrew norms and containing several thousand newly created words, thus showing the continuing vitality of the language. Furthermore, from 500 onwards, the use of Hebrew, in its written form, gradually dominated the Jewish communities outside of Palestine, dispersed in Asia, North Africa, and Europe, such that, from the tenth century onwards, all Jewish communities scattered throughout the Diaspora used Hebrew "not only as a passive language of study and prayer, but also for active communication in books, legal documents and private letters". 3 Moreover, not only the extent but even the scope of Hebrew widened, including not only religious and religious-legal uses, but also "...from ca. 600 for medicine, from 900 for secular poetry, from 1150 for science and philosophy". 4 Indeed, there developed, especially in medieval Western Europe, "... a vigorous Hebrew poetry, Hebrew drama, as well as narrative prose, and writings on science and philosophy. Indeed, Hebrew holds a not inconsiderable place among the literature of the Middle Ages." (In particular should be mentioned Provencal Hebrew literature, which in the later Middle Ages was among the most advanced of all of Europe, and Italian and Dutch Hebrew literature, which throughout the late medieval and early modern period followed closely all the subjects, forms and tastes of European literature.) Moreover, even as a purely spoken language during this period, Hebrew was not dead. "Jews were able to speak Hebrew on occa2

Obviously the following account in no way is meant to be a complete history of the Hebrew language. Its purpose is, as stated above, to provide a minimal framework for understanding the 'revival' of Hebrew. For more detailed studies dealing with the history of Hebrew per se, the reader is referred to the works of Chomsky and Rabin cited in the Bibliographies. 3 Chaim Rabin, "The Revival of the Hebrew Language" (1969a), 26. 4 Chaim Rabin, "The Revival of the Hebrew Language" (1969b), 3.

The Hebrew Language Before Ben Yehuda

13

si on, Jews from different countries are known to have conversed with each other in the Sacred Tongue, visiting scholars gave sermons in it, some spoke it on Sabbaths and festivals, while others spoke it in order not to be understood by the Gentiles." 5 However, it is true that nowhere in this period was Hebrew used as the normal vehicle for everyday speech. Rather, the language of spoken communication was usually the local language or dialect of the country in which the Jews were living, interspersed usually with a number of Hebrew and Aramaic lexical items which distinguished their speech from that of their Gentile neighbors and which was marked perhaps also by certain features of pronunciation and/or intonation. (In rarer cases, the Jews kept the language which they or their parents had brought with them from a previous country in which they had lived. Such was the case, for example, with Yiddish in Central and Eastern Europe, originating from the German Rhineland area, and with Ladino in the Balkans and Near East, originating from Spain.) In brief, then, we may say that, until its spoken revival in the 1880's, Hebrew was a 'half language', a language used for written purposes alongside of various spoken tongues. This linguistic situation, however strange it may appear at first glance today, was not uncommon in the medieval world, and is essentially the sociolinguistic situation called 'diglossia'. 6 In the Middle Ages, it was the rule rather than the exception that the spoken language, although perhaps possessing a small oral literature, was not usually written, while the normally written language was not spoken. Rather the language used for written purposes was a classical language of cultural and historical prestige used as a lingua franca over a wide area usually paralleling the boundaries of a religious faith. The cases of Latin in medieval Catholic Europe, Byzantine Greek and Old Church Slavonic in Orthodox Christian Eastern Europe, Classical Arabic in Moslem Southwest Asia and North Africa, Sanskrit in India, Ge'ez in Ethiopia, Classical Chinese in both China and Japan come easily to mind. These classical languages were learned from primary sources, usually religious texts, and all written materials were composed in as close an imitation of these texts as possible. The case of Hebrew resembles these cases rather closely. The case which is most pertinent for Hebrew from those listed above is the case of Latin, as these two languages were in the Middle Ages the principal written languages of diglossic Europe. However, of the above classical languages, Latin was the first to give way to its various spoken 5

Both quotes from Chaim Rabin (1969a), 26. On the introduction of the term to sociolinguistics, cf. Charles Ferguson, "Diglossia", Word (1959), 325-346. On the use of the term in the sense given here, cf. Joshua Fishman, "Language maintenance and language shift as a field of inquiry", Linguistics 9 (1964), 32-70. 6

14

The Hebrew Language Before Ben Yehuda

counterparts in the written domain. This process began in the fourteenth century and was essentially completed by the end of the seventeenth century, whereas Hebrew continued to be written by Jews almost without any competition until well into the nineteenth century. The question therefore arises, why did the diglossic situation remain so much longer in the Hebrew case, and, further, why, in contrast to the Latin case, did the written language win out over the spoken. The answers to the above questions lie in the fact that the spoken languages of Europe, in overthrowing the use of Latin for written purposes, were actually in this way symbolically rejecting the centralized religious authority of the feudalistic medieval world whose basic creed found its most potent expression in Latin. In Latin's place, the new written languages symbolized the establishment of a new authority, the authority of what were ultimately to become modern nation-states, based not on common religion but rather on common territory and common national language. However, it is obvious that the Jews felt no such drive to overthrow the power of the medieval Church, as they had never recognized her jurisdiction anyway. Indeed, with respect to the linguistic revolt against Latin, the Jews' use of Hebrew was in itself an act of rebellion against the Christian tongue. The spoken languages' abandonment of Latin, then, was of no significance for the Jews, and they failed to draw the parallel with respect to overthrowing Hebrew. Moreover, even for those Jews who did draw the parallel from the Latin case, there was no clear path to take, for it was clear that the Jews' connection to the various spoken languages of Europe was never a close one and certainly not as close as their connection to Hebrew which was generally learned starting from a tender and very impressionable age. Moreover, for most Jews, religion was still a significant factor in determining a person's identity, much more so than a person's nationality. Indeed, the concept of a nationalism based on territory and spoken language versus religion was incomprehensible to many Jews, accustomed as they were to being perpetually a nation without a common territory or spoken language, but rather a nation based on religion and the Holy Tongue. Thus, paradoxically, just as the use of the spoken languages of Europe for written purposes was an act of European nationalism, so the use of Hebrew by the Jews in the post-medieval world was a substitute for Jewish nationalism which as yet did not exist. Indeed, the Biblical Hebrew style increasingly adopted by them during the Enlightenment period in Europe and the use of romantic and elevated Biblical themes and settings in so much of the Hebrew writing of the time are not inappropriate in showing this point. For, Biblical Hebrew was the language spoken when the Jews were a nation living on their own territory, as compared to Post-Biblical Hebrew which already implied Diaspora and

The Hebrew Language Before Ben Yehuda

15

Exile. Thus, in a curious and roundabout way, by cultivating the use of Biblical Hebrew, the Jews too could feel they were participating in the nationalistic trends of post-Renaissance Europe. The above linguistic trick succeeded rather well into the nineteenth century. However, in this century a problem arose, for Hebrew writing began passing from a romantic to a more realistic emphasis, which included the writing of newspapers and novels dealing with contemporary life. In these more modernistic areas, the use of pure Biblical Hebrew became increasingly awkward, as Biblical Hebrew vocabulary is restricted to a closed corpus of seven to eight thousand words, several of whose meanings are unclear or anachronistic. Some younger writers began cautiously admitting into their writings a small amount of Post-Biblical, especially Mishnaic and Talmudic vocabulary, as well as various European words and de-novo creations. However, in most cases this did not produce a satisfactory linguistic synthesis, and in any case did not really solve the problem. Moreover, by the middle of the nineteenth century, more Jews had become tinged with the secular-based nationalism of Europe and had learned the written European languages. Therefore, they no longer needed nor in many cases wanted Hebrew-language material. Such was especially the case among the Jews of Western Europe and among some of the younger Jews in Eastern Europe, but the general tendencies existed everywhere. This closer sense of identification with European nationalism, based at least in part on the principle of a spoken language being also a written one, plus the serious deficiencies found in using ancient Hebrew as a vehicle for discussing modern times combined to lead many authors to the conclusion that the time had come for Hebrew to follow the Latin example and completely die even as a written language. The number of Hebrew writers and readers began getting fewer, and many of those who did write in Hebrew only did so for those Jews who had not yet had the 'good fortune' of learning a modern European literary tongue. The younger generation, however, was clearly going along the path of European linguistic nationalism, and away from Hebrew. The language, thus, appeared to be ultimately doomed. It is within this general background that we must view the appearance in print of an article in the Hebrew periodical Ha-Shahar (folio 7, pages 3-13, 1879), entitled "A Serious Question" (Sheela Nikhbada) by one Eliezer Ben Yehuda. The 'serious question' discussed in this article was not merely the future of the Hebrew language in Europe, but rather the future of the Jewish people qua people there generally. Ben Yehuda concluded that emigration and settlement in Palestine was the only possible answer to this question, as only in this way would the Jewish people finally have a secure home of their own free from outside assimila-

16

The Hebrew Language Before Ben Yehuda

tionist influences. However, this question and this answer were not really new. Indeed, this article in many ways was a synthesis of many trends and currents which had been discussed by Jewish intellectuals in Europe for at least the previous two decades, and almost every element in the article can be traced to their writings. As Mal'akhi writes, "The national question had already been treated by Hess and Smolenskin, and the question of settling the land had already been raised before... by Rabbi... Kalischer, Rabbi... Alkali, and David Gordon." 7 However, at least one element in the article was new and unheard of at the time, and it is this element which is most pertinent to this book. In this debut article, written when he was a twenty-one year old student in Paris, Ben Yehuda introduces a new word and a new concept into Hebrew: 'nationalism' (leomut). After briefly discussing the term within a European context as manifesting a people's shared sense of common homeland, common history, and common destiny, and after showing its easily translatable applicability to the Jewish people and the land of Palestine, Ben Yehuda states a hypothesis which it will take him the rest of Iiis life to prove and implement. If language is to be taken, on the European model, as a criterion of nationalism and nationhood, "We have a language in which we can write everything we want to and we can speak it if we only want to." 8 This language is Hebrew. The successful proof of the above hypothesis is generally termed the miracle of the revival of Hebrew. It is the purpose of this book to examine the role played in this miracle by Ben Yehuda. However, as we have indicated in this chapter, no miracle was actually involved, nor any revival from the dead. Hebrew was at the time of this first article of Ben Yehuda's still quite alive in writing, although, as discussed above, its long-range future did seem bleak. However, as Rabin notes, "It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that... in 1879 over 50% of all male Jews were able to understand the Bible (and) daily prayers... and some 25% of all male Jews to read a Hebrew book of average difficulty... allowing for a much higher proportion in Eastern Europe." 9 Hebrew, then, was not dead prior to Ben Yehuda. However, if we were to grant that Hebrew was partly dead or even ultimately doomed to die, the comment of Tur-Sinai would still be instructive: "Even an artificial language which has never been alive, such as Esperanto or Interlingua, can be made to live, if only there is a recognized need for it and a stubborn will of people to make it come alive." 10 With respect to Ben Yehuda 7

Eliezer Mal'akhi, "The Writings of Ben Yehuda", Ha-Doar 8 (1948), 181. Quoted in full in Ha-Shahar (1879) as in text and in Ittamar Ben-Avi, Kol Kitve Eliezer Ben Yehuda (Jerusalem, 1941), 7. 9 Chaim Rabin, "Language Revival: Colloquialism or Purism" (1958b), 11. 10 Naftali Tur-Sinai, The Revival of the Hebrew Language (1960), 9. 8

The Hebrew Language Before Ben Yehuda

17

and the case of Hebrew, we indeed hope to show the validity of TurSinai's comment, for Ben Yehuda saw the "recognized need" for the language's revival and by his "stubborn will" began the revival's implementation, ultimately enabling Hebrew to live again in the modern world of the twentieth century.

II

BEN YEHUDA BEFORE PALESTINE

The purpose of this book is to begin seeking an explanation for the success of the Hebrew revival. It has been decided to do this especially by examining the role played by Eliezer Ben Yehuda, its initiator and main exponent, and the steps he took to implement his ideas. By showing how these steps interlocked and supplemented one another, we hope to show how Ben Yehuda made his idea become a reality. Before examining the steps Ben Yehuda took, we give in this chapter a thumbnail sketch of his life and work before coming to Palestine. In it we try to stress those points which will place him in the appropriate social, linguistic, and historical context, and which will help ultimately in answering the question of how the idea of the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language could have occurred to him. However, before beginning, a word of caution must be given. Virtually all of the most important materials on Ben Yehuda's life and work, with the exception of his newspapers, were written by others who knew him and were published late, either after his death or, at the least, after the revival had been effected. As Kanaani writes, "Even though Ben Yehuda lived right in our time it is still difficult to find all of his writings... and they are rare even today, because in most of his actions Ben Yehuda was an innovator and prime-mover and the people of his time did not correctly evaluate him in his first years. Indeed they actually did the opposite and castigated him for his strangeness.... Therefore they did not try to save for coming generations the great amount of material he had left upon his death." 1 1

Yaaqov Kanaani, "Eliezer Ben Yehuda: Detailed Bibliographical and Chronological Material" (1929), 58, footnote 1.

Ben Yehuda Before Palestine

19

Virtually the only significant materials written by Ben Yehuda himself dealing with his life are the preface to his Dictionary, written only seven years before his death, while he was in the United States during World War I. This fact, of course, leads to suspicions of personal selectivity at a late date of facts and events. In addition to these notes, the main materials of importance are those written by Ben Yehuda's second wife Hemda, and his children, published only in the 1930's and 1940's.2 (Unfortunately, Ben Yehuda's first wife, Devora, died early in the revival period and left no historical materials of her impressions.) The various books and articles published by one of the main Ben Yehuda enthusiasts, Yosef Klausner, in the 1920's and after, also must be included. 3 These works, however, are also late. Other important materials, including various obituary and commemorative articles, as well as personal reminiscences, were written by those who knew Ben Yehuda well or else worked for or with him, in particular, scholars and teachers. 4 As may be expected, however, most of these materials are at least somewhat romanticized and must be treated with caution. However, by comparing and contrasting one with another, a generally valid although very incomplete picture emerges.5 Eliezer Perelman (Ben Yehuda's original name) was born in the Lithuanian village of Luzhky on January 7, 1858. Very little is known with certainty concerning his family's circumstances and his early childhood. Like most Jewish children of his time, it may be assumed that the young Ben Yehuda began studying Hebrew at the age of three and by the age of six had already passed from Bible study to the study of the Mishna. At the age of nine, he began studying the Talmud. Ben Yehuda was quickly recognized as the scholar of the family, and, like most intellectually promising Jewish youth of the time, he was sent after his Bar Mitzva 'confirmation' to study at a Yeshiva 'seminary' in a nearby city, Polotsk. While in Polotsk, Ben Yehuda read widely in traditional Jewish literature of all periods. More importantly, he came under the influence there of one Joseph Blucker, an enlightened Jewish intellectual typical of the period, who took him under his tutelage and, as happened with many others, radically changed the course of Ben Yehuda's life by exposing him to the modern knowledge of Europe as found in the Hebrew writings of the Enlightenment. Reading in this literature opened Ben Yehuda's 2

For example, her Ha-Lohem Ha-Meushar and her Eliezer Ben Yehuda, Toledot Hayyaw We-Mifal Hayyaw cited in the Bibliography. Her "Ha-Milhama Im HaSatan", also late although undated, is important as well. 3 Cf. his articles mentioned in the Bibliography. 4 In this connection should be mentioned in particular the works of Mal'akhi, Yellin and Yudeleviz cited in the Bibliography as well as the volume edited by Kimhi. 5 One such attempt at a general framework and chronology of Ben Yehuda's life is given in the work of Kanaani of 1929 (cited in footnote 1 above and in the Bibliography. Our version here is more extended and detailed.

20

Ben Yehuda Before Palestine

eyes to the broad vistas of modern thought and, significantly for our purposes, showed him that the Hebrew language could be used for other than purely religious purposes and indeed even for strictly secular topics such as the writing of modern fiction. Thus, Ben Yehuda began to lead the 'double life' of both a religious and an enlightened Jew. However, this earned him the wrath of several in the community and he was forced to leave. Afraid to return home, Ben Yehuda went on to Glubokia, where he was befriended by his future father-in-law, Shlomo Naftali Hirz Yonas. Yonas too was an enlightened Jew, and it was in the Yonas household that Ben Yehuda acquired the languages which were to play so important a role in his future work: French, German and Russian, as taught him by his future wife, Devora Yonas. After he had learned the culture languages of Europe, Ben Yehuda was sent to the Gymnasium in Dünaburg, a leading city in White Russia of the period, to obtain a systematic education. He began studying there, and, like many young freethinking intellectuals of the time, soon joined the Narodniki. These self-styled 'sons of the Russian people' stressed returning to the soil of Russia, uplifting the Russian peasant and glorifying the Russian nation and language. Ben Yehuda readily identified with these goals, and, like many Jewish students of the time, foresook his Jewish identity for a Russian one. One thing, however, kept him from full identification: his love for the Hebrew language. As he writes, "But there still remained one thread, and this thread all the forces of nihilism could not cut. This thread was - love for the Hebrew language! Even when everything Jewish had become strange to me, almost repugnant, I could not separate myself from the Hebrew language, and, from time to time, wherever and whenever I happened to chance upon a book of Modern Hebrew literature, I could not summon enough will-power to overcome my desire to read it." 6 Such love of the Hebrew language kept Ben Yehuda in contact with the Hebrew writing of the time, most of which, however, disappointed him. Only in the Hebrew periodical Ha-Shahar edited by Perez Smolenskin in Vienna did he find anything of real interest to him. As he writes, "Certainly I would have finally given up this literature and the language in which it was written, were it not for Ha-Shahar of Perez Ben Moshe (Smolenskin) in which my ears heard more of the sound of life, more questions... worthy of consideration by a man of our generation.... I read them eagerly because of the flow of life and reality in them and... I delighted in every line.... By this reading of Ha-Shahar, the ember of love for the Hebrew language, which had already begun flickering... did not become extinguished." 7 8 7

Ben-Avi (1941), 7. Ben-Avi (1941), 8.

Ben Yehuda Before Palestine

21

Although Ben Yehuda may be exaggerating here, it must be considered that this Hebrew periodical, which had begun appearing in 1868, was extremely influential for its time in trying to solve the problem of the status of the Jews in the Diaspora - were they a religion, a people, an ethnic group, a nation - and their future there. Indeed, its importance was even greater in that it was the first among the journals of the time to realize that this actually was a problem. Its main solution to the question was that of its editor Smolenskin to the effect that the Jews are a spiritual nation (am ha-ruah) without need of a common territory, nationality or government to protect it from extinction by assimilation among the Gentiles, but rather the need of a sense of shared history and a common language. This history is the history of the Jewish people, especially as given in the Bible. This language is the language of the Jewish people's forefathers, as transmitted in the Bible, Hebrew. However, this must be a Hebrew suited to modern life and spread among the Jewish masses as the vehicle of modern education for their improvement. It can readily be seen how the young Ben Yehuda was influenced by these ideas and how, by slightly changing their emphasis and tone, he could arrive at the then seemingly absurd idea that the Hebrew nation should not be merely of the spirit and the Hebrew language not merely of the Holy Book, but rather the Hebrew nation and language should be like all other peoples and tongues, natural, secular, living and free. This could only be accomplished by their simultaneous rejuvenation, not in the Diaspora, however, but rather in their homeland, Israel. What was needed was the proper stimulus. This stimulus came in the Russo-Turkish War of 1878, which resulted in the granting of independence to the Balkans from Ottoman rule. Such nationalistic struggles against foreign domination were not new in Europe of the eighteen-hundreds. The Greeks had successfully liberated themselves in 1829, and the Italians in 1849. During Ben Yehuda's life, in particular, the Poles, the Czechs, the Slovenes, the Romanians and the Ukrainians in the Austro-Hungarian Empire were all engaged in similar resistance to foreign rule. Reading and hearing daily about these various revolts, Ben Yehuda reasoned that if such peoples, who had only relatively recently arrived on the stage of history could demand their national freedom, and justly so in the eyes of the world, so could the Jewish people, who had been among the first to appear on the horizon of world history. As he writes, in particular with respect to the Turko-Russian War, "Thirstily I read about these events in the press without realizing at first the connection between them and myself... and suddenly, like lightning before my eyes, my thoughts flew across the Balkans... to Palestine, and I heard a... voice calling to me: the revival of Israel and its language in the land of its forefathers!" 8 This idea gave Ben Yehuda no rest, and after 8

Ben-Avi (1941), 9.

22

Ben Yehuda Before Palestine

graduation from the Dünaburg Gymnasium, he decided to go to Paris, then the center of European politics, culture and learning, and the capital of the country most active in Greater Syria, to continue his studies and prepare for a future career in Palestine. Thus, in 1879, Ben Yehuda found himself in Paris studying at the Sorbonne. While there, he tried to improve himself in general fields of knowledge and to keep in tune with the important political news of the day, particularly attempting to trace the patterns in the diplomacy of the Ottoman Empire. To this end he studied the current Parisian and foreign newspapers and attended sessions of the French parliament. Similarly, he attended Oriental courses at the Sorbonne to learn about the history, languages and peoples of the Near East, both ancient and modern. In particular reference to our topic, the advanced Hebrew courses of Professor Joseph Ha-Levy taught in Hebrew influenced the young Ben Yehuda greatly. One of Ben Yehuda's acquaintances made in the Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris, a corresponding-editor for the Russian newspaper Ruski Mir, was a Polish nobleman named Tshashnikov, and he brought him into contact with various members of French high society, thus giving him a better chance to gain an insight into France's aims in the Near East. When Ben Yehuda disclosed his ideas to Tshashnikov, the Pole, mindful of Poland's similar struggle for national, cultural and linguistic liberation, encouraged him to begin implementing his ideas and advised him to publish his views in a leading Hebrew journal of the time. The result, after an initial rejection by Ha-Maggid which scorned Ben Yehuda's 'visions and exaggerations', 9 was the appearance of "A Serious Question" in Ha-Shahar, as previously mentioned. In his first article, written when he was twenty-one, Ben Yehuda traced the growth of nationalism in Europe and sought a definition of this term, applying this definition then to the case of the Jews in Europe. Ben Yehuda did this, as he was particularly interested in forming a definition of European nationalism, for he felt that the downfall of the Ottoman Empire was imminent. Further, if the Jewish people could form a state in Palestine acceptable to both France and England, the main interested parties in this area, this state would receive their backing and thus international recognition. The question, then, for Ben Yehuda, was: what characteristics qualified as attributes for a nation-state. One attribute, perhaps the main distinctive feature of the Europe of Ben Yehuda's time and certainly the most important for our purposes here, was that of a common spoken language. After this first article, Ben Yehuda began writing further in Ha-Shahar, where he expanded his ideas, then in the skeptical Ha-Maggid, and finally 9

Ben-Avi (1941) 13, footnote 10.

Ben Yehuda Before

Palestine

23

his contributions began to appear in Ha-Havazzelet, at that time the leading Palestinian newspaper. Ben Yehuda's third article for Ha-Shahar y published in 1881, provides the main foundations of his philosophy. 10 This was written as his first communication from Algiers where he was forced to go for health reasons, and was written as a refutation of Smolenskin's concept of the Jews as a spiritual nation 11 as well as of the latter's criticisms of Ben Yehuda's previous articles. Before discussing this piece in more detail, it is well to point out that in a sense Ben Yehuda's enforced stay in Algiers proved to be a blessing in disguise, since it provided him with the first opportunity and genuine need to exercise his knowledge of Hebrew, for want of any other means of communication with the Jewish elders of that city who knew no French. As he writes, "I felt at times as if Hebrew were my mother tongue, it came so freely and easily to speak." 12 Moreover, his stay in Algiers also gave Ben Yehuda his first acquaintance with Arabic, a language which was to prove so important for him in his later work. In his third article, Ben Yehuda notes the fact that the younger generation of Jews in the Diaspora were to a great extent assimilating and were disparaging Judaism, and in particular the use of Hebrew. Moreover, writes Ben Yehuda, many of the Hebrew writers only used Hebrew because segments of the Jewish people could only be reached by means of that language. However, he adds, this segment would grow smaller in the course of time, for assimilation was the keynote of the future. This assimilation would ultimately mark the end of the Jewish people and the Hebrew language. Ben Yehuda points out that the younger generation ought not to be criticized in this regard. As he states, "If I did not believe in the redemption of the Jewish nation, I would have thrown Hebrew aside by now as useless too.... Because what is the Hebrew language... to the person who has stopped being a Jew? Is it any better for him than Latin or Greek?" 13 However, Ben Yehuda then goes on to offer an answer to this question. As he suggests, if it were true that Hebrew was, in fact, no different from the classical languages of antiquity, then, "Let us revive that language", for, in this way, Hebrew would become useful to the younger generation, instead of being ".. .a dead language... not useful for anything". However, Ben Yehuda observes, conditions in Europe were not conducive to such a revival. As he states, "We can only revive the Hebrew language in a country where the number of Jewish inhabitants is greater than the number of Gentiles. Let us therefore increase the number 10

Eliezer Ben Yehuda, "A letter from Ben Yehuda", Ha-Shahar 5, 1881/2, reprinted in full in: Ben-Avi (1941) 27-33. 11 See above, p. 21. 12 Ben-Avi (1941), 17. 13 Ben-Avi (1941), 29.

24

Ben Yehuda Before Palestine

of Jews in our desolate country, place the remnant of our nation in the land of their forefathers, and thus we will revive the nation, and its language too will live."14 Here we see Ben Yehuda's twin solution for the problem of assimilation: the revival of the Hebrew nation and the Hebrew language in their historical homeland. The concluding section of this article maintains that "If we revive the nation and place it on its homeland, the Hebrew language will live.... The nation can live only on its own land, and on this land it will renew its youth... as in bygone days." 15 With this conclusion, Ben Yehuda may be said to have spiritually left the Diaspora and from then onwards he was to concentrate entirely on his future and the future of the Jewish nation in Palestine. Leaving Algiers, Ben Yehuda returned to Paris to make preparations for his departure for Palestine. While still in Paris, he wrote, in particular, two important articles - "The Question of Education" (Sheelat HaHinukh) and "Concerning Education" (Al Ha-Hinukh) whose theme was Ben Yehuda's suggestion that the Palestinian Rabbinate adopt Hebrew as the language of instruction in all subjects in every school in Palestine. It was Ben Yehuda's opinion that the Rabbis, being those members of the community most closely associated with the Hebrew tongue, could be of assistance to him in his project for the revival of the Hebrew language by setting an example and helping to spread the language among the Jewish masses of Palestine as their rightful national tongue - just as the Rabbis and learned men of the Diaspora had spread the use of Hebrew among the Jewish people there. These two articles were among the first by Ben Yehuda to be published in Palestine in the weekly newspaper "HaHavazzelet" of Israel Dov Frumkin (folios 7 and 13/1416,1880). Although they may be considered as Ben Yehuda's first real attempt to come to grips with reality with respect to his dream of the language revival, nevertheless, within the context of the situation in Palestine they appeared as being somewhat naive and Frumkin rightly dubbed even the first article of Ben Yehuda "a pious dream" (ein frummer Wunsch),17 which bore no resemblance to the harsh facts of the Palestinian scene. In these articles, Ben Yehuda surveys the methods adopted by various Jewish philanthropic organizations to improve the economic situation of the Jews in Palestine by attempting to modernize education there on the Western European model. These attempts singularly failed and resulted in bitter disappointment over the Palestinian Jews' seemingly stubborn refusal to cooperate and enter the modern world. However, Ben Yehuda writes, this refusal on the part of the Palestinian Jews ought not to be 14 15 16 17

Both quotes from Ben-Avi (1941), 31. Ben-Avi (1941), 32. Reprinted in full in: Ben Avi (1941), 43-47, 51-56. Ben-Avi (1941), 43.

Ben Yehuda Before Palestine

25

considered as strange, nor should it be estimated as blind and stubborn, for they felt, and rightly so, that modern European-style education would tear their children away from them, and, what was worse, away from traditional Judaism. In Ben Yehuda's view, the only way to modernize the Jews of Palestine and at the same time to allow them to remain faithful to the Jewish heritage is "to take the Hebrew language as the language of instruction, as the language of education... in the schools.... Smolenskin, Frumkin, Gordon... have shown that our language is not yet dead, that we can speak it whenever we wish, for all of man's needs in life, among his family (and) in public". 18 This should not be too difficult to implement, according to Ben Yehuda, because We have many books in this language, in all branches of the sciences, both ancient and modern, in arithmetic, carpentry, nature-study, chemistry, mechanics, history, geography, grammar of foreign languages.... Moreover, it is this language (Hebrew) which unites all the children of Israel from the four corners of the globe. It is in it that the Jew reads about the history of his ancient days; in it he prays;... It is the language of our forefathers, the language of our prophets, the language of our sages-the precious national tongue of the entire nation, and therefore this language alone should be taken... for the schools. Then you will see that eagerly, joyfully, the Jewish mother will bring her son and daughter to you, and all of the disputes among the people of Jerusalem about Enlightenment will cease, for the students in the schools will remain faithful to their parents and nation-because the education will be national even though it will be according to the spirit of modern times.19

Having written to his former tutor Devora Yonas asking her to be his bride and having accepted an assistantship with Israel Dov Frumkin, the editor of the Palestinian paper Ha-Havazzelet, Ben Yehuda set out for Palestine in the summer of 1881 to set the example for others, to put his ideas into practice among the Jews already there and to realize his dream: the unification and revival of the people and the language. As Mal'akhi notes, "The transition from the Diaspora to (Palestine) was very natural for Ben Yehuda. He did not destroy bridges to start anew, but continued his work of preaching his idea of revival..." 20 Similarly, with respect to the language revival in Palestine in particular, Ben Yehuda had found out from Avraham Lunz, a noted Jewish chronicler and geographer who had lived in Jerusalem and who had met Ben Yehuda while both were convalescing in a hospital in Paris, that "there were many Jews in Jerusalem. Among them are some speakers of Hebrew, albeit not continually. The number who know Hebrew is very great. Jews of different foreign com18 19 20

Ben-Avi (1941), 47. Ben-Avi (1941), 78. Eliezer Mal'akhi, "The Writings of Ben Yehuda" (1948), 181.

26

Ben Yehuda Before

Palestine

munities are forced when they meet to speak this language... Hebrew had already become in Palestine an inter-communal language... There are also a number of Enlightened people in Jerusalem, even if it is precisely these who do not know Hebrew." 21 However, although these comments are basically true, and although it is clear from Ben Yehuda's writings that he was well versed on the situation in Palestine, especially through his reading of English, French and German travelogues, tourists' briefs and newspaper articles, it would seem that this was a mere book-knowledge and that Ben Yehuda singularly failed to appreciate the harsh realities of the conditions in Palestine. The price he had to pay for this lack of foresight was quite high.

21

Yizhaq Ben Dor, "Betjavle Yezira", Al Mahadura Ammamit Shel Millon Ha-Lashon Ha-Ivrit Le-Eliezer Ben Yehuda (Tel Aviv/Jerusalem, 1947), 90.

III

BEN Y E H U D A I N P A L E S T I N E

The Palestine that Ben Yehuda and his young wife Devora reached in October 1881 was an economic and cultural backwater of the Ottoman Empire-the 'Sick Man of Europe'-which had only in the previous halfcentury begun to enter the modern world. The human material with which Ben Yehuda had to work, the Jews of Palestine, numbered at that time 24,000-28,000, almost all of them committed to the Orthodox Judaism of the Middle Ages. These people were clustered mainly in four traditionally religious cities: Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias and Hebron, the Jewish population of Jerusalem being equivalent to that of the three other towns combined. With reference to the local Moslem and Christian population, the Jewish population of Jerusalem constituted a majority comprising 54% of the city's inhabitants. The situation in Jerusalem as reflected in the above numerical data as well as the more obvious religious-historic and nationalistic-ideological reasons governed Ben Yehuda's choice of the Holy City as his place of residence. Although, as stated above, the Jews of Jerusalem formed the majority of the city's residents, the Jewish community itself was subdivided into several tightly-knit smaller communities according to the countries and occasionally city of origin. Each community was a world unto itself, with frictions and rivalries alienating one group from another. Each group rivalled the others in their outward forms of strict and literal religious observance, and each community was distinguished by its own peculiarities of dress, food, habits, religious customs, practices, dialect and language. Moreover, each community reserved for itself the claim to constituting the only true followers of Judaism and its traditions, and often even denied the status of Jews to members of the rival groups. As a

28

Ben Yehuda in Palestine

native of the city writes, "Different ways of life and different customs prevented the fusion of the different communities.... Inter-marriage among them was rare. (They). ..usually lived in separate quarters, prayed in separate houses of worship, and their children learned in separate... schools. There were also separate religious councils and courts." 1 With respect to language, our most immediate concern, the writer continues, There was no common language... for all the Jews living in Jerusalem. The members of the different communities spoke the languages and dialects they had used in their mother countries or in their fathers' homelands. The Sephardim (Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern Jews) spoke Judaeo-Spanish..., the Musta'arabin (local Jews) spoke Palestinian Arabic, the Maghrebines (North African Jews) Arabic according to the North African dialect, the Caucasians spoke Georgian, the Crimeans Tatar and the Ashkenazim (European Jews) spoke Yiddish in different dialects. Arabic was the language of the street common to all city dwellers who dealt with work and trade, but when the learned men from the different communities met together, they would speak among themselves Hebrew according to the Sephardic accent.2

As Ben Yehuda succinctly states, although exaggerating, "In a small group of twenty persons, ten languages are spoken and no-one understands the language of his neighbor." 3 Moreover, this diversity in the languages and dialects spoken was not only characteristic of the Jews of Jerusalem. The whole city was a motley assortment of peoples and tongues. Some idea of this state of affairs may be gotten from a statement by Yonas, Ben Yehuda's father-in-law; "When you go outside, an Arab asks you a question in Arabic, a few more steps and a Frenchman meets you with some question or other; you go further into a store and you have to speak English or Turkish or Greek. ... The Sephardim speak Spanish, and many of Jerusalem's inhabitants know several languages." 4 This fragmentation naturally made Ben Yehuda's task of national and linguistic unification and revival much more difficult. Moreover, many of these groups of pious Jews had emigrated from the Diaspora to the Holy City to flee from the ideas and trends of the modern world, which aim was diametrically opposed to what Ben Yehuda was seeking. Thus, in regard to the two cornerstones of his dream, Ben Yehuda was already at odds with the local society. As he writes, "How difficult it is... in our city to unite and accomplish any worthwhile task.... The curse of God rests upon us. ... Every group and every faction is a whole world unto itself, 1

(For details, cf. the works of Alex Bein, Ben-Zion Gat and Avraham Lunz cited in the Bibliography.) Isaiah Peres, Mea Shana Bi-Yerushalayim (Jerusalem, 1964), 29. 2 Peres (1964), 29. 3 Ha-Zevi 50 (1907/08), 1-2. 4 Ha-Meliz 48 (1893), 3.

Ben Yehuda in Palestine

29

every world with its own sun, stars and moon revolving about their own orbits." 5 However, despite this fragmentation, the various Jewish groups to be found in the Holy City generally fell under one of two broad, general categories on most points: either they were Sephardim (Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Jews) adhering to the Sephardic ritual in their religious observance, or they were Ashkenazim (European Jews) who observed the Ashkenazic forms of ritual and worship. Moreover, although both sections of the community were reactionary by European standards, the Sephardim as a whole were less inclined to religious fanaticism and more receptive to new ideas from the outside world. This fact can be attributed to various sources. First, unlike the Ashkenazim, the Sephardim had never before been directly exposed to the new climate of thought as expressed in the ideas of the Enlightenment which were sweeping across Europe during the nineteenth century and therefore did not recognize as deeply the possible anti-traditional, anti-religious consequences of these beliefs. Similarly, in contrast to their Ashkenazic neighbors, the Sephardim did not consider their presence in Jerusalem as constituting a special honor and privilege entrusted to them as the true keepers of Judaism, nor did they regard themselves as a separate entity within the city and as a respected religious sect therein. Rather, the Sephardim had formed an organic part of the city's structure from at least the time of the Moslem conquests, and their numbers had been supplemented and enriched by the Sephardic community's absorption of the exiles from Spain at later dates. On the other hand, the Ashkenazim had only begun to settle in the Holy City in appreciable numbers after 1820 and were therefore in the eyes of their Sephardic neighbors considered upstarts. A further contrast between the more monolithic, ultra-religious and other-worldly Ashkenazim and the Sephardim could be traced to the fact that not only were the Sephardim an organic part of the general environment, but also they had established themselves as a more natural, stratified and self-supporting community, the leaders of which were drawn from the religious and wealthy families. This thin upper layer of the community structure was followed by a small class of learned and merchant men in the center and a broad category of workers and artisans completed the social picturebricklayers, stonecutters, carpenters, locksmiths, blacksmiths, tailors, shoemakers, bakers, storekeepers, moneychangers, and so on. Finally, the Sephardim as a whole led a more independent existence than was possible for the Ashkenazic community whose livelihood was made possible mainly through the charitable donations arriving from a predominantly Ashkenazic Europe. Internal divisions within the Sephardic com6

Ha-Or 25 (1892/93), 1.

30

Ben Yehuda in Palestine

munity were therefore not as evident as they were within the Ashkenazic sector, where each subgroup considered itself under an obligation to its own home country and/or home city in Europe. The Sephardim, then, gave some semblance of stability and normality to the general social situation in which Ben Yehuda found himself. Moreover, with respect to our main linguistic interest, although Jerusalem was the center of a babel of different tongues and dialects, three major languages dominated the scene: Yiddish-spoken almost exclusively by the Ashkenazim, Ladinothe language of the Sephardim originating from the Balkan countries and Turkey, and Arabic-spoken by the Jews of the Levant and North Africa. These overall linguistic groupings among the different sectors of the Jewish communities also contributed to a more unified situation within the linguistic sphere. Moreover, regarding one fundamental aspect of his dream, and for our purposes the most important one, Ben Yehuda had at his disposal spoken Hebrew material to work with from the outset. Indeed, his choice of Jerusalem as the center of operations throughout the whole period of the revival may be attributed to this very factor. It is known from historical records, 6 and had also been clear to Ben Yehuda before his arrival in Palestine,7 that these various Jewish groups, while speaking their own languages among themselves, used Hebrew as a lingua franca when it became necessary to meet together, for example in the market place, or to work together, as in the collection of taxes for the government authorities. This situation was particularly applicable to the two major sections of the community-Ashkenazim and Sephardim-when they met together, but was also the case when groups consisting only of Sephardic Jews gathered, as these people had no other common means of communication but Hebrew, since Ladino was restricted in its use and Arabic was splintered into several dialects. As Yehuda observes: "When for example a Sephardi from Aleppo would meet a Sephardi from Saloniki or a Sephardi from Morocco would come into the company of a Jew from Bukhara, they were obliged to speak in the Holy Tongue." 8 When various groups of purely Ashkenazic descent gathered, however, they would converse in Yiddish, as the different Yiddish dialects resembled each other quite closely from a linguistic aspect. However, the occasions afforded for social intercourse between these different branches of the Jewish com6

Cf. for example, among others, Yosef Klausner, "Hebrew Speech in Israel in the Fifteenth Century" (1923), 114-117; Ben-Zion Gat, Ha-Hityashvut Ha-Yehudit BeYisrael (1963), 218; James Finn, Stirring Times (London, 1878), Volume 1, 127. 7 For this fact, cf. Avraham Lunz, "Jerusalem in the Last Forty Years" (1911), 3-50; Ben-Avi (1941), 26. Ben Yehuda had discussed this point with Lunz while both were recuperating in a Paris hospital. 8 Avraham Yehuda, Ever We-Arav (New York, 1946), 235.

Ben Yehuda in Palestine

31

munity were, as intimated above, extremely rare. But for Ben Yehuda's purposes it was at least a start. Moreover, of all the centers of Jewish population in the world only Jerusalem could boast a spoken Hebrew tradition which had been preserved until Ben Yehuda's time. As Ben Yehuda notes, " F o r me the matter was a little... easier, because the Sephardim who knew I was not a Sephardi were already used to the fact that with an Ashkenazi they must speak in Hebrew. As for the Ashkenazim, some of them did not know who I was, and the question whether I might not be a Sephardi made it acceptable to them to speak with me in Hebrew." 9 This Hebrew was not, of course, the Ashkenazic (European) Hebrew that Ben Yehuda had learned in his youth. In the first place, it was a Hebrew spoken with the Sephardic accent, inasmuch as the Sephardim were numerically and culturally superior to the other groups in Jerusalem and had enjoyed this status for over three hundred years and therefore, their accent too had become dominant. As might have been expected from the circumstances under which it had developed, this form of Hebrew was a much simplified style of the language, a 'Basic Hebrew', with a grammatical structure far less complex than in the original language. The influence of the mother-tongue languages of the Jews speaking this Hebrew as well as that of the languages of the local environm e n t - T u r k i s h and A r a b i c - o n both vocabulary and syntax was also in evidence. 10 Besides this Hebrew of the more common people, there existed also the form of Hebrew adopted by the more educated Rabbis, Yeshiva students and religious leaders. The type of Hebrew used by these people was, however, quite bookish and artificial and was generally reserved for discussion centered around the study of a Holy Text. It should also be borne in mind as a factor initially aiding Ben Yehuda and his ideal that certain groups of Jews in Palestine already spoke only Hebrew, in particular Kabbalists and Hassidim especially in Safed, at least on Sabbaths, but also, it would seem, on weekdays. 11 However, no matter what the extent of these groups' use of Hebrew may have been, it may be assumed that their influence among the more general sections of the Jewish population was minimal. 9

Luah Ahiever, 1 (1918/19), 25. Unfortunately, no traces of either type of Hebrew exist in the literature. I wish to thank the late Yehuda Burla in particular for his remarks on these dialects. Klausner, Yosef (1923) gives possible examples of what the common Hebrew may have been like in the fifteenth century. 11 I wish to thank the late Professor Yosef Rivlin for discussing these groups briefly with me. Cf. the article by Ish-Shalom cited in the bibliography for some examples of these groups' use of Hebrew. Professor Rivlin had been planning to write a history of these groups' use of Hebrew based on family documents. 10

32

Ben Yehuda in Palestine

It was within this setting, then, that Ben Yehuda prepared to mount his campaign for the re-establishment of Hebrew as a national language, with all that such a struggle entailed. He fought this battle in a series of seven steps, and we shall analyze these stages below, in depth. However, before proceeding, one other factor remains to be considered. Above, we have treated of the general social fabric of the Jewish community of Jerusalem, the community within which Ben Yehuda was about to commence his life's work. During the entire period under review, immigration of these traditional types of Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews continued, and thus expanded Ben Yehuda's field of action accordingly. At the same time, however, Ben Yehuda also came into contact with two other major social groups, which we shall deal with later as they bear on his subsequent work, but which we shall mention at this point in order to conclude and complete the picture of the Palestine in which Ben Yehuda now found himself. We refer, in particular, to the two great waves of European Jewish immigrants who came to Palestine during the years 1882-1904 and 1905-1914, respectively, which are known in Jewish history as the First and Second Aliyot. In contrast to the earlier immigrations of the traditional religious type of Jew, which had consisted mainly of people well advanced in years or close to the end of their life span, both the First and the Second Aliyot were characterized particularly by the youth of the newcomers who comprised for the most part young, unmarried persons or young couples without children. In many cases, these immigrants had been high-school students, university students or graduates, or externs who had decided to leave the anti-Semitic lands of the Russian Empire and to begin life anew in the land of their forefathers. Most of these young intellectuals hailed from economically stable middle-class backgrounds and from families who, while still attached to traditional Rabbinic Judaism and its tenets, were not averse to modern, secular trends of thought. The First Aliya had been initiated by the 'Lovers of Zion' (Hovevei Zion) movement in Russia and Romania, in response to anti-Jewish pogroms there in 1881-1882. This Aliya, however, had been preceded by a vanguard group of twentysix idealistically and nationalistically-minded student pioneers, known as the Biluim, who had arrived in Palestine in the spring of 1882. Although few in number, the psychological effect of the Biluim on the entire Aliya movement to follow was immense. Disillusioned by the Russian government's open anti-Semitic campaigns, and revolted by the abnormal social and economic conditions of Jewry within the territories of the Russian Empire, the Biluim aspired to rectify the pitiable situation in which the Jews found themselves and which could in fact be ultimately attributed to the hostile policies of the government towards the Jews. They proposed to replace the then prevalent urban-restricted, urban-

Ben Yehuda in Palestine

33

based professions peculiar to the Jews in favor of occupations not normally associated with the Jewish people, those of peasants, workers, laborers and farmers. In this way they hoped to revitalize the Jewish nation in the land of its forefathers. Banding together in Charkov in the winter of 1881, they wrote to Ben Yehuda shortly after his arrival in Palestine, pledging their support for his ideas of which they had read in the various Hebrew newspapers12 mentioned above. BenYehuda, in turn, began corresponding with them13, advising them how best to proceed with immigration. In response to the Russian government's veiled edict of expulsion of the Jews in January 1882, as well as to Ben Yehuda's calls for immigration directed to the Jewish youth of Russia and the Diaspora which immediately followed this decree, the Biluim sent their first representatives to Palestine to purchase land for the group. The result was the founding of the first new-styled, nationalistic agricultural colony, Rishon Le-Zion, in the summer of 1882, and by the end of 1883, all of the initial twenty-six Biluim had arrived in Palestine. Moreover, in the same year, 1883, the First Aliya, which was ultimately to bring twenty thousand new immigrants to Palestine, had already commenced. This Aliya, in addition to the young intellectuals, comprised large numbers of poor refugees who had fled the pogroms of Russia, lured by idealistic descriptions of life in Palestine, as well as a substantial proportion of workers and laborers. The social composition of this First Aliya explains all too well its subsequent fate. Unorganized, untrained and far too idealistic, these were immigrants utterly unsuited for the rigors of a laborer's life or an agricultural existence in a semi-tropical underdeveloped country, and thus they could not readily fend for themselves. As a result, they either shifted about in an aimless fashion, ultimately leaving the country, or else they sought and eagerly welcomed aid from without, first in 1883 (and in the years following) from the Hovevei Zion Central Committee in Odessa and then in 1884 (and in the ensuing years) through the benevolence of the French-Jewish philanthropist Baron Edmond de Rothschild. We shall discuss later how this dependence on outside help, especially from the Baron, was to negate effectively the entire nationalistic and idealistic basis of this Aliya movement. Only during the three-year period following the independence of the colonies from the Baron in 1900 could any progress, albeit slow, be made on the initiative of the First Aliya. But the vacuum left by the Baron gave little room or hope for success. However, for our purposes here, we note that the intellectual and idealistic coloring of the First Aliya could not but aid Ben Yehuda in the realization of his dream, for such persons as these 12

Cf. for example pp. 22, 23. Cf. in particular, his "Citizens and Not Foreigners", Ha-Havazzelet 19 (1882/83), and his "Until When", Ha-Havazzelet 20 (1882/83). 13

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Ben Yehuda in Palestine

would not be averse to the novel and even revolutionary ideas connected with the revival of the language, and would, at the same time, have the aptitude to learn Hebrew quite rapidly. Furthermore, as a fair percentage of the members of this First Aliya were young and unmarried, they could be relied upon to impart the new language to their children within the homes and families that they would eventually build in their new country. Thus, historically, the First Aliya may generally be said to have failed in its revivalist efforts, except for one which, for our purposes, constitutes the most important aspect, namely the linguistic revival. As we have seen above, the Second Aliya arrived in Palestine during a period of crisis. Moreover, in 1903, Theodore Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, had died. Thus the whole program of the Return to Zion had reached a critical stage, for the advocates of such a policy were bereft of leadership. The Second Aliya consisted mainly of various Zionist labor groups who had at first supported the socialist-reform movements in Russia, had then become disappointed and finally grown disillusioned with life in Russia in general-and especially after the Kishinev pogroms of 1903-1905 and the October Revolution of 1905 which had ended in government-sponsored and government-supported anti-Jewish riots. The Second Aliya, like the First, also contained a core of students and intellectuals who had, however, learned from the mistakes of the First Aliya, and, unlike them, were willing to undergo hardship for the sake of the future good of Palestine. Furthermore, they were willing to undertake this burden independently, without assistance from outside sources. Many of the Second Aliya had read fairly widely before their arrival in Palestine concerning the conditions there and thus were fully prepared for the primitive surroundings and hard life which awaited them. Moreover, especially important for our purposes here, a significant number of persons in the Second Aliya already knew and spoke at least some Hebrew, having learned the language either in the more modernized schools that had sprung up in Russia in the 1890's on the model of their Palestinian counterparts (especially the heder metuggan), or in various pioneering groups, as part of their training for adaptation to the new living conditions presented by Palestine. This segment also contributed towards the realization of Ben Yehuda's goal-the revival of the Hebrew language. Another significant element in the Second Aliya was constituted by people stemming from the proletariat or upper working class who had come to Palestine aggressive in mood and nationalistic in spirit. As the result of the revolutionary atmosphere which they had imbibed in Russia, these people actively sought to change the existing order. This class of persons too could not but be of active assistance to Ben Yehuda in his plan to revive Hebrew. In general, however, the Second Aliya looked

Ben Yehuda in Palestine

35

askance at the First Aliya and wanted nothing to do with its leaders and their failures. Therefore, in contrast to the First Aliya, the Second Aliya was not inspired by Ben Yehuda. Indeed it would be more correct to say that the Second Aliya was repulsed by Ben Yehuda and his naivete, and desired no connections with him. As for the revival of Hebrew, however, they were very active in speaking and spreading the ancient tongue, as Ben Yehuda wanted. But the language revival was to take place on their terms, not his, on a European Hebrew base, not on a Jerusalem foundation which merely symbolized for them the old and the stagnant. Thus, both Aliyot played their share in the realization of Ben Yehuda's dream, but each did so in rather different ways. We see, then, that there were some grounds for optimism for the success of the Ben Yehuda dream. We turn now to examine the steps Ben Yehuda took to transform his dream to reality.

IV

THE SEVEN STEPS OF BEN YEHUDA

We have extracted from Ben Yehuda's work in Palestine seven main steps, seven principal areas of focus which he adopted in order to revive the language. These may be summarized as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

The first Hebrew-speaking household, The call to the Diaspora and to the local population, The Hebrew-speaking societies, Hebrew through Hebrew in the schools, The newspaper, The Dictionary of the Hebrew Language, Ancient and Modern, The Language Council.

Each of these is described in detail below. Before proceeding, however, it must be stressed that these seven steps are strictly an artifact of our analysis. Nowhere does Ben Yehuda himself give a blueprint for the revival. Indeed, he wrote very little on the revival of the language, and we may, perhaps, attribute this to the fact that he himself was so directly involved in the process of reviving the language that he was unable to view events as they occurred in an objective fashion. Only late in his life did Ben Yehuda record some autobiographical notes on his own role in the revival, as well as personal reminiscences and views of the revival. As we have noted above,1 most of the material on the revival appears late in time, and for this reason must be treated with caution. However, at least one source for such materials appeared contemporaneously with events1

See above, Chapter 2, for example.

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37

the newspapers of Ben Yehuda-and these were used extensively in the preparation of this study.

1. THE FIRST HEBREW-SPEAKING HOUSEHOLD

Before he arrived in Palestine, Ben Yehuda had already decided to speak only Hebrew and had made his young wife promise to do likewise, although her knowledge of the language was limited to what her husband had taught her during their voyage to the Holy Land. Ben Yehuda's Hebrew, as we have noted above, was a Diaspora Hebrew, and in matters of pronunciation and vocabulary in particular, this form of Hebrew had to be adjusted to the Palestinian variant of the language. Ben Yehuda had heard Palestinian Hebrew before, from travelers in Paris who had visited Palestine.2 However, his first opportunity to hear this new form of Hebrew in its natural setting arose when he conversed in Hebrew first with a moneychanger, then with an innkeeper and finally with a wagon driver who drove his wife and himself from Jaffa to Jerusalem after they had disembarked. This pleased Ben Yehuda greatly, for here he was confronted with simple people who were quite capable, when circumstances demanded, of expressing themselves in a pithy, supple and earthy Hebrew, in contrast to the artificial and puristic Hebrew characteristic of the learned of Europe "with a little stammering but at least easily".3 It was then, on his first day in Palestine, that Ben Yehuda decided that this was the type of Hebrew he would basically adopt, purifying it in gradual stages from errors and ultimately making it the vehicle of a fully-fledged Hebraic Renaissance, j ust as the literary languages of Europe had developed from spoken vernaculars with extraneous material eventually discarded. His own home would serve as the focal point of his endeavors and within it he would create the first Hebrew-speaking family in over 1500 years. This decision to speak only Hebrew and to establish the first Hebrewspeaking household may be considered the first step adopted by Ben Yehuda in Palestine towards the implementation of his idea of the language revival. He was of the opinion that only if Hebrew became the language spoken in the home would it be truly revived and that, of necessity, he would have to set the example in his own home for others to follow. The practical difficulties of speaking only Hebrew were manifold. At the time, Hebrew lacked precisely those vital terms necessary for the performance of daily household tasks. Devora did not speak Hebrew 2 3

30.

For example, from Gezel Zelikovizand Avraham Lunz. Cf. Ben-Avi (1941), 14; 21. Yosef Klausner, Eliezer Ben Yehuda, Toledotaw U-Mifal Hayyaw (Tel Aviv, 1939b),

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The Seven Steps of Ben Yehuda

and even Ben Yehuda himself was unable to express himself fluently and with ease. Thus, the late Professor Rivlin, in a personal communication to the author, noted that, for example, when Ben Yehuda wanted Devora to pour him a cup of coffee with sugar, he was at a loss to communicate words such as 'cup', 'saucer', 'pour', 'spoon', and so on, and would say to his wife, in effect: "Take such and such, and do like so, and bring me this a n d this, a n d I will d r i n k . " (Khi kax, veasi kax, vehavii li kax veeshte.)

As

Klausner points out, "He spoke with his wife in gestures and signs (and) all the time she didn't understand the most necessary Hebrew words."4 When their first child, a son, was born in 1882, Devora Ben Yehuda became the first all-Hebrew speaking mother in over 1500 years, and the son, Ben-Zion Ben Yehuda (later called Ittamar Ben-Avi), was to become the first Hebrew-speaking child. Much information, unfortunately somewhat romanticized, on the problems the language posed for the family may be derived in particular from the first chapter of Ittamar's autobiography. Thus, for example, we read that when visitors came to see the baby, Ben Yehuda would make him go to sleep so that he would not hear their foreign languages, and that later Ben Yehuda would not let the boy listen even to "the chirpings of birds and the neighing of horses, the braying of donkeys and the fluttering of butterflies, because even they are after all foreign tongues, at any rate not Hebrew". 5 Moreover, Ben Yehuda wanted the boy locked in the house until the age of seven so that he would not be contaminated by his playmates' use of other languages. Thus, once when Ittamar was ill with fever and was delirious, his father afterwards locked him up because he had not ranted in Hebrew but in Yiddish.6 What is most important for our purposes, however, is the fact that with a newborn child in the home, Ben Yehuda was forced to coin terms for use in everyday household life so that his son would not experience any unnaturalness or inadequacy in the language that was to be his mothertongue. Thus, for example, Dr. A. Masie, later one of the leading participants in the language revival, points out proudly that on his visit to Russia in 1887, Ben Yehuda was already able to give everyday, simple names for all the utensils and foods set out on the table in Dr. Masie's home, a feat considered impossible for the Hebrew language at the time.7 In this way, the Ben Yehuda home became an experimental word-factory and the two parents would search for and/or invent words in Hebrew for doll, cradle, blanket, towel, handkerchief, jelly, ice-cream, tablecloth, curtains, and so on. Many of the child's de novo creations too were 4

Yosef Klausner (1939b), 30. Ittamar Ben-Avi, Im Shahar Azmautenu (Jerusalem, 1961), 18. β Ben-Avi (1961), 18. 7 Cf. Yosef Klausner (1939b), 36.

5

The Seven Steps of Ben Yehuda

39

excitedly seized upon and adopted, for example, his words for spinning top and napkin. In all events, Ben Yehuda's main aim at this stage was to show, as he writes, that "If a language which has stopped being spoken, with nothing remaining of it save what remains of our language, can return to be the spoken language of an individual, for all necessities of life, there is no room to doubt that it can be the spoken language of the community." 8 Indeed, the child's first babblings in Hebrew caused a sensation, and his first sentences in Hebrew at the late age of four aroused a general stir among the population of Jerusalem who, skeptics, scoffers and adherents of Ben Yehuda alike, had long since abandoned the hope that the child would develop normally after he had reached the age of three. The city's elite, Jewish and non-Jewish, flocked to the Ben Yehuda home to see the 'miracle' for themselves. Ittamar, perhaps somewhat fancifully, tells the story of his first utterance in Hebrew. Yehiel Mikhal Pines, a close friend and supporter of the family, had despaired of the child growing up anything but mute and dumb, and had pleaded with Devora, the child's mother, to speak to him in "anything but Hebrew". Thus, one day, when Ben Yehuda had left for a rather lengthy journey to Jaffa, Devora began singing lullabies to the child in her native Russian. However, Ben Yehuda, having forgotten something, returned unexpectedly and caught his wife speaking to the child, as it were, in another language. As Ittamar writes, the bitter scene that followed caused a "great shock to pass over me, when I saw my father in his anger and my mother in her grief and tears, and the muteness was removed from my lips and speech came to my mouth". 9 Ben Yehuda, then, had succeeded in proving that Hebrew could be learned as the language of the home, just as any other naturally spoken tongue. Following the Ben Yehuda family example, four other families10 adopted Hebrew as their everyday spoken tongue, thus giving Ben Yehuda his first success in this initial attempt to revive the use of Hebrew in the home. These were the families of David Yudeleviz, Yosef Meyuhas, Yehuda Grazovski and Arye Hurviz. This list did not include others who also spoke Hebrew, at least when dealing with Ben Yehuda. Thus, as Hemda Ben Yehuda points out, "Alter the book-binder spoke to Ben Yehuda in Hebrew, Gezel the scribe, and Rabbi Yizhaq Hirschensohn from the Ez Ha-Hayyim Yeshiva and his brother Rabbi Hayyim (Hirschensohn), not to mention... Pines, Frumkin (the owner of the local newspaper Ha-Havazzelet), Avraham Moshe Lunz, Mordekhai Adelman, Hayyim Peres (all local leaders). And among the Sephardim there is no 8

Eliezer Ben Yehuda, Millon Ha-Lashon Ha-Ivrit, Ha-Yeshana We-Ha-Hadasha (1909/58), Introduction, 3. 8 Ben-Avi (1961), 16. 10 Cf. on this point, Eliezer Ben Yehuda, "The First Four" (1918), 21-27.

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The Seven Steps of Ben Yehuda

need for comment because they didn't know Yiddish. Similarly for the Yemenites and... the Biluim 'pioneers". 11 However, it is clear that the achievement described above proved only a first, halting step. Thus, of the four families mentioned above who were really of prime significance, only one, that of Arye Hurviz, "really gave up its soul for the revival of Hebrew", as Ben Yehuda phrased it. For Yudeleviz and Grazovski had married former pupils of theirs to whom, as teachers, they had always spoken exclusively Hebrew. Meyuhas, moreover, had married a Sephardi and the common language used between Sephardi and Ashkenazi in general society was, as we have seen, Hebrew. Their use, therefore, of Hebrew was not "startling, nor cause for ridicule". Arye Hurviz, however, had married a woman of Russian origin who "used to argue with him interminably because she didn't know Hebrew and didn't have the time to learn". 12 Finally, these people were young and had little influence on the society of the time. But at least a beginning had been made.

2. THE CALL TO THE DIASPORA AND TO THE LOCAL POPULATION

The phenomenon of a few families speaking Hebrew, although in itself a fact of great potential significance, could not be considered more than one stage in the revival. In order to effect a true revival of the language, Ben Yehuda knew that he must disseminate it among broad circles of speakers. He therefore began publishing a series of newspaper articles in the local newspaper Ha-Havazzelet, for which he worked, on the function of the language revival and its importance as part of the greater movement for national rejuvenation. As far as Ben Yehuda was concerned, however, and appropriately for our purposes here, the language revival was invested with a distinct role of the first magnitude. Thus, we are justified in abstracting this question from the entire complex of events and circumstances in which it admittedly constituted only a single aspect of the whole. Ben Yehuda himself also subscribed to the opinion that language was an independent and even a dominant problem. As he writes, "The redemption of the land and nation (is important). But this in itself, even if very important to us, will not bring about the revival of Israel. The Greeks, the Serbs, the Bulgarians and the Romanians were in their countries and held most of the land, but they were not considered living nations until they revived their language... ." 13 11

Hemda Ben Yehuda, Sippurim Me-Hayyey Ha-Haluzzim (Jerusalem, 1945), 119-120. All three quotes from Eliezer Ben Yehuda (1918), 26. 13 "A Letter to R. Sh. Y. Fünn", 1883, document 46, published in: A. Druyanov, Ketavim Le-Toledot Hibbat Zion (Odessa, 1919), Vol. 1: 94-96. 12

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41

In this early period Ben Yehuda concentrated on attracting the disenchanted, nationalistically minded Jewish youth of Europe, and in particular of Russia, towards the idea of the linguistic revival, as well as to the broader concepts of immigration to Palestine and the rebuilding there of the homeland. A more immediate response, he thought, would be forthcoming from these young people of the Diaspora than had been evinced by the local population whose reactions to his ideas had, at first, been generally apathetic. Thus, Ben Yehuda writes, "It is our desire to be... the watchman for the House of Israel in our Holy Land and to relate... all the affairs of this land... and to be the interpreter between our brethren in the lands of the Diaspora and the remnant of Judah here..., to be the eyes for our brethren the people in the Diaspora that they may... clearly know this country to which they raise their hearts." 14 With respect to the language revival in particular, he writes, Only in Palestine will we truly be able to create almost a new language which will be completely old, that is, (a language) in the spirit of the language of our forefathers in all its power and glory, its spirit and suppleness. Only here will we be able to fill in what is lacking.... But until now nothing has been done with respect to this.... Until now there have not been in our land researchers and investigators into our language. We must create them.... This is what we have thought to advise the youth of our nation in Russia to whom the idea of nationalism is dear. It is fitting and proper for them to take this great task into their hands.... You, youth,... unite, join, form groups to revive our withering language in the land of our fathers!15

This feeling of identification on Ben Yehuda's part with the young intellectuals of Russia rather than with the population of Jerusalem was natural, especially in the early years after his immigration to Palestine, since he, too, was basically a Russian Jewish intellectual. At that time also, Ha-Havazzelet fulfilled a dual role, for it served simultaneously as the leading newspaper of the Jewish community in Palestine as well as being its chief organ of communication with the Diaspora and thus any problem of specific audience for Ben Yehuda was solved, since he could address both at once. These first newspaper articles written in the early years of his settlement in Palestine and which coincided with the initial, tentative stages of the revival, give us a good picture of Ben Yehuda's position on the language revival as well as providing a record of his efforts towards the realization of his dream. He himself, apart from speaking Hebrew and raising a Hebrew-speaking family, was at a loss to know how to proceed and could find no precedent in history on which to base future plans and 14

"What Is Our Purpose?", Mevasseret Zion (1884/5), supplement to Ha-Havazzelet 11 (1884/85). 15 Ha-Zevi 17 (1886/87), 1.

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activities. The articles in question are three in number, all appropriately entitled "The Revival of the Hebrew Language" (Tehiat Ha-Safa HaIvrit). 16 The first article states the problem concisely. "If a nation has a single country, and doesn't have a single language, it will not succeed (in being a nation). .. .How can the nation of Israel live in its country and not have its language? Can it succeed in being a nation without a single language?" It then offers the obvious solution: "If we wish to construct this large undertaking on a solid basis, we must worry at the very beginning of our task about reviving the nation's language little by little so that it will have one spirit. ...We have succeeded in the first step and with certainty can look ahead to seeing several colonies rise in our country shortly. Therefore we must begin to discuss the... second step... the revival of the language of our fathers." However, the ways and means to effect this solution remain unknown to the author. Further on in this debut article, he appeals: "Give advice, speak out, how can we succeed in accomplishing this important thing...? How can we revive the language of our fathers, how can we put it in the mouths of all this nation... ?" The second and third articles develop further the thesis suggested in the first and its possible solution, but it is in the third that we can trace the pattern of his thought which was to lead Ben Yehuda on to formulate the final solution to his problem, the one he was eventually to adopt. In Eastern Europe Ben Yehuda had himself witnessed the almost miraculous rebirth of the Russian language in the mouths of a new generation educated in government-sponsored schools. Perhaps the schools in Palestine could effect a similar renaissance of the Hebrew language. He affirms that There was no time for Israel... when unity was needed so much as today. We must accomplish this time a very great and weighty matter, which is not within the power of one man and not in the power of thousands to do, but only within the power of the entire nation. But the nation will not have this unity unless it speaks only one language, and a language different from the language of its forefathers will not give it this unity! Just as the land of Israel is the only land which has the power to draw together all the children of Israel scattered among all countries, so the Hebrew language is the only language which can unite the hearts of all the children of this nation.... But how can this dead language live and how can we put it in the mouths of all the nation? How will we put it in the mouths of women and children...? Can we perform this miracle in the schools? But when and how? We know that the schools play a large role in turning a nation entirely over to one... language, as the Russian language has quickly become the language of an entire new generation in Russia.... But the Hebrew language is dead in the mouths of the nation and only lives in its literature. We will not be able to revive it... only through the means of the schools, and 16

Ha-Havazzelet 26 (1882/83), 201-2; 27, 209-210 ; 28, 217-218.

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hundred of years will pass until this can occur, and maybe we will not succeed in speaking Hebrew even after hundreds of years... and Hebrew will die for ever.

The ultimate solution, then, according to Ben Yehuda, lay directly with the people themselves in their daily lives. As he writes, "If we do not get used to little by little speaking Hebrew when we sit in our homes and when we go out to the fields to stroll, when we go to the market to buy something and when we sit among friends, we will also not succeed in making Hebrew the language of instruction, and all our hopes will be lost." In general, however, Ben Yehuda felt that the situation in Palestine was favorable. As we have seen 17 , a living Hebrew tradition had been upheld among the Jews there, at least for certain purposes. The Jews, too, generally comprised a compact body, closely knit, and more or less immune to external non-Jewish interference in their affairs. Finally, no single common tongue prevailed as the only official language in Palestine, for Turkish and Arabic, the two most likely prospects, were not recognized as binding for all the inhabitants of Palestine, they were not nationalistically orientated, nor did they display any marked tendency towards modernization. Thus, conditions were in a sense 'ripe' for a Hebrew revival. Ben Yehuda, however, feared that time was not on the side of the Jews. He knew that the collapse of the Ottoman Empire was imminent. As soon as that happened, France and Britain in particular would move in, carve up the land into sections and award them to the population which, in their eyes, could be considered a nation. To both these countries language was a decisive symbol of nationhood, and with respect to their own nation and language the Arab population in particular was already showing signs of a re-awakening. If the Jews did not act quickly, hopes for a national and linguistic revival would be dashed. As Ben Yehuda stressed, The nation in whose midst we dwell... is not an enlightened nation.... Here too this country is better for us than any other... because we want to revive our nation... and how can we succeed in this in a country where... there is an enlightened nation? In such a country, when the Jews come, they begin to speak the language of the country,... their sons and daughters go to learn in the schools of the nation and will learn its language and imbibe its culture, because it is an enlightened nation. In such a country the Jews will not be able to be a separate nation in spirit and language even if they want to, because an enlightened nation will not let them do so.... This is not the case with a non-enlightened nation. In such a nation we can be in the course of time a bona-fide nation, because in our hands rests the teaching of our language to our sons and daughters, and 17

Cf. p. 30 above.

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no one will speak out against this.... Now there is enough power in the Hebrew language, if we ourselves strengthen it, to return to live in the mouth of the nation. But in another ten years, who knows?... If we don't have our own language which we can say is ours, we will be assimilated among the nation whose language we do speak [instead].18 Thus, ultimately, Ben Yehuda put his faith in the people themselves. At least one sector of the Jews, those in the Diaspora, proved a disappointment to him in the crucial initial period of the revival. Despite all his efforts, the response of Diaspora Jewry to his appeals for immigration to Palestine were slow and halting in the early years. Moreover the Ottoman government, whose suspicions were aroused even by the immigration of the few thousands of Jews who had arrived in Palestine in 1882-1883, arbitrarily sealed off the country to future Jewish settlers of Eastern European origin. Ben Yehuda was therefore forced to abandon his hopes of encouraging young Russian-Jewish intellectuals like himself to follow his own example en masse and come to Palestine, and instead directed his efforts towards seeking support for his plans among the local population in Jerusalem itself. The revival of Hebrew which took place in the Diaspora in subsequent years should be mentioned at this juncture, for it can, at least in part, be attributed directly to the influence of Ben Yehuda's early appeals and calls to action. This revival of Hebrew took place entirely within the context of the Diaspora and mainly within the Hebrew school system there, not within the sphere of general Jewish society. Furthermore, this revival chiefly echoed similar developments in Palestine, which, in their turn, were often initiated by none other than Ben Yehuda. Thus, the revival of Hebrew in the Diaspora, although of tremendous potential significance even for the revival of Hebrew in Palestine itself, may nevertheless in all fairness be considered secondary and subsidiary to the revival in Palestine. This being the case, we turn our attention next to the local population of Jerusalem and to the further steps Ben Yehuda took to revive Hebrew there.

3.

THE HEBREW-SPEAKING SOCIETIES

In 1882, Ben Yehuda, in collaboration with Yehiel Mikhal Pines-the foremost enlightened Jew in traditionalist Jerusalem at the time, as well as being the representative of the Anglo-Jewish Association there-embarked upon the third stage in his campaign for the revival of the Hebrew language. This took the form of the establishment of the Society of Tehiat Yisrael 'the Revival of Israel' which included, as one of its aims for 18

Ha-Havazzelet 31 (1882/83), 242.

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the implementation of a Hebrew revival, the revival of Hebrew speech. Within the first weeks of his arrival in Jerusalem, on the last day of the Jewish festival of Succot in 1881, Ben Yehuda had already concluded a gentleman's agreement with Pines to speak no other language than Hebrew thenceforward. Such action was of some significance at the time, as Pines was virtually the only enlightened Jew both admired and respected by all the factions in the city. Pines, however, later annuled the agreement except with respect to speaking only Hebrew with Ben Yehuda. Thus, Ben Yehuda notes: "How many times I heard with my own ears... Pines begin talking with (for example) Yosef Rivlin and Moshe Solomon in Hebrew, while they would answer him in Yiddish. When Pines would remain firm and keep speaking in Hebrew, then... they would say to him in Yiddish: 'Oh... don't make yourself out to be a fool, speak like a normal person,'-and Pines would stop and begin too to speak like a normal person-in Yiddish." 19 Now, however, in 1882, Ben Yehuda wished to extend the scope of this restricted compact among a more general, interested segment of the local Jewish population, and to include in it some of the teachers in the schools as well as the recently arrived first group of young pioneer-exiles from Russia, the Biluim. Thus, tenet 4 of the Society's rules reads: "The members... will speak Hebrew to one another within the Society's meeting place and even in the market place and on the street, and not be ashamed. They will also set about teaching their children and everyone in their home this language. The Society will also purify the language of its imperfections and make it the spoken language in the schools." 20 From a strictly local point of view, this Society must be considered a failure since at any given time during the first critical years of the revival it could boast of no more than five or six members (who included, for example, David Yellin, Nissim Bechar and Hayyim Hirschensohn-all teachers). Ben Yehuda was thus left to continue his one-man crusade virtually alone and unaided. The Society took the form of a secret society which had to work slowly and cautiously for fear of reprisals from the hostile and traditionalist environment of Jewish Jerusalem and from the suspicious Turkish authorities. Its achievements were therefore further handicapped. For example, although the Society was particularly interested in encouraging female speakers of Hebrew-with a view to their potential as Hebrew-speaking mothers-Ben Yehuda was forced to write, after six years of the Society's existence, "In all of Jerusalem there is not even one girl who knows anything about Hebrew." 21 However, some gains were made and progress towards the goal of 19 20 21

"The first Four" (1918), 26. Reprinted in Ben-Avi (1941), 189. Ha-Zevi 19 (1888/89), 1.

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furthering the use of Hebrew was indicated by the fact that other gatherings, established for various revivalist purposes, also adopted the principle of speaking Hebrew at their meetings. This was the case, for example with the Jerusalem branch of the Bnai Brith which was founded in 1889. But the Tehiat Yisrael Society was the model on which many societies, both in the Diaspora and in Palestine, were to be based in course of time. In particular we mention the Plain Language Society (Safa Berura) established in 1889 by Ben Yehuda and some other prominent Jerusalemites (including Yehiel Mikhal Pines, David Yellin, Avraham Moshe Lunz and Rabbi Hayyim Hirschensohn, among others). This Society differed from the previous one in that it devoted itself exclusively to language matters and its aims were expressed as follows: ... to uproot from among the Jews living in Palestine the jargons, the Ashkenazic jargon, the Sephardic, and so on, which divide the hearts of their speakers and cause them (to act) as if they were members of different nations, causing terrible separation in opinions, manners and customs, to such an extent that the Sephardi calls only a fellow-Sephardi a Jew, and not an Ashkenazi, and the Ashkenazi calls a Jew only a fellow-Ashkenazi and not a Sephardi.... This division stands to hinder everything good and productive in our material and spiritual lives.22 The methods outlined by the Society to implement its goal are for our purposes instructive, and we quote from the Society's protocols: 1. The Society will hire women who know how to speak Hebrew (there are a few in Jerusalem who can do this already) and they will teach especially Hebrew speech and also reading and writing to women and girls in every home that is willing, and also in the schools for girls... (The Society) will also seek that in the primary schools and in the other children's schools the students will be taught and trained to speak in Hebrew. 2. The Society according to its financial means will publish small books of words, which will contain necessary words for everyday speech with respect to household and business matters. For this purpose the Society will select a special Literature Committee which will... check the reading books... which are brought to the attention of the Society. 3. The Literature Committee will search in the records of all of Hebrew literature and will extract all the Hebrew words... and will publish them, so that they will be known to everyone. The Committee will also create new words and will contact the best grammarians and authors in our language to reach agreement on them. 4. The Society will support everyone who wishes to bring the Hebrew language into his home in all ways that it can and will seek all means to make this easier.23 22

Ben-Avi (1941), 202. The original document is partially preserved in the Hebrew Language Academy archives. 23 Ben-Avi (1941), 202.

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We note the difference in tone and spirit of this Society as compared to its predecessor, founded seven years before. A new spirit of confidence in the future of Hebrew can be detected. But progress was very slow. As Ben Yehuda records, two years later, "We will not hide from our readers that the work of the Society in the last six months was not what it should have been." 24 Moreover, opposition to the Society's activities was keen. Thus, many, especially among Ashkenazic circles in Jerusalem, dubbed the Society as Safa Arura 'The Cursed Language Society' by means of a word-play on the Society's name. Finally, no sooner had the Society begun to function than it was disbanded in 1891 because of apathy and lack of interest on the part of its members as well as differences of opinion regarding the methods and goals of the Society. Or, as Ben Yehuda phrases it, "...due to reasons connected with the conditions of the place." 25 Hemda Ben Yehuda gives a clearer picture of these vague reasons: Few men could be found to serve on such a board who had the crusading zeal of Eliezer Ben Yehuda. One of those finally chosen was partially blind. A second was totally blind. A third liked to make speeches. A fourth vociferously opposed everything the majority favored. Whenever a meeting was called, a number of the members would appear one or even two hours late. Some would send excuses, saying that the day was too hot or that they feared to go out in the rain. If the meeting were at night there were always those who worried about breaking a leg in the dark streets. Others in cold weather refused to attend unless they were guaranteed a heated meeting place. 26

And so, in spite of all Ben Yehuda's planning, it is known that as late as 1902 only ten Jerusalem families actually spoke Hebrew in their homes and only twenty women and girls in the city had responded to the Society's call.27 As for Hebrew in the schools, Mal'akhi writes that, through the efforts of the Society, Hebrew was introduced into one Sephardic school, a few Sephardic yeshivas, and two Ashkenazic hederim, one inside and one outside the Old City of Jerusalem.28

24

Ha-Zevi 3 (1891/92), 1. Ha-Zevi 29 (1898/99), 2-3. 28 Robert St. John, The Tongue of the Prophets (1952), 256. 27 Hashkafa 19 (1902/03), 54. Further estimates are given there of the number of female speakers in other parts of the country. The total number comes to roughly 1550, mostly however schoolchildren learning Hebrew as part of their studies. 28 Ha-Doar 8 (1936), 132. 25

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4. HEBREW THROUGH HEBREW IN THE SCHOOLS

In the preceding sections we have seen some of the ways in which Ben Yehuda set about the realization of his vision of the revival of the Hebrew language. However, progress had been disappointingly slow. Moreover, the human material Ben Yehuda had to work with, apart from a small group of educated Sephardic families, proved as resistant to his plans to improve their lot as they had been hostile to the efforts of the foreign philanthropists on their behalf some time previously. This attitude held true as much for the common man as for the religious and communal leaders, who could not and would not comprehend Ben Yehuda's ideas about a national revival and against which they fought with all the means at their disposal. As Ben Yehuda writes, Besides my literary work in Ha-Havazzelet (of Israel Dov Frumkin), I didn't find any real activity which had any value for (my) principal goal. With regard to the revival of the language, I had nothing to do except to speak Hebrew at home with my wife and with the people I met from time to time, but this was not enough.... I felt that everything depended on the success of the language in the mouths of the children of the new generation, but this generation still did not exist. It was... on the way, but I could not do anything to hasten its coming ... and besides grieving over the prolonged waiting, I saw that even at best, with just the new generation, Hebrew speech would spread only slowly. To hasten the progress of the revival of the Hebrew language in speech here, it is necessary to use the children who are already in the country and to put the language in their mouths. But these children-who will give them to me? A year ago, in one of my letters to Ha-Havazzelet from Paris I said that the teachers in the schools in Palestine should speak to the students in Hebrew, and the editor of HaHavazzelet answered me that this was 'ein frummer Wunsch!' Now I see that... (he) was right. I see that it is impossible to persuade those in charge of the schools in Palestine to have the Hebrew language used as a spoken tongue between teachers and pupils.29

But Nissim Bechar, the principal of the Torah U-Melakha School for boys of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, a French-Jewish philanthropic organization which sponsored modern-styled schools and other institutions in Palestine, was precisely the person who would entrust children to Ben Yehuda for this purpose. Bechar was a supporter of the Ben Yehuda family experiment in the adoption of Hebrew as a spoken language and was also a member of Tehiat Yisrael. In 1883, wishing to expand his school to include both Sephardic and Ashkenazic students instead of Sephardic ones exclusively, as had previously been the case, but at the same time concerned about the different home languages of the students? 29

Hashkafa 19 (1902/3), 47-48.

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Bechar offered Ben Yehuda the job of teaching the Hebrew-language classes in the school. Ben Yehuda, at that time in financial straits due to the low fees he received for his newspaper articles, accepted the offer on the condition that he be allowed to teach in Hebrew. Bechar gave his consent and explained to Ben Yehuda the feasibility of teaching Hebrew through the medium of Hebrew itself as opposed to the conventional translation method into Yiddish or Ladino or Arabic. Bechar was familiar with such a method utilized for the teaching of French while he had been director of the Alliance school in Istanbul, known as the Berlitz method. 30 Indeed, even Hebrew had been taught at that institution. Bechar was convinced that the Berlitz method could prove helpful to Ben Yehuda who was quick to recognize this opportunity to further the revival and he eagerly commenced teaching. The task, however, was no easy one. Ben Yehuda taught six to eight hours a day for six days a week and after only a few months of teaching his health began to fail and he was forced to resign his position. However, it is perhaps here, the field of his teaching, that Ben Yehuda succeeded most in making his dream a reality. The response of the students had been enthusiastic and, in particular, two of the teachers who had observed his classes during this time-David Yellin and Yosef Meyuhas-went away impressed and began applying Ben Yehuda's teaching methods in their own classes. Several of the Biluim, too, who had meanwhile settled in various parts of the country but had maintained close contact with Ben Yehuda, also made use of and developed his methods on the new agricultural settlements which they had been instrumental in founding. As the success of the new method spread, it becamef increasingly obvious that Ben Yehuda had initiated a process whose importance could not be overestimated. If children could be put into Hebrew-language classes at a sufficiently tender age and could continue with such classes throughout their years of schooling, they could, in time, become quite fluent in the language-virtually monolingual-in Hebrew, whatever their parents' home language happened to be. Moreover, the parents, on hearing their children conversing in Hebrew, would be more inclined to follow their example and also speak Hebrew. In this way a new generation of fluent Hebrew speakers could be formed, and this coincided precisely with Ben Yehuda's own goal. As he writes, "The Hebrew language will go from the Synagogue to the House of Study and from the House of Study to the school and from the school it will come into the homes and... become a living language."31 From Jerusalem, then, the system of Hebrew through Hebrew began 30 31

Cf. Nissim Bechar "The History of the Natural Method" (1931), 193. Ha-Zevi 31 (1886/87), 146.

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to spread throughout the country, as we shall see in the following paragraphs. Before commencing such a survey, it will be well to mention briefly the principal rivals of the Hebrew language at the time, of which there were five: Yiddish, Ladino, Arabic, French and German. The first three languages especially proved troublesome, because these were the everyday languages of the principal communities of Jews in the country and also of the traditional Jewish schools they endowed and administered. In these schools, all instruction and conversation was conducted in these languages, and the acquisition of Hebrew was only a secondary process made possible through the translation of religious texts, particularly the Pentateuch, Rashi and the Babylonian Talmud, from Hebrew into these vernaculars. A succinct and clear picture of the learning process may be found in Peres: [As for the Ashkenazic school] the pupils gained a certain amount of facility in reading the prayerbook by rote, and then they would start learning the first five books of the Bible. The teacher would read before them one sentence and would translate it word for word into the [children's] mother tongue, and the children would repeat it after him.... The children would attain a certain facility in Bible, and the teacher would add every week a number of sentences in the Rashi Commentary. At the age of eight the child would begin studying the Talmud.... The Sephardic school resembled in all respects the Arabic school, and the Sephardic teacher used the systems of the Arab Sheikh. The child learned in the first months the names of the letters of the alphabet and their forms, and after that... the connection of the letters with the vowel signs... When the child knew how to read in the prayerbook without knowing the meaning of the words, he began to learn Torah. The teacher would read from the text in front of the pupils sentence after sentence... and would translate into Ladino, and the students would read after him together sentence after sentence, without knowing for certain the meaning of the words and the content of the passage.32 These being everyday languages, it was found difficult to uproot and dislodge them and replace them with Hebrew. Moreover, the position of Arabic was further strengthened by the fact that it was the main language of the local native non-Jewish population. However, all these languages reflected the Medieval past and the hated Diaspora and ultimately their place could be assumed by the more nationalistic Hebrew. French and German, however, the prestigious foreign languages favored in the modernistically inclined, foreign-supported Jewish schools were to prove more formidable rivals, as will be discussed in chapter V. In the meantime, the system of Hebrew through Hebrew, initiated by Ben Yehuda in Jerusalem, was spreading through the country. It was 32

Peres (1964), 29.

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proving particularly attractive to the young pioneer-teachers on the newly established agricultural settlements. They had come in small but ever increasing numbers to Palestine from Russia, Rumania and other parts of Eastern Europe together with the first pioneers (the Biluim) and with the intention of leading an existence as workers. They had, generally, little or no teaching experience and only entered the profession because of lack of alternative occupation. For others, teaching was but one aspect of their more regular work in the field of agriculture and light handindustry. Most of them, like Ben Yehuda, were students with a traditional religious education who had privately pursued courses of higher and more enlightened learning and had then, as a result, turned first patriotically Russian and finally assumed a nationalistic Jewish attitude as a direct consequence of the Russian pogroms of 1881 and later. The credit for perfecting the technique of using Hebrew as the language of instruction, which ultimately brought about the true revival of the Hebrew language in the mouths of the new younger generation, must be awarded to these teachers, isolated and struggling on the various small agricultural colonies which began to dot the country after 1882. As Rabin succinctly points out, "Untrained teachers without textbooks taught in an untried language, making up terminology as they went along." 33 As a typical example of this category of teachers we shall examine certain aspects of the life-story of Yizhaq Epstein, recorded in an autobiographical article fittingly entitled "With No Experience". 34 A closer study of Epstein is appropriate since he is the chief exponent in print of the 'Direct Method' of the teaching of Hebrew as well as of the adoption of Hebrew for use as the natural language of conversation between student and teacher in all subjects. Having come to Israel in 1886, he writes, My Hebrew was the product of a school in a Lithuanian village. There I learned until Bar-Mitzva 'confirmation' only Talmud and a little Bible. A few years were also spent in the Bet Ha-Midrash 'Seminary' in Odessa, without teachers and without a system of study. A few times I began to learn grammar... but the first chapters would dull my appetite, and I never even reached the verb. From the time I entered High School, I neglected Talmud and even of modern (Hebrew) literature I read only very little. Therefore, when I came to Palestine, Hebrew was for me a passive language. That is, I knew how to read it, but not how to write it.... I had never taught anything in Hebrew.... In the spring of 1891, a school was opened for girls in Jaffa with two classes, and I was to be its principal. I had never before been in a public school and I had read nothing on teaching and education. Psychology, the science and history of education... 33

Chaim Rabin, "The Role of Language in Forging a Nation: The Case of Hebrew" (1970), 2. 34 Printed in David Kimfci ed., Sefer Yovel Le-Aggudat Ha-Morim (1902-1927) (Jerusalem, 1928), 146-150.

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were yet to exist for me, and even the question of how to teach the rudiments of reading, writing, and language I did not know. 3 5

Further on, he admits, If from lack of any experience in my work and from lack of books, I had to invent everything... this job was double for me with regard to language.... I was far from the world of teachers. N o teaching book for Hebrew yet existed in the country. At any rate, none had come into my possession, and I remember that the first questions I composed for addition and subtraction made me ever so happy, as if I were creating something which never before had existed. 36

Indeed, Epstein continues, The chief source of my originality was revealed in the teaching of language. An exalted and weighty problem stood before me.... How does one teach a foreign language without using the language of the student? I had no sample book before me. I knew nothing about the 'Direct Method'. If I had wanted to teach by translation, I would have had to translate into Arabic and Yiddish, but this idea didn't even enter my mind, for mixing of languages raises in me a blind feeling of disgust. 37

Stimulated by these trials, Epstein devised a system of teaching which has since come to be known variously as 'Hebrew through Hebrew', 'the Direct Method', and the 'Natural Method'. In 1900 he published a book illustrating the method entitled (in translation) Hebrew Through Hebrew: The Beginning of Learning the Hebrew Language According to the Natural Method; A Book Designed for Teachers and Parents Who Are Teaching Hebrew to Children Four Years Old and Older. The first twenty-nine pages of the book provide a good picture of what the natural, direct method consists of and we quote from these pages below. In the same year, as if indicative of the convergence of these new trends, David Yellin of Jerusalem published a similar manual38 and in the following year (1901), Yehuda Grazovski's textbook appeared.39 Although joint discussions regarding their possible collaboration in this field did take place, both Epstein and Yellin developed their ideas on the subject independently and each elaborated his own version of the new teaching method. Epstein's efforts in this sphere seem to have been an entirely original invention while those of Yellin and Grazovski reflect the direct influence of Ben Yehuda. (Yellin had been one of Ben Yehuda's first teacher35 39 37 38 39

Kimhi ed. (1928), 147. Kimfei ed. (1928), 148. Kimhi ed. (1928), 149. David Yellin, Le-Fi Ha-Taf (Warsaw, 1900b). Yehuda Grazovski, Hathalat Limmud Sefat Ever (Warsaw, 1901).

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observers as well as his substitute after he fell ill and Grazovski had been one of his Biluim disciples.) Indeed, there is no reason to think that the method described below differed significantly from that of Ben Yehuda, although the latter characteristically did not write about his teaching experience.40 Epstein begins by explaining what is meant by the new method mentioned in the title of his book. The 'Natural Method' is the method through which we teach almost all branches of learning, not only through the help of the mental abilities and memory of the child, but also through the aid of all his senses, in particular, the senses of sight and touch. According to this system, when we wish to teach small children their first numbers, we actively count out different objects in front of them, we tie them together, we take some of them away, we place down twice as many... actually and not just theoretically.... The 'Natural Method' makes learning... action and life and not dead letters read out of a text....

Turning his attention now to the case in hand-the teaching of languageEpstein continues, "In learning foreign languages, the 'Natural Method' will also proceed according to the ways of nature, that is, (it will) teach the first steps of language according to the way a child would learn it from his mother... without teachers and without books... not by theorizing about the language but by speaking the language itself."41 This is to be achieved, according to Epstein, by means of the teachers speaking to their pupils "exclusively in the language you wish to teach them." Moreover, Epstein asserts, the 'Natural Method' can and should be used for dead, classical language study as well. The student of Latin and Greek according to the 'Natural Method' will begin to learn them by speaking and from speaking will then go over easily to reading books in these languages. In reading, the material will come quickly to him... whereas the learner of these languages according to the translation method will always remain removed from them, and, when he reads, will translate mentally into his language. 42

At this point, Epstein concludes his general, theoretical considerations and deals directly with the problem of Hebrew: If the natural method is needed in learning languages which are completely dead, how much more is it needed for learning Hebrew, this half-dead language, which is dead in speech but alive in writing.... Truly the nationalists have a lot to hope for from the 'Natural Method' in the teaching of our language.... The 40 41 42

Cf. pp. 36 ff. Yizbaq Epstein, Ivrit Be-Ivrit (Warsaw, 1901), 5. Epstein (1901), 10.

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'Natural Method', which forces us to speak Hebrew to our students before they know how to read... and to teach all Jewish subjects in only this language, will leave its mark in the hearts of all our children.... By this method, our language will be for our children, to a great extent, the language of their childhood, and they will love it and cherish it. 43 Epstein's predictions proved accurate and were borne out by subsequent events. After the first Hebrew-speaking kindergartens were opened in 1889, even three-year-olds, not yet fluent in any language, began attending 'Direct Method' sessions, and soon Hebrew became a cherished object of their private child's world, separate and distinct from the Russian or Yiddish world of their parents. The attitude of the children, at times contemptuous of their parents' languages, is nicely reflected in the following extract: On Sabbath... I went for a walk.... I found a teacher with his students. I sat down with them, and talk turned to Hebrew. I asked one boy which he liked better, Hebrew or Yiddish (or French, or Arabic). He answered: "French is all kush, mush, tush, bush, ha! ha!... Arabic Arabs can have, Yiddish can go to Hell! And we will speak Hebrew."... Everywhere I saw in this small village that the children love our language, and this love is planted deep in their hearts. 44 Similarly we note a child's comment, "Hebrew, this is better than Yiddish and better than Russian and even better than French. She speaks Yiddish - p h o o e y - t h a t ' s not good." 4 5 Another quotation reads: Here is a small and interesting story, which shows that truly the children love their true language. One of the inhabitants took from a little girl who, only a month ago had begun to go to school, a doll which she held in her hand. The poor little thing, she was struck by the wicked thing he had done to her, and she grabbed the man by his coat and cried out in Hebrew: "Give it to me, give it to me!" But the man showed an indifferent face. He wanted to test the wailer; he wanted to see if she had a word in Hebrew for the noun 'doll'. "What should I give?" "Give it to me, give it to me!" she continued in tears, and in no way did she find a noun. But, on seeing that her robber was stubborn, she suddenly cried: "But give me... the boy of stone!" He said to her: "I don't know what that is, tell me in Yiddish and I will give you a gold coin." And in saying that, he showed her the shiny gold coin. And the girl refused and put the gold coin in his hand and also her 'boy of stone', but a non-Hebrew word she wouldn't utter under any circumstances.46 43 44 45 46

Epstein (1901), 11. Shalom Ben Hay in'Hashkafa 31 (1902/03), 236-7. Hashkafa 14 (1902/03), 110. Hashkafa 17 (1902/03), 130.

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We note that Epstein recommended the use of Hebrew in the teaching of traditional subjects, but the question of which language should be adopted as the medium of instruction in general subjects remained open. To the young nationalists who wanted to create a whole new culture only one answer seemed possible: Hebrew. Hebrew was the only language of the sacred. This fact was incontestable. Therefore, it was ipso facto the only language which could bridge the gap between the sacred and the secular and create a unified program of studies for the ideal whole man and whole Jew. This goal, however, proved more difficult to achieve in actual practice than the substitution of Hebrew for Yiddish and Ladino as the principal language for the teaching of Jewish subjects. But at least a beginning had been made. Different teachers experimented with Hebrew as the language of play, song and dance, stories, plays,47 and with each success, the success of Hebrew spread. We shall return to this point briefly in Chapter Five.

5.

THE NEWSPAPER

Returning to our estimation of Ben Yehuda's role in the revival of the Hebrew language, we have thus seen four attempts on his part with a view to the realization of his dream, four solutions proposed by him for the problem of reviving the Hebrew language, as follows: an individualist solution (himself and his own household), a group solution (the call to the Diaspora and to the local population), an adult elitist solution (Pines and the Tehiat Yisrael and Safa Berura societies as the bastions of Hebrew), and a children's solution (Hebrew in the schools). His next efforts were directed towards the general public and the medium he used was that of the newspaper. We recall that Ben Yehuda had worked as an assistant to Israel Dov Frumkin, the editor of Ha-Havazzelet, when he had first arrived in Palestine in 1881. Frumkin, however, did not display sufficient revolutionary or nationalistic tendencies in Ben Yehuda's opinion and in 1884, Ben Yehuda severed his connections with him and set out to edit his own newspaper, Ha-Zevi. Prior to Ben Yehuda's time, Hebrew newspapers could be classified into two types.48 Those circulating in Eastern Europe were competent in handling material of a literary-philosophical, scholarly nature, as well as dealing with general Hebraic and Jewish topics, but their handling of 47

For information on these plays in particular, the reader is referred to Mendel Kohansky, The Hebrew Theater: Its First Fifty Years (Jerusalem, 1969), 9-18. 48 On this and related matters the reader is referred to the works of Kressel and Yardeni cited in the Bibliography.

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descriptions of everyday events, nowadays considered fundamental to a newspaper's existence, was inept. This situation can be attributed to two main causes. First, these newspapers constituted a natural outgrowth of the Hebrew journals of the Enlightenment and their circulation was limited to a very small sector of the Jewish reading public-especially the Jewish enlightened elite who were deeply interested in such matters. Second, news of everyday, not specifically Jewish, interest could easily be found in the Yiddish or secular press of the country in question. (It should be noted in this context that no Hebrew newspapers whatsoever existed in Western Europe since the Jews resident there had already become sufficiently assimilated to be able to read newspapers, both on general and Jewish topics, in the language of their country. This state of affairs contrasted greatly with that prevalent in Eastern Europe where the Jews were less assimilated and some could only draw upon Hebrew as a language supplying their needs in the sphere of the printed word. It is of interest to note, however, that the Jews of Eastern Europe at first strenuously objected to the use of Hebrew for such 'secular purposes' as newspapers, and their opposition was only withdrawn as a result of the Crimean War (1853-1856) and its consequences in the land of Palestineabout which the Jews wished to be thoroughly informed, Hebrew being reluctantly accepted as the language of communication for want of a better linguistic alternative.) Newspapers in Palestine in the period before Ben Yehuda, however, were not the direct outgrowths of an enlightened tradition, for many Jews had come to Palestine in order to escape such an atmosphere. Also, there were no parallel local newspapers for the Palestinian Hebrew press to draw upon, for Arabic and Turkish newspapers had not, as yet, made their appearance. The circulation of the Hebrew newspapers in Palestine was, however, limited, since the Sephardim generally read newspapers in Ladino sent from Turkey, and the Ashkenazim, preoccupied as they were with religious and otherworldly matters, had little interest in the mundane world of newspapers. The main readers, therefore, of the Palestinian Hebrew press were actually to be found in the Diaspora, particularly in Russia, and their desire for information on Palestine and the Near East in general, as well as details of life and problems, social, intellectual, and economic, of the Jews of Jerusalem in particular, was met by the Hebrew newspapers published in Palestine. In this respect, therefore, the Palestinian Hebrew press resembled the modern concept and function of a newspaper more closely than did its Eastern European counterpart. The Hebrew used in both types of newspapers, however, was virtually identical, being based mainly on the Hebrew style and the lexicon of the Bible. Ben Yehuda intended, as part of his dream to revive Hebrew as a natural language in a natural setting, to synthesize these two types of

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newspapers, ultimately aiming to produce a newspaper directed towards a people living in its homeland, speaking its own language, and interested in all aspects of the world they lived in, such a newspaper being composed with a suppleness and flexibility of topics, styles, and language which would echo the French newspapers he was accustomed to read. As Klausner writes, Ben Yehuda's newspapers "were the first to contain general human material in a general human frame of reference... as in all languages of the world for all nations of the world." 49 Thus, in his attempt to combine the best features of both types of predecessor newspapers, Ben Yehuda sought to edit a newspaper which would both give news of Palestine to those in the Diaspora as well as news of the modern world for the benefit of its local readers. In the first issue of Ha-Zevi, dated October 24, 1884, we find material on Egypt, the Sudan, France, China, Russia and Argentina on the one hand, and, on the other, items on Jerusalem, Safed, Rishon Le-Zion and Yesod Ha-Maale. In subsequent issues, Ben Yehuda began adding news on scientific, cultural, medical, literary and artistic events, in an effort to create a comprehensive newspaper in a modern setting. What concerns us most, however, are Ben Yehuda's attempts to formulate a new kind of Hebrew that would prove appropriate and apt in expressing the modern ideas of the day while at the same time being as free as possible from the negative and restrictive influence of previous specific Classical Hebrew texts. To accomplish such a task, however, Ben Yehuda insists that "There is one condition for everything new in order for it to be able to continue to live. This is that its roots remain in the old and not to be severed completely from there." 50 Ben Yehuda's type of Hebrew, therefore, was designed not as a radically different dialect or language bearing no resemblance to the older forms of Hebrew but actually as a conservative, traditionalist language which would draw on the past stages of its history and development for material, in brief, a 'Total Hebrew'. Total Hebrew' still rests on the base of Biblical Hebrew style and vocabulary but also draws on the Hebrew vocabulary of the Post-Biblical period viewed as one continuous historical progression. This was not the first time such a procedure had been adopted. Written Hebrew had never ceased developing new terms and expressions and incorporating them into its structure, and in particular, many of Ben Yehuda's most immediate forerunners (including for example Yehuda Leib Gordon and Moshe Leib Lilienblum) had already made use of PostBiblical (Mishnaic and Talmudic) material in their own works. But Ben Yehuda was the first to apply the principle of 'Total Hebrew' so openly in 49

Yosef Klausner, Eliezer Ben Yehuda: Toledot Hayyaw We-Avodat Hayyaw (Tel Aviv, 1939a), 33. so Ha-Zevi 7 (1895/96), 23.

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his work and in addition to adapt material from even later periods in the development of the language, both Medieval and Enlightened. As Ben Yehuda writes, "There is a place in Ha-Zevi for everything which will lead to a revival in the language." 51 In this way Ben Yehuda wished to create "an almost new language which will be completely old, that is to say, (a language) in the spirit of the language of our forefathers in all its splendor and glory, its force and suppleness." 52 The advocation of a 'Total Hebrew' on Ben Yehuda's part was very significant for the revival of Hebrew. As Rabin points out (although in a slightly different context), By [theoretically] admitting into Hebrew [more than]... twenty thousand new words, many of direct relevance to contemporary daily life, a measure of wordpower had been gained which the Hebrew author could hardly afford to miss. The typical Hebrew author of those days had begun his career as a student of a... Yeshiva and thus it required no effort for him to enlarge his vocabulary in this direction; on the contrary, it meant utilizing a considerable store of knowledge, which had been of little use to him in the former manner of writing Hebrew. 53

This 'Total Hebrew' language was to be a simple, everyday, natural language based, in particular, on the revived style of spoken Hebrew as advocated by Ben Yehuda and his Jerusalem colleagues. This was to be a "...new style, the style of a simple conversation... the style of two simple people talking to one another about simple things, matters pertaining to the everyday world" 54 without over-ornateness and without the overabstract character of earlier forms of Hebrew style. As far as possible it was to be free from ".. .long and complicated sentences, lofty phraseology and elevated words which don't fit the topic under discussion and which hinder (comprehension) on all sides". 55 The language was to be an "... easy, pure, clear... language... not constructed of set phrases which don't come from the mind of the writer but rather are borrowed from some prophet or poet". 56 Some fixed phrasing could be and in fact was used, but was to be regarded, in Ben Yehuda's words, only as "...artistic borrowings, like the ones writers use in other languages quoting important writers". 57 Moreover, the language of Ben Yehuda's Hebrew newspaper was to 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

Ha-Zevi 10, (1887/88), 38. Ha-Zevi, 17 (1886/87), 1. Chaim Rabin, "The Revival of the Hebrew Language" (1969a), 31. Ha-Zevi 26 (1889/90), 101-102. Ha-Zevi 18 (1889/90), 69. Ha-Zevi 26 (1889/90), 101-102. Ha-Zevi 26 (1889/90), 101-102.

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aim to be as pure a Hebrew as possible, with the Europeanisms and unnecessary foreign language loan words discarded as far as feasible. Some foreign borrowings could be allowed in moderation, as these would symbolize the intimate connection of the Hebrew language with foreign cultures. As Ben Yehuda writes, There are many foolish people among our enlightened who in... ludicrous and pathetic arrogance deny the foreign only because of its foreignness. We are not one of those silly persons who are satisfied with themselves alone and don't find any need in anything belonging to others.... With respect to a foreign word, we must act according to the usage of Hebrew words and not accept what cannot be used among us. All of this is bound up with the one word 'pattern'. We can take from all the foreign languages everything that we lack, on the... condition that it be in accordance with the usage among us, that is, according to the Hebrew pattern.... There are words in foreign languages which in no way can be accepted in our language, because they are not in accordance with the... pattern of our language. 58

Ben Yehuda, therefore, was inclined to use foreignisms, but not excessively. (For example, Zimmerman has shown in her sample that only a little more than 2% of the vocabulary in Ben Yehuda's newspaper was of foreign origin as compared to over 14% of the vocabulary of a rival newspaper.)59 Instead of the excessive use of set phrases and foreign borrowings, Ben Yehuda preferred to draw, when necessary, upon the resources of PostBiblical Hebrew vocabulary. As we have shown, this was the first time since the Enlightenment that such a step had been adopted, in so direct and open a manner. As Ben Yehuda asserts, We know that this style is not purely Biblical Hebrew, that it is like a mixture.... This language is not truly Hebrew in its pristine purity because in the course of time in which great poets and writers did not cease writing in this language about every topic, many words were added to the vocabulary in the Bible, due to the necessity of the time and the new concepts, and many words received a different meaning. But the base of this language is the language of the Bible, and Modern Hebrew is much closer to the ancient Hebrew language, the language of Isaiah and Genesis, than is Modern Greek to the language of Homer, Plato and Aristotle. 60

In addition to using words of Post-Biblical origin, Ben Yehuda created new words where none were available. This procedure, however, generally followed his predecessors closely, although they had not coined new 58

Ha-Zevi 20 (1898/99), 1-2; 17 (1896/97), 65. Penina Zimmerman, "Foreign Words of European Origin in the newspaper HaPoel Ha-Zair of 1908", unpublished Seminar paper (1969), 9. 60 Ha-Zevi 10 (1889/90), 39. 59

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words on so large a scale. However, since Arabic represented the most important living Semitic language, and was in its spoken form already dominant in Palestine, in Ben Yehuda's opinion, it ought to constitute the prime source for the creation of new words. This preference for Arabic on the part of Ben Yehuda was a phenomenon that could not be traced back to his forerunners and their ideas on the language, and was in fact to cause many European Hebrew writers of the time to scoff at Ben Yehuda, since they did not fully appreciate the close connection between the two Semitic languages and peoples. Finally, the distinctive features of Jerusalem 'Market Hebrew' were to be assimilated, for example, forms of address, greetings, polite phrases and questions, and the like, as we have discussed above. As Ben Yehuda writes, " T h e Jews of Jerusalem for hundreds of years created for themselves a simple style of speaking about everyday matters of living. All of the ways of address, everything necessary for live speech, the Jews of Jerusalem have already created, and this living style we have tried to bring into our language." 6 1 As samples of such 'Market Hebrew' with respect to forms of address, we note in particular the general words used for 'Mr.' and 'Mrs.' by Ben Yehuda-adon and geveret, respectivelyaccording to the then current Jerusalem style. This was a very significant and controversial innovation in its time. As Silman writes, for example, "Why do they say to a man in Palestine: adon and to a w o m a n : geveret, and not (use) one root for both (as in European Hebrew: mar and marat, o r : ish and isfia)!... Ben Yehuda... does not speak according to the rules of the language and sins against its grammar." 6 2 (Also to be noted in this connection are the Ben Yehuda terms: bixvodo 'please' and henhen and ahanhen '(I) thank you', and many others.) The Ben Yehuda style of Hebrew we have been discussing above has been well summarized both by Ben-Avi and by Kanaani. Ben-Avi points out that Ben Yehuda taught the nation of Israel... to write Hebrew as a Frenchman writes French, (and) a German, German, to call a dog a dog and a microscope a microscope.... He honors the Bible and esteems it, loves the Mishna and takes from it many linguistic gems, but he opens new vistas to a new linguistic development.... He loves Hebrew perhaps a little soiled, but alive, fresh, natural, shouting, full of future. In a similar vein, Kanaani writes, In his first articles in Ha-Shahar, Ben Yehuda had said that the pure Hebrew of the latest stages of the Enlightenment in Russia was equipped to express 81 62

Ha-Zevi 26 (1889/90), 101-102. Qaddish Yehuda Silman, "From the First Days", in: Kimfai, ed. (1928), 255.

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everything, but when he himself began speaking Hebrew everyday in practice, he saw the great lack of words and expressions, and the inadequacy of the Hebrew style of his time to express and cover modern life.... It was very difficult to write (and speak) in an easy style, there were missing in it the necessary expressions for this need, the simple flowing style was not at all in existence. This Ben Yehuda produced, he created words and expressions for this need, he created new words, he renewed old words, he collected, gathered, molded it from different styles: the style of the stories of the Bible, the Mishna and the Talmud, the style of the Aggada, the style of the Middle Ages and of Rabbinic literature. In brief, he made a... new linguistic synthesis. 63

Although not necessarily the feature of greatest significance in Ben Yehuda's newspaper, what concerns us primarily is, of course, the fact that Ben Yehuda did envisage his newspaper as the bearer of this more supple 'Total Hebrew' to the mass of the populace, both in Jerusalem and Palestine, as well as in the Diaspora. As he writes, a newspaper is the best means "for spreading language material to the people.... For the expansion of our language and its revival in the mouth of the nation one vehicle is without doubt Ha-Zevi. It brings the necessary revived words without which the language could not be spoken by the people."64 Further, Ben Yehuda maintains that "there is no doubt that for spreading the language among the nation and for its revival, it is necessary to spread the learning of the Hebrew language and to use to this end all possible ways, but the most powerful and most useful vehicles are the newspaper and the school." 65 Moreover, it is clear that Ben Yehuda's newspapers were actually read and discussed by many Jews in Jerusalem and in Palestine. Thus, after only two issues, we read, "From the day Ha-Zevi was born, all who saw it liked it, and those asking for it multiply day by day. Last week almost two-hundred copies were sold in Jerusalem, the other cities notwithstanding." 66 Similarly, we find, "In Jerusalem alone three-hundred copies of Ha-Ze^i are sold and it is a known fact that for every buyer there are twenty free reader-borrowers.... All the Jerusalemites read Ha-Zevi, even the women and children.... Of the 40,000 Jews in Jerusalem, who... doesn't read Ha-Zevi!'''67 As one reader observes, "Even though I am a poor wagon driver, even so I read [Ha-Zevi] regularly."68 That such interest was evinced in Ha-Zevi on the part of the Jerusalemites is not 63

Ben-Avi (1940/41), 181; footnote 82; Yaaqov Kanaani, "Eliezer Ben Yehuda" (1929), 296. 64 Ha-Zevi 3 (1898/99), 11. 65 Ha-Or 6 (1892/93), 28. ββ Ha-Zevi 3 (1885/86), 1. e7 Ha-Zevi 6 (1886/87), 23. e8 Hashkafa 38 (1903/04), 289.

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surprising, since they had become aware of the existence of a world beyond the city walls, a world whose influence had begun to penetrate its ramparts. At the time of which we write, too, newspapers everywhere were a great innovation in the lives of the people who bought them and such an absorbing interest in them is quite characteristic of the period. As Kressel points out, "In those days, a paper wasn't read: it was learned and memorized." 69 With respect to Ha-Zevi in particular, we note Kressel's comment: "Every article was engraved in the hearts of the readers", 70 and, "Perhaps there was no one who knew how to read Hebrew who didn't read it." 71 Similarly, Hemda Ben Yehuda's remarks that "Ben Yehuda's newspaper was the newspaper with a capital ' n \ . . . Every issue of Ha-Zevi... was read by thirty or forty people, until the paper melted between one's fingers and the letters were erased." 72 Moreover, Kressel states that "There was no one in the new settlements who could write who didn't contribute (to it)." 73 With respect to Ben Yehuda's dissemination of his 'Total Hebrew' in particular, Brainin's comment is most instructive: "We didn't just read Ha-Zevi; we learned it. Every innovation, every creation and every nicety of formulation made an impression upon us." 74 We see, then, that in general Ben Yehuda was successful in spreading his new 'Total Hebrew' among the masses. Although there were some Hebrew personalities who condemned Ben Yehuda's Hebrew, most readers probably resembled the one who wrote to Ben Yehuda: "I am not a great linguist to come and argue about the roots of these words, whether they have the right to be part of our language. I accept the creation of these words as they are without questioning them and I am very happy." 75 The question of vocabulary proved one of Ben Yehuda's major concerns, for all the styles of Hebrew which served as sources to him in the creation of suitable words and phrases lacked what Ben Yehuda needed most-a concrete vocabulary referring to basic necessities of everyday existence. As Klausner pointedly remarks, "In all of the... writers of the period, there is no flower but the rose and the lily, no bird but the dove, nightingale, cuckoo, rooster and chicken. There is no individual delineation... of colors, there is only red, black, green and blue." 76 Similarly, Medan notes, "There was a wealth of words for all matters pertaining to religion, to emotion and to abstract thought, but none for some of the most elementary accessories of modern living: newspaper, dictionary, street, pavement, 69

Gezel Kressel, Toledot Ha-Itonut Ha-Ivrit Be- Yisrael (Jerusalem, 1964), 12. Kressel (1964), 14. 71 Hashkafa 50, (1904/05), 458. 72 Hemda Ben Yehuda, "Ha-Milhama Im Ha-Satan" (n.d.), Chapter 1:5. 73 Kressel (1964), 79. 74 Ha-Toren 10 (1923), 1. 75 Ha-Zevi 3 (1897/98), 2. 7 « Yosef Klausner (1939a), 43. 70

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railway, train, airplane, screw-driver, corkscrew, and the like. Numerous animals and plants had no Hebrew names, while certain nouns pertaining to the animal and vegetable kingdoms-and there were many of thesewere used with a confusing lack of discrimination. A common term..., when a difficulty of this kind was encountered in writing, was 'a kind of bird', 'a kind of vegetable', 'a kind of fowl'. Needless to say, terms for the machines, appliances and forms of organization of the new age were completely wanting." 77 Indeed, only the two decades prior to Ben Yehuda had witnessed the real development, in the Hebrew writing of Eastern Europe, of more concrete and realistic forms of expression, after more than a century of romanticism, abstractness and linguistic purism. When the writers of these two decades attempted to deal with specific terms and items, they would resort to one of the following devices : 78 (a) They transliterated the foreign concept directly or approximately into Hebrew from German, Yiddish or Russian; for example, telegraf, magnet, univerzität, elektrizität. (b) They used a Hebrew word or phrase approximating the general meaning required, oftentimes labored, artificial and unconvincing, and added, in parentheses or in a footnote, a translation or transliteration into German, Yiddish or Russian; for example, zelem demut tavnit 'photograph', literally: a picture of the image of a pattern; toxen limmudim 'program', literally: the content of studies; beit tahanot 'Bahnhof', literally: the house of the stations. Sometimes the Hebrew word or phrase was chosen because of its onomatopoetic approximation to the European term for example, maskit 'mask', minhara 'minaret',pearemida 'pyramids'. (c) They would employ quoted phrases lifted in mosaic fashion out of the Bible. These would approximate, sometimes closely, sometimes remotely, the general context or meaning of the concept intended; for example, for telegraph, they made use of the lines from Psalms 19: 4-5: "There is no speech, there are no words, neither is their voice heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world"; for telescope, they applied a compound of two Biblical expressions (I Kings 5:13 and Psalms 92:13): "a glass through which the hyssop which is on the wall will grow like a cedar in Lebanon"; for elevator they adopted the line in the Prayer Book "it will go up and come down". (d) They would compose phrases both clumsy and unwieldy, or resort to circumlocutions consisting of four or five or more Hebrew words to express the required concept; for example, 'sled' became: a winter wagon which has no wheels (six words); 'tuning fork' became: a bronze fork with 77

Meir Medan, "The Academy of the Hebrew Language", Ariel 25 (1969), 41. On this problem in general, cf. the works of Patterson cited in the Bibliography. The examples given here are first presented in them. 78

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two teeth that produce a sound (six words); 'museum' became: a house of collections for ancient objects (five words). (e) At best, two-word phrases (compounds) which imitated the Biblical genitive construction form would be adopted. 'Umbrella' therefore became: protector from the sun, 'handkerchief': kerchief for the nose, 'library': a house for books, 'restaurant': a house for food. None of the above types of circuitous formation and invention, it is clear, could serve as an efficient means of reviving a natural, fluent, everyday language of conversation, to be extensively used. The last type mentioned - t h e two-word compound-was not necessarily as objectionable a device as the rest, since it was a bona fide method of word formation in Hebrew, although, even in the Bible, somewhat restricted in its application. But this type of compounding created difficulties of inflection for person and number and rendered impossible the otherwise theoretical possibility of neatly deriving a new verb form from the noun if the occasion demanded it. It also smacked too much of foreign, especially German, influence. This was of course a drawback, as the lack of verbs in the newly evolving language, although not as serious as the lack of nouns, was still keenly felt. In his search for a simple, everyday supple and pure form of Hebrew for the common man, Ben Yehuda had to fight against this type of creation, his motto being, as far as possible, one word for one concept. As he writes in connection with one such compound, "It is foreign to the Hebrew ear, so illegitimate in its form and shape, to such an extent that every time we have to use it, our heart recoiled from it, and we don't know what to do with it, how to use it in the plural, how to derive it and inflect it according to need." 79 (Ben Yehuda, it should be pointed out, did produce some new compounds himself, 80 even though in general he objected to this procedure. However, at least both elements of the new compounds were in all cases genuine Hebrew words.) Ben Yehuda, therefore, with only a limited base to work from, sought in Hebrew literature, especially in Post-Biblical, Talmudic and Medieval writings, the plain, concrete words for use in his newspaper articles. As Klausner writes, "Ben Yehuda searched specifically... for the concrete, the essential, the simple (and) the material: words for food and drink, household and work items, vegetables and flowers, trees and plants, animals and birds." 81 Such words, Ben Yehuda felt, would be unconsciously assimilated by his readers through the medium of the general 79

Ha-Zevi 11 (1897/8), 3. Refael Weiss, "The Method of Ben Yehuda in His Neologisms", Leshonenu La-Am 12 (1961), 234. 81 Yosef Klausner, "Eliezer Ben Yehuda", Yozerim U-Bonim (Tel Aviv, 1925), Vol. 1: 222-246. 80

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context of a given article and thence made use of in their everyday conversations in Hebrew. The principal means employed by Ben Yehuda to introduce such terms was to insert them in his articles without commenting on them and without annotating them in any way. Only rarely did he, for example, affix an asterisk to an item and in this case, it would seem, he did so only as an afterthought, or when the word in question appeared for the second or third time in a particular issue of the newspaper. Similarly, the instances where a new word is followed by a brief translation in parentheses or by translation into a foreign language are few, as are the occasions when a circumlocution or foreign word is followed by its Hebrew equivalent in parentheses. Ben Yehuda confined lengthy discussion of words he had resurrected or created and then used in his newspapers to the columns directly devoted to the problems of language. These language columns did not, however, limit themselves only to the subject of words, and general problems of language planning as well as other aspects-such as spelling and pronunciation-of the revival were also dealt with. Awareness of the above facts renders research into Ben Yehuda's actual creations and contributions to the Hebrew lexicon quite arduous, as it is difficult to go through his papers and extrapolate those words, perhaps now very common, whose resurrection from ancient literature can be attributed directly to him, or those words consciously his own innovations. The number of words revived by Ben Yehuda cannot, as yet, be estimated. Not until a dictionary of the principal works written and read in the period preceding and contemporaneous with Ben Yehuda is made available can such a project be at all realistically undertaken. The Historical Dictionary, at present in preparation by the Hebrew Language Academy, will make such a task more feasible when it finally appears. 82 With reference to the number of Ben Yehuda's neologisms, Sivan has gathered 231 such forms, indicated by a special sign in Ben Yehuda's Dictionary,83 (It is interesting to note that Piamenta has shown the possible Arabic influence on 56 of these 231 neologisms, 84 and Zamiri has indicated the possible French influence on 39, including three which overlap with Piamenta's list.) 85 Weiss has also conducted research on similar lines, stressing, among other points, Ben Yehuda's methods in word 82

On the Dictionary, cf. Mcir Medan, "The Academy of the Hebrew Language" (1969), 40-47, and the various articles by Zeev Ben Hayyim cited in the Bibliography. 83 Reuven Sivan, "On the Neologisms of Eliezer Ben Yehuda", Leshonenu La-Am 12 (1961), 63-103. 84 Moshe Piamenta, "The Influence of Arabic on the Neologisms of Ben Yehuda", Leshonenu La-Am 12 (1961), 150-158. 85 Zivya Zamiri, "The Influence of the French Language on the Neologisms of Eliezer Ben Yehuda", unpublished seminar paper (1968).

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coining. 8 6 Summarizing the results of these investigators, we note four ways by means of which Ben Yehuda consciously created new Hebrew forms: 1. He took Classical (Biblical and Mishnaic) Hebrews words that were not in general use at the time and gave them a new meaning he required, often only remotely connected to the original form in the Sacred Texts. 2. He extracted roots from existing Biblical Hebrew, Mishnaic Hebrew, Biblical Aramaic, Targumic Aramaic and Talmudic Aramaic and invented new Hebrew words from them, based on common Hebrew wordpatterns. This method of root extraction he applied even to some Biblical Hebrew proper names, provided that the same root appeared in Aramaic or in Arabic in common nouns. 3. He formed Hebrew words on the basis of existing Arabic words and roots, with proper allowance for the appropriate sound changes between the two languages. 4. He produced Hebrew words on the basis of European languages, in particular, on the basis of Latin and Greek words found in the Mishna and the Talmud. However, as Weiss and others have noted, these 231 words do not constitute all of Ben Yehuda's neologisms. Many remain in his newspaper articles, undiscovered, and awaiting future research. As Tur-Sinai writes concerning the revival, "Whoever will write the complete history of this development [the revival] will have to record in particular the hundreds of words coined and introduced by Ben Yehuda and his contemporaries." 8 7 A work such as Tur-Sinai envisages, however, would require a separate work in itself and must be left for the future. An appropriate starting point for such a project is supplied by Ben Yehuda's Dictionary. Thus, Sivan writes, If indeed all of Eliezer Ben Yehuda's neologisms were not included in his Dictionary, this is presumably because, with respect to some of them, their entry was deferred to a later time, and the matter was not completed due to the death of the author. There also must certainly have been words which he created after the volume had already been prepared for print. This happened, it seems, to the word: boreg 'screw' which is known as his innovation, and in spite of this is not given in the Dictionary. Perhaps there are also words which the author did not believe would be successful in the future, and therefore he did not include them. Maybe also there were creations which he reneged on or which he forgot. At any rate, it was imperative for him to try to include in his Dictionary as much as 88 87

Refael Weiss (1961), 199-206, 232-240. Naftali Tur-Sinai, The Revival of the Hebrew Language (Jerusalem, 1960), 15.

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he could, because he had a lot of interest in the matter. He valued greatly the importance of the Dictionary for the revival of the language, and especially his role in this revival.88

Or, as Hemda asserts, "Ben Yehuda does not bring all his neologisms in the Dictionary, only those which already have literary value. Science is science."89 In working through the pamphlets published by Ben Yehuda as prefaces to his Dictionary, we have gathered 58 additional neologisms, as indicated there by means of a special sign. This brings the total of neologisms expressly given by Ben Yehuda in his Dictionaries to 289. However, as we have noted above, this number is not complete. Furthermore, as Shapira90 for example has shown, some of these annotated neologisms were not coined by Ben Yehuda but rather are to be attributed to those working with him in the language revival. With the above reservations in mind, therefore, we have decided not to list the neologisms themselves but to set out below the topical areas and some of the concepts for which Ben Yehuda produced new terms and by so doing, we shall endeavor to expose the gaps in the Hebrew of the time which Ben Yehuda sought to close. It should be emphasized, however, that Ben Yehuda never explicitly devised any such set of categories. This general framework, it is hoped, can be adopted as a future guideline for research into Ben Yehuda's neologisms when the appropriate time presents itself. Areas and concepts for which Ben Yehuda created new forms include: (a) colors: ashgray, brown, multi-colored, pink; (b) diseases and related terms: cancer, a cold, diphtheria, measles, running-ears, scarlet fever; (c) clothing: blouse, buckle, embroidery, furs, flounce, glove, head kerchief, lapel; (d) foods and related terms: apricot, banana, beer, cauliflower, cream, a dairy, cake made of groats, doughcake, ice cream, jelly, juice (from a melon), kitchen, minced cutlet, omelette, a restaurant, sausage, spinach, a tavern, tomato, truffle, a waiter, wild strawberry; (e) household terms and everyday

words: address, blanket, brush, to

brush, blotter, book-case, bus, chimney, screw, dictionary, elevator, furniture, an iron, match, movies, paved way, pencil, pillowcase/envelope, parasol, postcard, pump, sidewalk, shower, soap, train/railway, tray, towel, umbrella, watch/clock, writing desk; 88

Sivan (1961), 64-65. Hemda Ben Yehuda, (n.d.), Chapter 12: 1. 90 Noah Shapira, "This History of a Few Neologisms", Leshonenu La-Am 13 (1962), 221-224. 89

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(f) children's and young adult's world: bicycle, bicycle rider, doll, high school, kindergarten teacher, sled, spelling, sport, swing/seesaw, university; (g) animal kingdom: bird's beak, buzzing, to buzz, gills, hawfinch, a robin/a type of red fish/a type of red-colored butterfly; (h) vegetable kingdom: adonis plant, anemone, cactus, cracked field, herbarium, hothouse, plot, silt, tree nursery, white powdery ground, to spread sulfur on trees, to plant a forest, various names of trees (such as cerisier, chevre, feuille, dragonier, groseiile, hetre, sanguinelle, sureau); (i) mineral kingdom: alambic, basalt, bronze, ardoise, calamine, gypsum, granite, jade, malacite, macadam, mica, scrap iron, zinc, zircon, various names of stones (such as pierre divine, pierre infernale, pierre ä cautere, Moses' stone); (j) newspaper terms: correspondence, editor, newspaper, print, subscriber, telegram; (k) art and music: art, female singer, harmony, mode/style, orchestra, piano, piano keys, record player, sculptor, tune, tuning fork; (1) science: air-meter, airplane, barometer, elevator, hydrogen, invention, laboratory, microbe, magnet, nitrogen, oxygen, photogen, radium, stalactite, telescope/opera glasses; (m) government: bureaucratic, branch, candidate, commission, communism, constitution, declaration, democracy, democratic, document, a great power, independent, independence, ministry, municipality, neutral, office, official, parliament, police, representative, organization, speaker, speech, strike; (n) army and war: army division, bomb/mine, cannon, dynamite, exercise, face mask, front, gunpowder, invasion/immigration, manoeuver, revolver, revolutionary, a punch/tweak in the nose; (o) tools and professions: carpenter's shop, cobbler's pliers, drift-hammer, a diamond cutter, hide-burnisher, hide-trimmer, nutcracker, one who makes shadow pictures; (p) adjectives and derived nouns and verbs: active, bold, boldness, caprice, caressing, a caress, one who caresses, to caress, choosy, choosiness, confused, confusion, consistent, consistency, coquettish, a coquette, coquetry, to be coquettish, cross-eyed, curious, disgust, elastic/flexible, extreme, extremism, elasticity/flexibility, flushed (face), foolish, a flirt, to flirt, frenzy, front, gigantic, indifferent, indifference, interesting, to interest, to become interested, polite, politeness, ready to serve, readiness to serve, resoluteness, meritorious, merit, serious, seriousness, solemn, solemnity, stubborn rudeness, sympathetic, sympathy, to be sympathetic, transparent, bleak; (q) verbs: to confirm, to pronounce a letter badly (especially r), to reflect light, to inspire, to turn pages in a book, to wish someone well, to violently disagree;

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(r) additional words: ceremony, criterion, direction, energy, enterprise, grimace, identity, illumination, irony, maze, observation, progress, pyramid, risk, reflection, sameness, sanitarium, shadow picture, still early, stockshare, sunbeam, term. From the above list we see that Persky's estimate of a thousand neologisms attributable to Ben Yehuda 91 must be considered for the present as tentative, as also must be the case with Weiss's remark: "The neologisms of Ben Yehuda are not very numerous." 93 This, however, is merely a question of numbers, and, as Sivan, makes clear, "The power of Ben Yehuda's neologisms is not in their number, but in their necessity... as the base of both our spoken and literary language." 93 As Weiss asserts, "Ben Yehuda created for the generations to come, for the needs of the newly reviving life." 94 Some of the categories listed above do consist, as both Sivan and Weiss concur, of fundamental everyday concepts concerning food, clothing and shelter, and thus testify to the real scarcity of basic, simple words in the Hebrew of Ben Yehuda's day and also reflect some of the difficulties he faced in his struggle to revive the language. But it should be borne in mind that Hebrew was not as handicapped in these areas as a superficial reading of the above list might presume. In some of the cases (for example, the terms listed above dealing with newspaper) alternatives did exist in the literature of previous ages, but these forms were rejected by Ben Yehuda, usually on account of their cumbersome nature or their foreign origin and were replaced with neologisms of his own. Conversely, some of the above categories contain words of a fairly abstract, more literary nature, quite removed from the realities of everyday living (for example, many of the science terms given above). Although Hebrew did possess a wealth of terms before the revival for certain abstract areas of activity such as religion and philosophy, as Rabin points out, "Hebrew public life before 1880 did not live in countries with highly developed technical civilization, nor was Hebrew close to new branches of science."95 Many of the categories listed above are incomplete and fragmentary. This should not be taken to mean, however, that the rest of the category in each case was actually complete before Ben Yehuda's time. Rather, almost the opposite is the case, but this in no way detracts from the value of Ben Yehuda's innovations. Indeed, as Sivan contends, at least three91

Daniel Persky, "Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the Reviver of the Language", Leshonenu La-Am 9 (1958), 129-135. 92 Weiss (1961), 138-139. 93 Reuven Sivan, "The Neologisms of Ben Yehuda", Hed Ha-Hinukh 34 (1960), 19. 94 Weiss (1961), 195. 95 Chaim Rabin, "New Life for an Old Language" (1962), 13.

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quarters of the above neologisms have become part of Modern Hebrew96 or, as Klausner claims, "No one of the revivers of the Hebrew language was able to implant so many words, ways of speaking and new language forms as Ben Yehuda." 97 The above defective categories do, however, testify to the sporadic and random nature of Ben Yehuda's creations. It would seem that if, when writing his newspaper articles, or especially, when engaged upon his translations, he came across a concept for which he could supply no Hebrew equivalent, Ben Yehuda would look through the available Hebrew literature, and, if his search proved fruitless, he would invent a term; if someone, such as a teacher or student, would write to him, asking for a particular word, he would attempt to answer. In other words, in the area of word creation Ben Yehuda operated according to no specific plan, but rather worked haphazardly, in a piecemeal fashion. In the field of word detection, however, he had more definite ideas, as will be seen below.

6. THE DICTIONARY OF THE HEBREW LANGUAGE, ANCIENT AND MODERN

Partly in conjunction with and partly as an outgrowth of Ben Yehuda's work on words for his newspaper articles, there developed the idea for a Dictionary of the Hebrew Language. (As a matter of fact, the Hebrew word for dictionary is the first word which Ben Yehuda created.)98 The origins of such a scheme were simple enough. In his autobiography, Ben Yehuda writes that, after his first extended Hebrew conversation with M. Zundelman in one of the cafes on the Boulevard Montmartre in Paris (according to Twersky,99 either in Le Lapin Fou or Le Chat Noir), he decided that Hebrew from now on would be my language, not sporadically, artificially, and at arbitrary times... but my real, natural language always.... This conversation convinced me immediately how difficult it was to speak in Hebrew, how Hebrew was not yet fit to be an instrument (of conversation) for all man's regular topics of life. Then I felt the need to make a list for myself of the new Hebrew words most necessary in conversation; and I began searching and seeking in books from ages past and also present. This list was the beginning of the Dictionary. 100 96

Sivan (1961), 95. Yosef Klausner, "Eliezer Ben Yehuda", Ha-Enziqlopedia Ha-Ivrit, Vol. 9 : 132. 98 Cf. Ben-Avi (1941), 17. Also, Ben Yehuda "Two Words" (1880), 4; Reuven Sivan, "The Lives of Words" (1967), 72. 99 Yohanan Twersky, "What Was Said?", Ha-Poel Ha-Zair 50 (1947), 19-20. 100 Ben-Avi (1941), 17. 97

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In the introduction to the Dictionary itself, we find an even more detailed description of its genesis: The more I continued speaking Hebrew, (and) the more I widened the borders of my conversations without limiting their topics, the more I began to feel a growing sense of constriction. My vocabulary was the well-known vocabulary of every youth in the cities of Lithuania, who learned in elementary school and in the Yeshivas and read most of the books of the Enlightenment and learned the Bible by heart and grammar.... This was a fine vocabulary for a conversation on elevated, abstract theoretical topics, with a little poverty in expression, but at least almost satisfactory. But, with the frequency of conversation, topics passed to various utensils and the simplest and most everyday topics, and then I fell silent! These were difficult times for me, and were bound to wreck almost completely the structure I had built in my imagination. But these were the very times of the formation of the Dictionary. In these trying times I began to search in my memory and then I remembered that we have a Tractate on Vessels whose study is not common even in the Yeshivas, and the names of the vessels given there are therefore not known to most Hebrew speakers. There are in the Talmud also many other sections on simple, everyday matters, but these too are not known to most students.... I began to search and see if there existed in our literature any book in which one could easily find such words when needed. I hoped to find all that was necessary in the... dictionaries of the period, but after searching just about gave up hope, for I saw that the little we had was not enough for real, natural speech. The simple logic of youth quickly brought me to this thought: if only this is missing in order for us to speak Hebrew, then it is necessary to fill this gap.... The quickness of decision by youth, which does not doubt its own powers and knows no limits, followed: one day I decided, 'This gap I will fill,' and the thought of writing the Dictionary was born.101 It is only fair to point out how unprepared Ben Yehuda was for such a task. As he himself writes, I must admit that for the work of a real dictionary of the Hebrew language I was not in the least prepared, not with respect to my knowledge of the science of language, and not with respect to my temperament. I have already commented on my knowledge of Hebrew. This was enough knowledge to be able to use it in writing and even to speak it to a certain extent, but the scientific side of the study of language was strange to me. And more than this: according to the spirit which prevailed among the youth in Russia at that time, the science of language, Philologie, was a little simple-minded in my estimation, and I made fun of it. The study of language was not a subject I enjoyed, and I had absolutely no desire to become involved in it. Not from love of the material and not from the desire to write a Dictionary did I want to do this, but because I saw a compelling need for such spoken Hebrew. What I had thought about was to compose a small book that could be a practical aid for someone who wanted to 101

Ben Yehuda (1909/58), Introduction: 4.

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speak Hebrew.... I began to seek everywhere, and every time I found a word not found in ordinary books, I noted it down for myself.102

According to Hemda Ben Yehuda, this embarkation on the Dictionary was in no sense of the term even a book but rather "a small notebook wrapped in blue tissue paper... which was given to (Ben Yehuda) by the nearby grocery store for him to keep track of the money he owed." 103 Ben Yehuda entered the words he found into this notebook in alphabetical order together with translated equivalents in French. As he began speaking Hebrew to people who knew the language when he was in Paris, the list grew longer, and when he arrived in Palestine the notebook was already half full. After he had settled in Palestine and commenced using Hebrew all the time, the list became more unwieldy. This was due to the fact that Ben Yehuda was now obliged to search for words in older and more rare sources, and when he was unable to find any in the more commonly used texts, he began to create new words himself. It soon became clear that a simple alphabetical listing of words would prove relatively useless to the common speaker of Hebrew, since such a person would be unfamiliar with many words and would therefore be unable to consult a list arranged in alphabetical order. Ben Yehuda, therefore, decided to classify the words into topics (roughly, semantic fields); these, in turn, would be set out alphabetically and the individual entries under each topic similarly laid out, as in a Thesaurus. Thus, for example, "all words pertaining to stone under the entry 'stone', all names of trees under the entry 'tree'" 1 0 4 reflected the basic scheme Ben Yehuda envisaged. (Acknowledging various linguistic works which had influenced him in his choice regarding the arrangement of his Dictionary, Ben Yehuda singles out in particular the French Dictionary of Emile Littre, as well as that of Daniel Sanders, the German Dictionary of the brothers Grimm, and the English Dictionary of Gilbert Murray.) A guide to the use of Ben Yehuda's Dictionary by the ordinary person was published in his newspaper: I know that if you touch your friend lightly on his body, this... causes a little laugh. You don't know if there exists a term in our language for this... nor what the term is. Now go, my friend, look in every thick dictionary you have and turn over its pages, maybe you will find what you are seeking! You will certainly wear yourself out and not find the word. Not so with my book. What you are looking for, dear reader, is the word for 'tickle'. So, you go to the word 'touch' which you know and find what you want. And, if you say, I don't know the word 'touch', don't be afraid, this too has a solution in my book. Go, dear 102 103

i°4

Ben Yehuda (1909/58), Introduction: 5. Hemda Ben Yehuda (n.d.), Chapter 1:1. Hemda Ben Yehuda (n.d.), Chapter 1: 6.

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friend, to the word 'hand' and you'll find there the word 'touch'. And, if you don't know the word 'hand', go to the word 'body' and you'll find there 'hand'. And if you don't know either of these words, this is not my responsibility, dear reader.... I have planned [my Dictionary] for people who know the basics of our language.105 Ben Yehuda, then, in its initial stages, at least, planned his Dictionary as a manual to be used by people, like himself, familiar with the rudiments of Hebrew, that is, the basic morphology, syntax and vocabulary, who only needed to supplement their knowledge of actual words to enable them to speak relatively fluently on every day subjects. As he writes, "My book is designed as a... tool for he who wants to write and speak Hebrew." 106 However, this aim in itself was to confront the compiler of the Dictionary with new problems. As Ben Yehuda himself explains, Since my only task in this work was to give words for practical use in speaking, I could not be satisfied with explaining the words in a more or less general definition, and say for example: aMama 'a kind of stone', tidiiar 'a kind of tree'... but rather I had to define the word precisely and say which particular stone... and which particular tree..., so that the Hebrew speaker would know which stone and tree to call by these names. When I started to do this, I saw that, with some of them, the matter wasn't yet settled, and there were differences of opinion among lexicographers. I was not qualified to decide. Actually, in speaking at home, this was no problem for me, (because) there I was my own master... and I decided according to what I thought correct.... But, in a book for the public, I saw that in order to be able to say: 'Accept my judgment', I had to be qualified.... I didn't give up my plan for compiling the Dictionary... but I saw that I must put off the matter... for a while and perforce begin to be a linguistic researcher. And with this was laid the foundation of the real Dictionary, without clear knowledge of what stood before me. 107 Thus, Ben Yehuda himself became a student of 'Philologie'. We have seen, by his own confession, how ill-prepared he was for such an undertaking, how unaware of the extent of his self-imposed task on which he was to embark without any clear-cut method of work planned. Certainly, the task he had set himself was monumental in its proportions. As L6vi writes, "Aucune enterprise n'aura m£rit6 plus de Sympathie." 108 The only substantial dictionaries of Hebrew that existed at the time were those for one or two periods of the language, those for Biblical and/or MishnaicTalmudic Hebrew especially, which represented only the early period of the language's development. For the Medieval and pre-Modern periods of Hebrew only very small collections, some no more than just short lists, 105

Ha-Zevi 7 (1895/96), 23-24. loa Ha-Zevi 7 (1895/96), 23-24. 107 Ben Yehuda (1909/58), Introduction: 6. 108 Israel Livi, "(Une Lettre) d'Encourgement" (Paris, June 5, 1907).

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existed. Ben Yehuda mentions 109 in particular a list of Paytannic (liturgical poetry) words compiled by L. Zunz, a list of words from Y. Harizi and S. Ibn Tibbon's translation of Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed, Isaac Satanov's Book of Definitions, a list of words from the Karaite work The Tree of Life compiled by the Hungarian Semitist Goldenthal, the beginnings of a Treasury of the Bible and the Mishna by Shmuel Yosef Fünn and the Allgemeines Vollständiges Neuhebraisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch of Moshe Shulbaum. One of Ben Yehuda's innovations in the field of Hebrew lexicography was to regard the Post-Biblical Hebrew material as later descendants of the same Early Hebrew already classified in dictionaries and therefore also as relevant for inclusion in his more complete Dictionary of the language. In other words, all later additions to the Hebrew language were to be viewed as part of a single, continuously developing language, Hebrew. Indeed, so convinced was Ben Yehuda of this unity of the Hebrew of all periods that it was only at the suggestion of others (first the Alliance Israelite Universelle of Paris) that he agreed to mark the various words in the Dictionary as Biblical, Post-Biblical (Mishnaic, Talmudic, Midrashic), Medieval and Modern, in accordance with established conventions. 110 He likewise added a special symbol indicating his own neologisms. Ben Yehuda writes111 that the 'Total Hebrew' concept is not unique or strange, nor is the conception of a Dictionary of Hebrew of all periods cause for question, but rather the case of Hebrew is similar to the case of Greek and Latin, for which languages Dictionaries encompassing their entire development were already in preparation in Ben Yehuda's time among teams of world scholars. The difference is that in the Hebrew case the team of scholars numbered only one, and he was a self-made one at that. Furthermore, Ben Yehuda worked alone during the early stages of the compilation of his Dictionary, removed from world scholarly opinion and far from important source and reference materials. His only collaborators were his wife, and, after 1902, two assistants, both yeshiva students, 112 one the son of Rabbi Isaac Hirschensohn and the other his son-in-law Isaiah Rafaeloviz, who would copy out, half a day each, six days a week, the words and contexts Ben Yehuda had underlined in the various books he had read. Some encouragement was offered by the local group of enlightened individuals in Jerusalem as well as by the growing number of young Hebrew teachers in the agricultural colonies. For the most part, however, all the work on the Dictionary was undertaken by Ben Yehuda 109

Ben Yehuda (1909/58), Introduction: 20. Eliezer Ben Yehuda, Millon Kelali, Shalem U-Meforat (Jerusalem, 1896), 14. 111 Ben Yehuda (1909/58), Introduction: 18. 112 Cf. Hemda Ben Yehuda (n.d.), Chapter 2: 4. 110

La-Lashon

Ha-Ivrit

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virtually unaided. In his steadfast devotion to this task lies one of the aspects of his greatness in the language revival. As L£vy writes, "Pour mener ä bien une pareille entreprise, il fallait une reunion rare de qualites de premier ordre: un sentiment delicat de la langue, une culture scientifique etendue, une erudition de bon aloi, une connaissance approfondie... une perseverance inlassable."113 We have noted above that Ben Yehuda had embarked on his task without any clear system for his work. Rather, he applied himself to his work "without any order, (gathering material) rather according to what he happened to come upon while reading."114 The compilation of the material, too, was unscientific. As Hemda Ben Yehuda writes, "His Dictionary was contained in square notebooks crammed not only with Hebrew words but also with their French translation and contexts.... I said to Ben Yehuda: 'But now they don't work like this, with notebooks, with columns, but rather with notecards.' ...But Ben Yehuda didn't answer anything and asked me to continue in spite of this, in copying out of books [words] for his notebooks, on pages and columns listed according to the alphabet." It was only when Professor Schechter of London came to visit Ben Yehuda from Egypt and also expressed similar remarks with regard to the notecards that Ben Yehuda altered his system of work and, as Hemda Ben Yehuda writes, "On that very day Ben Yehuda asked me to copy all the notebooks over onto single notecards.... The notebooks were all thrown away as useless; even as a memento they were not kept, except for one." 115 Even the format used for the Dictionary was not Ben Yehuda's original design. We have already stated that the Alliance had suggested the classification of words according to period. Similarly, in 1903, Dr. Jacob Levy of London advised him to arrange the etymological comments as separate footnotes which Ben Yehuda subsequently called midrashe millim 'the explanation of words'. Similarly, the adoption of the Thesaurus style, as we have pointed out, can be attributed to the influence of others, and in particular to the French Dictionary of Littre. Ben Yehuda was also handicapped by a severe shortage of stationery in the course of his work. Hemda Ben Yehuda recalls that, "Paper for the notecards he gathered from all that came to hand: letters written on one side, empty envelopes, wrapping paper, pages of his newspaper, proof-copy, a bill or credit slip, sometimes even a telegram, a wedding invitation... all were for notecards."116 Although Ben Yehuda could apply no system at the outset of his 113 114 115 118

Hashkafa 92 (1907/08), 3. Ha-Zevi 7 (1895/96), 22. Quotes from Hemda Ben Yehuda (n.d.), Chapter 2: 2. Hemda Ben Yehuda, (n.d.), 14.

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labors, by the very nature of the work undertaken, a method was born. This may have been unconscious on his part, since he does not specifically discuss this matter anywhere in his writings. However, from an examination of the twenty-five pages of the sources Ben Yehuda cites as the basis for his Dictionary, we may surmise that he investigated in a fundamental fashion those sources of Hebrew in particular which he felt had contributed, in their time, the most new words and expressions to the language as a whole. Thus, he lavished no great attention on the period immediately preceding his own (1775-1875) since he held the opinion that this, the age of the Enlightenment, was characterized mainly by its imitations of Biblical (and to a lesser extent, Medieval) styles of writing.117 He preferred, rather, to work with whatever he happened to come across. On no one facet of Hebrew literature can Ben Yehuda be said to have worked completely systematically, and, as Bialik has noted, he did not cover "even one hundredth of all the linguistic material we have". 118 Ben Yehuda, rather, worked with what was readily available, both in manuscript and printed form, and also with what he could find in Jerusalem's schools, libraries and bookstores, as well as in the foreignsponsored Oriental and archaeological institutes located there. These included the Bibliothek des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, the Bibliotheque de l'Ecole Biblique du Couvent St. Etienne, and the American Archaeological Institute. In the course of his work, Ben Yehuda was also able to avail himself of materials deposited in foreign libraries which he visited, including those in Moscow, Leningrad, St. Petersburg, Paris, Berlin, London, Oxford, Cambridge, Firenze, Parma, Livorno, Padua, Rome, Cairo, Constantinople, Washington, Philadelphia, and New York. With respect to aids to Ben Yehuda in his work, we mention the following volumes. For Biblical material, he relied mainly on the existing dictionaries which generally covered most aspects relevant to his purpose, and in particular, the dictionary of Gesenius-Buhl. 119 The existing dictionaries in the field of Post-Biblical material (Mishnaic, Talmudic and Midrashic Hebrew) especially those of Jastrow and Levy,120 although in Ben Yehuda's opinion deficient, were also of use to him. For, as Ben Hayyim points out, "All the dictionaries... however widely they differed in other respects, shared one characteristic. They were partial, specialized 117

Further research has shown that this is not entirely true. Cf. the works of Kanaani, Kara and Porat cited in the Bibliography. 118 Haim Nahman Bialik, Devarim She-Be-Al Pe (Tel Aviv, 1935), 209. na Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament (1810-1812) (first edition, and following). 120 Morris Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi and the Midrashic Literature (London and New York, 1886-1903); Jacob Levy, Neuhebrärisches und Chaldäisches Wörterbuch über die Talmudim und Midraschim (Leipzig, 1876-1889).

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works restricted to certain determinate categories of literature.... They did not seek to render a full vocabulary of the language at any given time or in any defined area. The authors were interested in supplying an instrument for comprehension of a special literary field. Their purpose was philologico-exegetical rather than historico-linguistic, and the character of the works was shaped accordingly-both in regard to the words they included (or omitted), and in the amount of attention they devoted to 'difficult' and uncommon words." 121 For this reason Ben Yehuda commenced on as thorough a study of this literature as he could himself, which included the printed (and at times also various manuscript) versions of the Mishna, Tosefta, Mekhilta, Sifra, Sifri, the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds (including the remnants of the Jerusalem Talmud found in the Cairo Geniza) and the Midrashim. Of all the periods of Hebrew, this was the period Ben Yehuda covered most thoroughly, doubtless because it represented, especially in its earlier phase, the last stages of Hebrew actually used as a spoken language, and thus contained vital subject matter. (At this point we also recall the Talmudic Tractate on Vessels which had initially inspired Ben Yehuda towards forming the idea of compiling a

Dictionary.)

In his study of the literature of subsequent periods, Ben Yehuda included anything he could find, paying special attention to the Paytannic literature. Thus, Ben Yehuda writes, "Everything found in the Piyyutim of the Ashkenazim and the Sephardim and even of the Yemenites I have listed, especially [Eliezer] Ha-Qalir. He is, in my opinion, the leader in the life of Hebrew, because he was the first who actually showed that it is possible to use new derived forms in our language for all needs of our thoughts and feelings." 122 Following the Paytannic period, the Medieval period of Hebrew, particularly the Golden Age in Spain, was especially cherished by Ben Yehuda who calls it "this most fruitful period". The distinctive feature of this era of Hebrew writing was the dominant influence of Arabic-both culture and language-on Jewish life and literature. Ben Yehuda was aware of a spiritual bond between his efforts and the writers of this period, for he too endeavored to incorporate Arabic linguistic material into the reviving Hebrew language. As he writes, "The writers of that generation introduced into our language many new words or gave to old words many new meanings, not only consciously, with the intention of introducing a new word out of necessity, 121 Zeev Ben Hayyim, "A Hebrew Dictionary on Historical Principles", Ariel 13 (1967), 15. 122 Quoted from a letter written in 1894/95 by Ben Yehuda to Aharon Kaminka, Hebrew Language Academy Archives, Jerusalem. However, obviously not all of the Paytannic lexical material was actually covered by Ben Yehuda. Cf. on this point, Yaaqov Kanaani, "From the Lexicon of Ha-Qalir", Leshonenu 10 (1939), 28.

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but also unconsciously, without their realizing that they were introducing something new into our language because they were so fluent in Arabic which is completely similar to Hebrew.... I have turned to Arabic her sister, and following the deeds of our ancient scholars I too have proceeded." 123 When he came to deal with the following period of the Enlightenment, Ben Yehuda examined especially the works of its precursors, in particular, the writings of S. D. Luzatto, whom he considered "one of the greatest in linguistic art in the preceding generation, and almost the only one who had... feeling for the spirit of the language", 124 while also studying the writings of Ν. H. Wessely and those of the generation of Moses Mendelsohn. Ben Yehuda made only a cursory study of the writings of the Enlightenment itself, evidently taking notes only on whatever happened to come his way, and concluded his survey of Hebrew literature with the works of Y. L. Gordon, who could be counted among the older generation of Hebrew writers immediately before Ben Yehuda and also as a strong supporter of his ideas. In addition to the above, Kabbalistic literature and the non-Rabbinate Karaite literature as well as Hassidic literature were all at least partially incorporated in Ben Yehuda's field of study. Also, the "Jewish languages", especially Yiddish and Ladino, as well as the colloquials used by Jews in speech all underwent a thorough examination by Ben Yehuda in his search for Hebrew elements existing in these tongues, especially Judaeo-Arabic. Yellin,125 for example, informs us that immediately before his death Ben Yehuda had made a careful study of Colloquial Arabic in his quest for surviving fragments of primitive Hebrew. BenAvi,126 too, tells us that Ben Yehuda found 400 roots in Palestinian Arabic and Christian Lebanese Arabic only found likewise in the Mishna and Talmud and not in any other Arabic dialects, thus showing in his opinion living, surviving ancient Hebrew remnants. In the same manner, Ben Yehuda combed through various European languages looking for what were in his opinion 'lost' Hebrew words. (In particular, Spanish, Italian, Latin, and Greek literatures are indicated.) Much effort was expended by Ben Yehuda in his attempt to locate further traces of Moabite and Canaanite, the two ancient North-West Semitic dialects closest to Hebrew. It was Ben Yehuda's procedure, when confronted with these sources, to underline the section where he had discovered a new word, expression or 123

Both quotes from Ben Yehuda (1896), 10. Quoted from the 1894 Ben Yehuda-Aharon Kaminka letter mentioned above (footnote 122). 125 David Yellin, "Ben Yehuda and the Revival of the Hebrew Language", Journal of the Palestinian Oriental Society 3 (1923), 107. 126 Ben-Avi (1961), 321. 124

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meaning, in colored pencil in the text itself, and leaving as a later task for himself or for one of his students, the transfer of these words with their contexts onto notecards. These notecards (or, more accurately, slips of paper) were later assembled on a table in a separate room in Ben Yehuda's home to be classified according to subject and topic in the Thesaurus style described above. The extent of the work involved was obviously very great. As Ben Yehuda writes, The work was truly... very vast and very hard. From the thousands of books that I read, most dealt with topics that, according to their nature, could not interest me at all.... Most of them were written in a hard, unpleasant language, and at times I would read tens and even hundreds of pages of large size without finding one word or expression which I wanted for my work. Even so, I could not free myself from reading such a book; because sometimes one word or expression that I found in one book hundreds of pages long was enough reward for all this hard and unpleasant work. 127

In this way, Ben Yehuda estimates, he went through some 40,000 books and manuscripts during his work on the Dictionary, catalogued 20,000 words and copied out more than 500,000 citations, thus producing "the most gigantic composition in Hebrew literature since the time of the Talmud". 128 We have seen that Ben Yehuda had thus ventured into a new field where he seemed almost certain to fail. Ben Yehuda himself said that such a work would actually take "a hundred years" 129 and that "the work of a dictionary is not the work of one man, even if he lives to be as old as Methuselah". 130 Further, he writes, "If I am privileged to write the last word in the Dictionary, then I will need the aid of Heaven to keep my heart from breaking under the emotion." 131 The fact is, however, that he succeeded against harsh reality and achieved the almost impossible, by sheer force of will, working eighteen to nineteen hours a day. As Hemda Ben Yehuda writes, "He made night like day and worked. He worked and didn't find [anything] impossible. If he didn't find [a word] he created one." 132 The result is the most complete dictionary of the Hebrew language yet to be written by a single individual. As Berliner writes, "What the French Academy did for French, what the Grimm brothers did for German, Ben Yehuda [did] for our holy tongue." Moreover, Ben Yehuda's Dictionary is of interest not only to the scholar. It is not merely "the product of a dry archaeological perspective 127 128 129 130 131 132

Ben Yehuda (1909/58), Introduction: 21. Hashkafa 47 (1908/09), 3. Hemda Ben Yehuda (n.d.), Chapter 10:9. Hemda Ben Yehuda (n.d.), 20. Rabbi Binyamin, Mishpahot Soferim (Jerusalem, 1960/61), 14. Hemda Ben Yehuda (n.d.), Chapter 12:1.

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without any pulsation of life." 133 It is alive with absorbing material and citations, which make "interesting reading in themselves, [giving] pictures of the life of... Jews in their homes, market places, fields, and ghettoes... like taking a guided excursion through the ages". 134 As Epstein writes, Ben Yehuda "didn't investigate words, but rather concepts; he didn't collect sentences but rather ideas.... The author did not put nouns and verbs in his work, but rather living forms of bygone generations according to their speech and tongue, their ideas and style." 135 "Everywhere stands out the effort of the compiler to connect a word with a full idea... as if the Dictionary were an Encyclopedia." 136

7.

THE LANGUAGE COUNCIL

Ben Yehuda himself admits that as work progressed on the Dictionary it actually became enjoyable to him. As he writes, "Everything that a man deals in becomes, little by little, dear to him, as, little by little, it becomes his possession. This is an important rule, based on man's nature." 1 3 7 But the task Ben Yehuda faced was indeed a formidable one, especially as he was kept busy with his job as editor, printer, proofreader and distributor of his newspaper Ha-Zevi. It is not difficult to trace the reason for his assuming such great responsibility for Ha-Zevi. As Hemda Ben Yehuda writes, There were no typesetting machines in Jerusalem at that time; it was necessary to add one letter of type to the next, painfully, slowly, by hand. The printers were not Hebrew scholars. They made so many mistakes that finally Eliezer, in addition to writing all the articles, actually set them into type himself. It was a tedious job.... Because of his ambition to make Ha-Zevi attractive to look at, as much like Le Figaro [of Paris] as possible, Eliezer also arranged the type in steel forms... made up the paper.... In addition he... proofread them, carried the papers home, folded and addressed them, then delivered them to the post office. 138

Thus, simply stated, Ben Yehuda did not have enough time to tackle singlehandedly the job of reviving Hebrew words and expressions through work on his Dictionary. 133

Both quotes from Hashkafa 21 (1903/04), 165. Ha-Poel Ha-Zair 28 (1918/19), 6, anonymous article initialed "Sh. Sh." 135 Yizhaq Epstein, Mehkarim Be-Pesikhologia Shel Lashon We-Hinnukh Ivri (Jerusalem, 1947), 342. 138 Yizfcaq Ben-Dor, "Be-Havle Yezira" in: Al Mahadura Ammamit Shel Millon HaLashon Ha-Ivrit Le-Eliezer Ben Yehuda (Jerusalem/Tel Aviv 1957), 79 foot note 1. 137 Ha-Or 22 (1891/2), 91. 138 Hemda Ben Yehuda (n.d.), Chapter 12:1. 134

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What is of more significance, however, is the fact that Ben Yehuda was reluctant to be the sole arbiter on the selection of new words for use in the language, and at an early stage in his work he began taking measures to enlist more assistance in this sphere. Already in 1886 he had written, We have done much in the last years for our language, but all this is for using it in practice and not for investigating and exploring it theoretically. Just as there is no sense in theoretical investigation without practice, so there is none in practice without theoretical investigation. Therefore we see in... our writers the generation of the Tower of Babel, each writing according to his understanding. Ά ' uses a word according to [one] Commentary, 'B' comes and uses the same word according to [another] commentary, and 'C' chooses the explanation he sees fit from whatever he comes across, and if that is nothing then he will use a foreign word... as if he were writing for someone who didn't know Hebrew.... [Alas] for the confusion of tongues and the corruption of our language! Therefore we must begin to build for our language a little sanctuary, and the place best suited for it is in Jerusalem.139 Further, in his newspaper of 1889, we note, We are not able to say... 'accept my judgment'. Only a group of scholars together, who know the spirit of the language and all its... facets..., only they are able to form creations in this way.... As long as we do not have a body of scholars sitting in the land of our fathers, the cradle of our language,... researching and discussing these matters, our language will be like an unwalled city where every author will... desecrate its honor and beauty.140 As a further step in his efforts to enlist other people in the revival of the language, Ben Yehuda arranged one column of his newspaper as a language forum, appealing to the language-conscious among his readers to submit linguistic questions, answers and comment for circulation in print. In 1890 he also undertook the establishment of a Literature Council Waad Ha-Sifrut within the framework of the Plain Language Society Safa Berura to deal with matters of language. This Literature Council was later renamed the Linguistic Council, and finally the Language Council Waad Ha-Lashon. Ben Yehuda envisaged the role of the Council as follows, from the protocols of the Council he himself drew up. 141

139

Ha-Zevi 19 (1886/7), 1. Ha-Zevi 3 (1889), 12. 141 Printed for the first time in Zikhronot Waad Ha-Lashon 1 (1911), 7-8. This protocol it is true, was written by Ben Yehuda for the second language council of 1904, but it is felt to be generally applicable also to the brief workings of the first language council of 1890, for which few, if any, records exist. 140

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82 I . THE FUNCTION OF THE COUNCIL

1. To enable the Hebrew language to be used as a spoken language in all aspects of life, at home, in school, in public life, in trading, in farming and artisanry, and in science. 2. To protect the Oriental quality of the language and its special structure in the pronunciation of its sounds, the building of its words and its style; to add the necessary flexibility to it to enable the expression of any human thought of our time to the fullest extent. I I . THE WORK OF THE COUNCIL

1. To publish within the community the words found in Hebrew literature from its beginnings to the present day, which are not known to the public. 2. To fill the lack in the language by creating new words. 3. To try to instil in the language the Oriental pronunciation. 4. The Council will give a fixed form to the spelling, will fix new terms for the language's use, will bring order in the use of punctuation, will mark and bring to focus the errors and mistakes which enter speech and style. I I I . THE SOURCES (FOR THE COUNCIL)

1. The Council searches in all subjects of Hebrew literature and gathers from them: (a) all the ancient Hebrew words and all those created through the ages; (b) the Aramaic words, as many as necessary, when there is no Hebrew word for a given concept. To these words, the Council will give a Hebrew form according to the grammar of the word.... If the word is already common in the language, the Council will preserve its Aramaic form; (c) The Council has no need for words from non-Semitic roots, even if they are found in Hebrew sources, unless they have a Hebrew form or have already entered the language and are found there in great frequency. 2. To fill the gap still remaining in the language, the Council will create words according to the rules of grammar and analogy in the language: (a) as much as possible from Hebrew roots in the Bible and Talmudic literature; (b) secondly from Semitic roots: Aramatic, Canaanite, Egyptian, and especially Arabic; (c) The Council has no need for foreign words from non-Semitic languages, even if they are found in all the Aryan languages, and the Council will try as much as possible to create for all concepts new words from Semitic roots; (d) With respect to scientific concepts for which terms have not yet been given in the ancient literature, the Council will seek to create new words according to the scientific nature of the concept and not according to the outward meaning of the term as is the case with Aryan languages; (e) The Council will seek to coin words not only correct according to

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grammar, but also acceptable in outward form, in pronunciation, and fixed according to the spirit of the language.

Two basic aims of the Council can be clearly traced from these protocols: the first, and more important of the two, was to make available words to fill the gap in the language. As Ben Yehuda notes, "This work is divided in two. First, to gather from ancient and modern literature all the words which are not known to the public and to use them for daily needs. This is work, not science.... The second is the creation of new words. This is science, not work." 142 The chief methods the Council intended to adopt in order to make words available are given in the protocols quoted above. In general, the Council acted in accordance with these methods, advancing slowly and carefully over this new territory, fully aware of the social significance of their task. Discretion was applied in the selection of the particular method to be used. For example, in preparing a list of mathematical terminology in Hebrew, for which several terms already existed in Medieval and Enlightenment Hebrew, more stress was laid on the combing through of sources; whereas, in the process of drawing up an inventory of botanical terms-several of which were already in use in Mishnaic Hebrew, Talmudic Aramaic as well as in local Arabic, combing through sources and consulting the living sister Semitic languages were recommended. In the gathering together of a list of gymnastic terms, however, for which no Hebrew sources existed, it was resolved to create new words based as far as possible on Hebrew and Semitic roots. 143 The second major concern of the Council was to fix a uniform pronunciation for the newly revived language. At the time, two main pronunciations of the language existed (within which could be traced several geographical variants we shall not consider here)-the (Arabicized-) Sephardic and the Ashkenazic. As Blanc writes, These pronunciations were based on a combination of two factors: (a) a set of spelling-pronunciation rules that established grapheme to phoneme equivalences, the graphemes being those of the Old Testament in the Tiberian vocalization, and the phonemes being those of the language spoken by the particular community; (b) the allophonic and distributional mechanisms of the spoken vernacular.... Since no vernacular had a phonemic stock that corresponded to the graphemic inventory of the received text, the communities varied as to the graphemic distinctions that were given oral equivalents.144 142

Zikhronot Waad Ha-Lashon 4 (1914). Cf. on this and related points the work of Ben-Asher cited in the Bibliography, Chapter I. 144 Blanc, in: J. A. Fishman, C. A. Ferguson and J. Das Gupta, eds., Language Problems of Developing Nations (1968), 239. 143

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The main difference in the consonantal structures of the two pronunciations was the presence of Ih, S, t, q/ and /x, ?, t, k/ in the (Arabicized-) Sephardic pronunciation generally as separately rendered phonemes, in contrast to the general Ashkenazic pronunciation which merged both sets to fx, ?, t, k/. Also, (Arabicized-) Sephardic Hebrew generally merged the graphemes and and rendered both as phonemic /t/ in contrast to the general Ashkenazic pronunciation which retained the graphemic distinction and rendered them respectively as phonemic /s/, /t/. (Secondary differences in consonants and vowels both between and within the pronunciations existed, but these will not be considered here.) The main difference in the vocalic structures of the two chief forms of pronunciation was the presence of an /e/—/ε/ and an /a/—/o/ contrast in general Ashkenazic Hebrew and the general absence of such in (Arabicized-) Sephardic Hebrew which generally merged /e/—/ε/ to /ε/ and /a/—/o/ to /a/. With respect to choosing between the pronunciations, Blanc continues: "For various reasons, they decided to adopt the pronunciation in vogue among Mediterranean and Middle Eastern (Sephardic) communities, but which one of the several Sephardic varieties was actually used as a model is obscure. The impression is that the model was composite and somewhat vague..." 145 These reasons, unspecified by Blanc, include at least the following: 1. The Sephardic variety was already in use as the pronunciation of the Market Hebrew lingua franca of Palestine, and was used even by the Ashkenazim in their face-to-face dealings with the Sephardim for almost four centuries prior to Ben Yehuda. 2. The Sephardic variety was considered the more ancient of the two, as testified in particular by various transliterations and translations of Hebrew into Latin and Greek, and therefore was considered closer to the original ancient Biblical Hebrew of the homeland. A further point was the fact that the Sephardic variant was considered closer to the historical dialect of Judah, the home of Judaism, whereas the Ashkenazic form was thought to be similar to that of secessionist Samaria. 3. The Ashkenazic variety of Hebrew reminded the Council too much of Yiddish, the despised language of the Exile in the opinion of most of the Council's members, which, in particular, contained the same set of vowel phonemes. Conversely, the Sephardic form resembled the sound pattern of Arabic more closely and Arabic was the sister language in the Semitic family which already existed in the locale. 4. The Sephardic variant reproduced the consonantal text of Hebrew 145

Blanc (1968), 243.

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more accurately than did the Ashkenazic, as it included at least four more graphemic-phonemic renditions, as mentioned above. Therefore, it was considered the more correct of the two by the Council, who still conceived of Hebrew more in its written image than in its spoken form. 5. It was the Council's opinion that children who knew the Sephardic system would be equipped to read and write Hebrew texts with greater facility since the Sephardic system resembled the consonantal text more closely. Since children were to be the chief carriers of the language revival, this was an important factor. (However, as Hebrew is (generally) written only in its consonantal shape, the fact that the Ashkenazic and not the Sephardic system was closer in vocalization to the vocalized Hebrew text was never given serious attention, although Yellin did mention it at least once in his work, at his lecture on the subject to the Secondary and Grammar School Teachers Union Conference in Gedera in 1904. This step was later to lead to serious problems in the teaching of Hebrew vocalization.) 6. The Sephardic system is closer to the internal grammatical structure (morpho phonemics) of Hebrew than the Ashkenazic system, and had been the system already in use among the European Hebraists as well as in Hebrew grammars. In this sense, it may be said that the Sephardic variety had more codification and thus more 'prestige' than the Ashkenazic variety. With reference to Blanc's statement that the variety of Sephardic Hebrew adopted by the Council as a model was "composite and somewhat vague", we suggest that it would be more correct to say that none of the Sephardic forms was chosen. Rather, the Council's decision was ultimately based on the results of a letter sent by David Yellin146 to the principal Hebrew authorities of the time requesting their opinion on the pronunciation of Hebrew to be preferred. The majority replied that the optimal pronunciation of Hebrew was as follows: /?, b, w, g, d, h, z, h, t, y, k, χ, 1, m, n, s, S, p, f, c, q, r, s, t, Θ/. Although the Council endorsed this decision and sent its pronouncements to all schools in a special circular, in this matter its influence was slight. In fact, no one, not even Ben Yehuda147, adopted this system. The main pronunciation of Hebrew which emerged as the end result of an involved process of "koeinization" was, according to Blanc148, /?, b, v, g, d, h, z, x, t, y, k, 1, m, n, s, p, f, c, r, s, t/ plus /h, S/ for most although not all Oriental Jews. 146

David Yellin, "Pronunciation and Spelling", Address at the Second Meeting of the Teachers Association (Gedera, 1904). 147 According to the personal testimonies of the late Aviezer Yellin, the late Yehuda Burla and the late Professor Yosef Rivlin. 148 Blanc (1968), 244.

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As a glance at the Council's records will show, these two tasks-word coining and pronunciation fixing-set by Ben Yehuda, dominated the Council's work during the early period of its existence. Two further aspects of the Council's activities played a subsidiary role in the formative years of the revival and will also be discussed here: these were the fixing of Hebrew spelling and the fixing of Hebrew grammar. As might have been expected, the question of Hebrew spelling was intimately bound up with that of Hebrew pronunciation. Indeed, as we have already seen, one of the reasons why the Language Council essentially adopted the Sephardic system of pronunciation was the fact that it resembled the consonantal written Hebrew text more closely than did the Ashkenazic, thus offering an almost complete one-one correspondence between sound and spelling. As is known, the system of Hebrew writing generally indicates only the consonantal structure of a given form and omits the vocalic structure, which must be derived either from the context or from previous knowledge of the language. Early in the development of the Hebrew language this absence of vowel signs began to be felt and writers would resort to various devices to indicate various missing vowels. The most important of these was the use of the semivowels /w/ and jyf to indicate the missing vowels /u/, joj and /i/, /e/. The Biblical style of Hebrew writing had made a very sparing use of these semivowels, since the Biblical text, upon which this style was based, was always fully vocalized. The Hebrew styles based on Mishnaic and Rabbinic Hebrew sources incorporated various amounts of these semivowels in imitation of their use in the usually unpointed Mishna and Rabbinic literature. The question, therefore, that the Language Council faced in the sphere of spelling was twofold: whether to adopt the use of /w/ and jyj in the revived Hebrew spelling (scriptio plena) or not (scriptio defectiva), and, as a result of their choice, to decide which type of Hebrew was to form the basis of the revived language, Biblical Hebrew or Post-Biblical Hebrew. The teachers on the Language Council, headed by David Yellin, preferred the defective system of writing, as it formed the basis for the traditional Hebrew grammar which they had to teach, as based on the language of the Bible. In cases of ambiguity or obscurity, they argued, the defectively spelled word could be fully vocalized as in the Biblical case, without the use of /w/ and jyj. The majority of the Council, however, voted in favor of the use of the semivowels, for the Biblical system, despite its significance as reflected in the Bible, still constituted only one corpus of study in the schools, while the Post-Biblical system was disseminated throughout all the Post-Biblical styles and works and it was these works which made up the overwhelming majority of texts for study. Furthermore, scriptio plena when consistently used could be of great assistance to the Hebrew

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reader in cases of ambiguity, without cluttering up the text with unnecessary vowel points. The question of spelling was not resolved in these sessions of the Language Council (and, indeed, to this day it has not been finally settled). Here, however, it is interesting to note some further reasons for the conflicting opinions held on this matter. Ben Yehuda in his own writings used the defective writing system recommended by the teachers because, in his view, it symbolized dramatically the return of the people to the land of the Bible, as well as giving full expression to their reviving, in both speech and writing, as close a form as possible of the language originally spoken there. That is, by adopting the defective writing system, Ben Yehuda was cutting away yet another link with the Diaspora whose fetters both he and many of his contemporaries longed to discard. The free use of /w/ and /y/ was reminiscent, too, of Yiddish spelling, a language Ben Yehuda and others of his generation were seeking to forget. As Ben Yehuda writes, "One of the corrections which the editor of Ha-Zevi is proud of is that he was able in our language [to correct] Hebrew spelling.... Who of us does not remember... words in their ugly form, when they were written with alef instead of the vowel /a/ and with 'ayin instead of the vowel /ε/ and with... yod instead of /e/ ... and many more like these?"149 On the other hand, the majority of the Language Council were fully aware that the new revived Hebrew, although primarily and perhaps principally based on the Bible, would additionally incorporate words and forms gathered from all the later phases of Post-Biblical and Diaspora Hebrew. These would have to be written in scriptio plena in order to preserve their individual historical continuity as opposed to that of the Biblical Hebrew words, and at the same time to assist the reader to whom the word might be unknown. The newly revived language would also have to absorb the new words created by the Council and these too would have to be written in scriptio plena so that the reader would be able to pronounce and recognize the new forms. But no definite agreement was reached on this issue and both systems remained (and still remain) in use, a successful symbiosis of the two not having as yet been achieved. The conservative attitude of the Council on this issue should be noted. Thus, for example, no one suggested that the Hebrew alphabet be altered in any way, or that Hebrew always should be written in a fully vocalized form, or even that it be Latinized. The Council members appreciated fully their mission as the custodians of the Hebrew language tradition and only sought to adjust what to them seemed an essentially correct and complete system to modern tasks and times. The Language Council also devoted itself to the field of the fixing of Ha-Zevi 3 (1889), 12.

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grammar, but in this sphere very little was achieved either in the first period of the revival (or, for that matter, in any other period). The filling in of lexical gaps in the language, thus rendering it a useful instrument of communication, was what preoccupied the Council most. To this grammar came second. Two works of the Council, however, do give us a partial picture of its approach to the question of grammar. The first is its pamphlet of 1911 entitled Al tomar... Emor 'Don't say... Say' which listed 98 common errors of speech the Council had gathered and which supplied their correct equivalents. The pamphlet was sent free of charge to all students in the school system to enable them to improve their knowledge of the language. The pamphlet is interesting in that it clearly demonstrates that forms not attested previously in the sources were considered errors and that the Council always preferred the form closest to the sources, and most especially, to the Bible. Here again the conservative nature of the Council is displayed. Moreover, virtually all the forms listed by the Council as incorrect are still used in informal Hebrew speech today. (Whether or not they are still considered incorrect today is a separate question.) Thus, the inability of the Council to effect the changes it advocated is patent. This preference for the Hebrew of the sources as the guideline for the revival of the language, and particularly the preference for the Hebrew forms of the Bible, is even better illustrated by the debate in the Council of 1913 which had stemmed from the discussion arising out of the projected choice of a plural form of a word which existed in two different attestations, one in Biblical and the other in Mishnaic Hebrew. The discussion then moved out into the general question of the place of Post-Biblical forms in the revived Hebrew language. Ben Yehuda and others considered that Mishnaic Hebrew was a living language and a direct continuation of Biblical Hebrew, and therefore its forms should also be considered as valid. When there was a difference between the Biblical and the PostBiblical form, the Biblical form was not to be pronounced correct ipso facto, but rather, due weight ought to be given to both variants. Over this matter, however, the Council's attitude once more proved conservative and cautious. They agreed that Mishnaic Hebrew was a valid form of Hebrew, but only so in its own right and not as compared to Biblical Hebrew. Therefore, any Hebrew forms found in Mishnaic Hebrew and not in Biblical Hebrew were to be accepted into the language. When, however, a difference of form between these two presented itself, Biblical Hebrew was to be preferred without question, even if that form was more complicated and more difficult to remember. Once more, we have an instance of the Council's close reliance on traditional sources, primarily the Bible. During the formative years of the revival, therefore, the Council saw

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itself as a traditionalist body whose main task was to preserve the pure Semitic character of the language against the erosive influences of other foreign languages, especially those of Yiddish, Russian, Polish, Rumanian and German. These elements, besides wresting Hebrew away from its Semitic base, also caused anarchy within the language: there was no unified system of spelling or pronunciation, and in various areas nomenclature was either completely non-existent or too profuse and uncoordinated. It was the aim of the Language Council to unify Hebrew within its historical matrix and to fill in the lexical gaps in the language to suit the demands of the modern world. The influence of the Council during the formative years of the revival was almost non-existent if only because its history was so chequered, and this history we deal with below. The history of the Language Council during the first years of its operation proved very disappointing. No sooner had it been set up in 1890 than it was disbanded, six months later in 1891, after only six sessions, due to a 'difference of opinion', 150 among the enlightened of Jerusalem. The exact details of this difference of opinion remain obscure, and the Language Council was not reconvened until 1904, thirteen years later. During this period Hebrew continued to develop and expand, especially in the field of vocabulary, but this growth was nurtured and encouraged by separate and individual writers, including Ben Yehuda, the members of the Council in their private capacity, and teachers, all of whom coined new words, some of which were accepted, others rejected. Without a central regulating body, the language became subject to the differing influences of the various settlements and personalities scattered throughout the country. This state of affairs was particularly true in the school systems where the teachers, acting independently, coined new terms to meet their classroom needs. This tendency applied especially to the teachers in the Galilee area who, virtually isolated from the rest of the country and speaking only Hebrew, invented many terms peculiar to that region only. Thus the first Galilean teachers to adopt the Hebrew through Hebrew method of teaching gathered their terminology for flora and fauna from the Talmud and from the local spoken Arabic, unlike the teachers located in other regions of the country. We read, therefore, "The person who passes through our country... will hear in each and every moshava 'settlement' a different language. I do not refer to the pronunciations, Ashkenazic and Sephardic. No, in pronunciation Sephardic has won in almost all the moshavot 'settlements'. I refer simply to the words, to the language itself. In almost every moshava the most commonly talked-about things 150

Meir Medan, "The Hebrew Language Council", Ha-Enziqlopedia Ha-Ivrit 16 (1963), 450.

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are called by different names or (by the same names) with different vowelling. Here they say gir 'chalk' and here neter and here karton. This one says xeret 'letter' and this one mixtav. One says semurat ayin or afaf for 'eyelash' and another, risim. In one school it is called a bima 'teacher's podium', in another a katedra and in another a maxteva. This one says sargel 'ruler' and that one sirgal, this one safsel and that one safsal, this one zeda 'temple' and that one zid'a. Here it is a kis 'dish' and there it is a zalaxat and here again a tik. This one calls it a xaziya 'vest' and this one a xazit. How long, gentlemen, will we be as the generation of the Tower of Babel? How long will it take until you unite and try to find a single answer?" 151 The above multiplicity of words and forms, moreover, applied equally with respect to the question of pronunciation. Thus we read, "Every teacher solves (the problem) his own way: this one talks completely Sephardic, this one half, this one a third or a fourth; this one remains staunchly Askenazic and this one stands in the middle, one time this way and one time that." 152 We, of course, do not refer to the many differences in individual phonetic renditions of phonemes due to influences in first languages. These numerous variations seem, surprisingly, to have been overlooked at the time, for example the lack of [h] on the part of many Slavic native-tongue speakers, apical (vs. uvular) [r] on the part of many Arabic native-tongue speakers, and so on. Perhaps the main difference involved again the Galilee, where Isaac Epstein and Simha Vilkomiz decided, after consultation with the local Elders, both Jewish and Arab, that the [v] allophone realization of the Hebrew grapheme had never existed in the Galilean dialect of Hebrew and that therefore in all schools in Galilee, all be realized phonetically as [b]. In this connection, we read, "At the beginning of every year, when a new teacher was accepted in one of the schools, he (Vilkomiz) would gather all the teachers for a teachers' meeting, lecture to them on the problem of pronunciation, and prove conclusively to them that there never was a [v] in... Galilee. When he had proved this, he demanded that his teaching be followed without question and the teachers obeyed and taught the language speaking with [b]." 153 Hence, the sentence, now famous as the historic shibboleth of Galilee speakers: Ha-zevuvim mistovevim misaviv le-xalav ha-lavan, 'The flies swarm around the good milk', was rendered in the Galilee as: Hazebubim mistobebim misabib lexalab ha-laban. At the 1903 Teachers' Conference held at the agricultural colony of Rishon Le-Zion, therefore, which was convened in order to establish a 151

"2 153

A. L. Hurviz, Ha-gevi 2 (1901), 1-2. Yjzhaq Epstein, Ha-Zevi 12 (1898), 3. L. Ϋ. Riqlis, ed., Ha-More (Le-Zekher S. H. Vilkomiz) (Jerusalem, 1959), 43.

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centralized Teachers' Union, a further resolution recommended that a 'Committee of Linguists' be set up to deal with "extending the spoken language and fixing new words", in view of the fact that as a group, the teachers were faced with a divided school system and a divided language situation, both of which overlapped one another. The problem, however, was only seriously tackled at the Gedera Conference which took place in 1904, at which it was decided to revive the defunct Language Council in Jerusalem whose function it would be to deal with "the fixing of the pronunciation and of the correct spelling, the absence of which causes division between schools, (and)... also the fixing of new words for the needs of schools and teaching, so that every teacher won't have to be creating [them] for himself." 154 A further suggestion proposed that the Council compile subject-dictionaries, and thus, in the winter of 1905, the Council recommenced its activities. Meetings were to be held once a month, with the following agenda: firstly, it would answer questions which had been submitted concerning names for various concepts and words which were needed immediately, and then it would treat of a more general topic. Due to lack of funds, however, the Council was unable to expand its activities, which had to defray the costs of secretarial work, literature, texts, postage and typing through the generosity of its individual members. At the end of the summer of 1906, the Hebrew cultural, educational, and social organization Ivriyya was set up in Jerusalem and in Jaffa, and at its first meeting a vote of confidence in the Council was moved and aid to its activities extended. With the promise, therefore, of assistance, the Council was now in a position to undertake work on an expanded basis, and meetings were to be convened at least twice a month. Thus, in 1907, the Council devoted its attention to the problem of correct pronunciation, with particular reference to the question of distinguishing in speech every consonant and vowel as they were in writing, and to this effect they issued a circular letter to all the schools in the country. Individual requests submitted by teachers for guidance on words for clothing were also dealt with. But the support of Ivriyya was not, in fact, forthcoming, and once more the Council was compelled to limit its meetings to a once-monthly basis. In such a situation, nothing substantial could be accomplished by the Council, but, nevertheless, it did compile a mathematical terminology list consisting of over 150 entries, some of which had been received from and confirmed by teachers on agricultural colonies, some coined by the Council itself, and some (most) culled from Medieval Hebrew mathematical and scientific texts. These terms were published in the Circular of the Teachers' Union and distributed to all member154

Both quotes from Aviezer Yellin, "The Association of Hebrew Teachers in Israel", Sefer Ha-YovelLe-Aggudat Ha-Morim, 1903-1923 (Tel Aviv, 1924), 6.

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schools in the country. Each teacher who supported the Union was supposed to support the Circular, and, what is important for our purposes here, therefore accepted the terminology list and made use of it in the course of his teaching, thus promoting still further the uniformization and koineization process of the language. The Council, therefore, had successfully made its first positive contribution to the revival of the language. Life in the country was, however, seriously disrupted by the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, and the Council did not fully resume its activities until 1911. During this period, the lack of the Council was felt even more acutely and in Jaffa an auxiliary organization, the 'Committee for the Extension of the Language' (HaHevra Le-Harhavat Ha-Safa) was formed. Confronted with the presence of a rival authority in matters linguistic, however, the Language Council members bestirred themselves and resumed their activities without interruptions. During the winter of 1911, the Council published its first pamphlet Al Tomar-Emor [Don't Say-Say] whose purpose was to point out existing errors in Hebrew speech and to correct them. This pamphlet was distributed free to schoolchildren. Still the Council's work was hindered by lack of funds: its Secretary received no remuneration, and the expenses incurred by the publication and mailing of the pamphlet had to be borne by the individual members of the Council themselves. The services of a paid secretary were felt to be necessary, to prepare material for the Council to work on at fixed intervals and also to maintain written contact between members. A further handicap was noted by the fact that there was a general dearth of books which dealt with the subject of expanding a language as well as those on the subject of Hebrew and Semitic languages. The Hebrew Histadrut of Berlin was therefore approached for monetary assistance by the Council in 1911 and, thanks to the efforts of David Yellin, 1200 francs per annum was pledged. This promise was honored in the autumn of 1912, but only as a result of the efforts of Ben Yehuda. In 1912, however, an event of far greater significance occurred. The first of many subsequent visits to Palestine over the next twenty years was made by the most influential Hebrew writer of the timeAhad HaAm. He displayed great interest in the work of the Council and the revival of the language, finally envisaging the possibility of the unification of all schools and curricula by means of a common language and vocabulary. He summoned a joint meeting in Jerusalem of the Council, the Teachers' Union and the Committee for the Extension of the Language to consolidate and expand the work of the Council. At this meeting, it was decided: 1. The Language Council in Jerusalem was to be the final authority on the ratification and selection of new words; the Jaffa Committee was to be disbanded;

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2. The Language Council was to make use of and consider words found in the literature and to create new words; the Council was not bound to explain its choices; 3. The Language Council was to consult experts regarding lists of words in various fields in foreign languages and also was to apply to the schools for lists of words already accepted and used by them; these lists were to serve as material for its work; 4. The Teachers' Union was to be the mediating link between the Language Council and the schools, and was to aid the Council both materially and spiritually. 155 Ben Yehuda was elected the first president of the Council. Its meetings were now convened once a fortnight, and during 1913, for the first time in its history, a full quota of twenty-six sessions were held. The winter session of the Council was devoted to the field of physical education as well as to that of clothing, and to devising suitable terminologies, while words pertaining to plants and the world of the kindergarten were dealt with in the summer session. Attention was also given to sewing terms in response to a request for guidance on the part of one of the country's sewing teachers. The Council also sent a circular letter to the Teachers' Union and to selected schools suggesting the compilation of a list of grammatical terms to be used as the first item in the agenda of the forthcoming Council session to be held in the winter of 1914. During this year, however, the First World War broke out, upsetting the Council's timetable just at a time when, for the first time in its twenty-odd years of rather perfunctory existence, its first efforts in the sphere of serious and sustained work on the language were bearing fruit. At this time too, the Council's financial prospects had never been brighter for, in 1914, the Association for Hebrew Language and Literature and the Ha-Qedem Society for Hebrew culture-both founded by Mr. Hillel Zlatopolski of Vienna-had voted to subsidize the annual cost of a secretary for the Council to the sum of 3000 francs. In the early, formative years of the language revival, therefore, the role played by the Council was a very minor one. When its functions began to be more clearly defined and its activities consolidated effectively, the Council's work was interrupted by the onset of war, and only in the years after 1917 did it finally become the vital force in the development of the language-a role it could and ought to have assumed over twenty years before.

155

According to the Hebrew Language Academy Archives, file 54.

ν

THE REVIVAL OF HEBREW IN THE SCHOOLS

We have now analyzed the seven steps taken by Ben Yehuda to implement his dream of the language revival. In retrospect, it is clear that of these steps, the most significant proved to be the introduction of Hebrew through Hebrew into the school system. Indeed, the schools became the decisive setting for the revival of Hebrew and the pupils its chief instrument, as Ben Yehuda had envisaged originally in his first article to HaHavazzelet.1 This state of affairs could be attributed to the fact that, as Rabin writes, "Since the pupils of such schools soon spoke Hebrew with more ease than the language of their parents, it was only natural that, when they married each other and had children, these children, without any conscious planning, would become native speakers." 2 A complete study of the parallel development of the school system and of the role of Hebrew in it would require a separate study. Moreover, a comprehensive study on the subject might not be feasible since it would be seriously handicapped by the dearth of source material on the early and decisive years of the language revival. Nevertheless, to trace the main outlines of the development of the schools in Palestine and of the role of Hebrew within them was considered appropriate for our purposes here, for in their success lies the success of the language revival itself.3 We shall return to discuss the other steps of Ben Yehuda in the conclusions to the study. 1

Cf. p. 23 ff. above. Chaim Rabin, "The Role of Language in Forging a Nation: The Case of Hebrew", The Incorporated Linguist (January, 1970), 2. 3 On this general topic, cf. the works of Arnon and Scharfstein listed in the Bibliography, as well as the volume edited by Kimbi. 2

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We have already seen that Jerusalem was the starting point of the Hebrew educational revival and that Ben Yehuda was its initiator. The conservative city, however, was unable to provide the environment congenial to the growth of so novel an idea as the secular revival of the Hebrew tongue, and the crucial educational role in the revival left Ben Yehuda's direct control almost immediately. His place was taken rather by the teachers on the new agricultural settlements which had been founded by nationalistic Jewish pioneers who began arriving in increasing numbers after the Russian pogroms of 1881. These agricultural settlements fell into two different categories, each of which had an impact on the development of the language. The more independent, tradition-bound, religiously oriented colonies such as Petah Tiqva established traditionally modeled schools whose teachers used old-fashioned methods. The language of instruction and conversation was Yiddish and at first the schools on these settlements proved quite resistant to the introduction of Hebrew. Parents considered the suggested secular role of Hebrew as sacrilegious, unnecessary and even unnatural and absurd. They distrusted the new methods proposed for the teaching of Hebrew (the 'Direct Method') and queried the lack of textbooks in the language. In contrast to these settlements, the colonies established by the first pioneering students-the Biluim-and/or those supported by the Odessa Committee of the Hovevei Zion 'Lovers of Zion' as, for instance, those at Eqron and Gedera, were of a more openminded attitude over the language issue. These communities, although they had at first instituted Yiddish as the language of instruction, responded far more swiftly to Ben Yehuda's call for the revival of Hebrew. In the early, formative period of the revival, the settlements sponsored by the 'Lovers of Zion' were few in number and when, in 1884, the French-Jewish philanthropist Baron de Rothschild became their patron, these colonies fell quickly under French linguistic and cultural dominance. Such a state of affairs was readily accepted by the colonists at the time, since otherwise their desire to remain in the homeland would have had to be abandoned because of want of economic resources. They also wished their children to benefit from as rich an education as possible, but the surrounding non-European, Islamic culture was strange to the new European settlers and did not constitute a real local stimulus for learning. The Yiddish language, which at the time served as the only possible and logical language of instruction, could not fulfil a wider cultural role, since, in the eyes of the newcomers, it was merely the language of the common people. French culture and the French language, however, were universally admired and therefore enthusiastically welcomed by the colonists. An unwritten agreement was reached between the Baron and the colonies whereby Yiddish was to be used for the teaching of Jewish

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subjects, reserving French as the language of instruction for general subjects. When some of the younger teachers, following Ben Yehuda's example, began teaching Hebrew through Hebrew and then Jewish subjects in Hebrew, the French officials did not disapprove, since Jewish subjects were an internal matter in the life of the colonies and therefore not subject to their jurisdiction, while the Baron himself preferred Hebrew to Yiddish. It soon became clear, however, that the agreement was not to be permanent. The Parisian teachers on the settlements, who were, in the main, middle-class assimilated French Jews and graduates of French-Jewish schools, viewed the traditional Yiddish teachers (melammedim) with disdain, and showed little respect towards their more modern and nationalistically inclined enlightened Hebrew colleagues, for neither group of teachers had any experience in modern teaching methods. The Parisian teachers therefore repeatedly urged the adoption of the French-based system, while the colonists, for their part, soon perceived that their children, rejecting both the impoverished form of Hebrew and the Diaspora Yiddish, which they considered worthless, were fast becoming Levantines, prattling in meager French, their hearts inclined towards Paris. Such a state of affairs, if unchecked, was capable of wrecking the 'Return to Zion' movement. Thus, beginning in 1887 and continuing until 1900, a series of revolts was mounted against the Baron's officials in colony after colony-in Rishon Le-Zion in 1887, in Zikhron Yaaqov in 1888, in Eqron in 1889 and so o n - s o that, eventually, in 1899, the Baron was compelled to hand over his patronage of these French-styled colonies to the Jewish Colonization Association of London. A short period of depression and decline set in, due to the creation of a vacuum in the administration of the colonies, but by 1908 French influence in the colonies had been eradicated and the French language was replaced by Hebrew as the language of instruction for all subjects. The largest of these colonies was Rishon Le-Zion, 4 where the first allHebrew school was founded in 1888. Originally established in 1882, its teaching followed the customary pattern with a traditional-styled school staffed by a traditional teacher (melammed) for religious subjects as well as by a more enlightened instructor whose duty it was to instil the rudiments of arithmetic, Jewish history and Hebrew grammar. In 1884, the colony came under the Baron's patronage and French culture and the French language dominated the general curriculum. With the influx of more immigrants to the colony of both European and Oriental extraction, 4

For a general history of this pioneering colony, cf. David Yudeleviz, ed., Rishon Le-Zion 1882-1941 (Tel Aviv, 1942).

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the babel of tongues spoken increased accordingly, including (at least) Yiddish, Russian, Rumanian, Arabic and Ladino. For this reason, David Yudeleviz, one of the original Bilium and an ardent supporter of Ben Yehuda, began teaching Hebrew and Jewish subjects through the medium of the Hebrew language when he entered the school in 1886. His method of teaching met with initial success, and, with the cooperation of the principal of the school and the head of the three main Alliance schools in the country financed by the Baron, Mordekhai Lubman, steps were taken to further expand the scope of Hebrew. At first, Lubman was reluctant, especially since he was the chief co-ordinator of the Alliance educational network in the country. Moreover, he was skeptical since he was convinced that Yiddish, the mother tongue of most of the children, should remain the language of explanation and instruction. However, he agreed that Hebrew be taught by the Direct Method to youngsters, and continued in the higher grades, and also that elementary texts for older children be prepared in the Hebrew language. The Baron concurred with Lubman's position and financed the publication of books in Hebrew for use in his colonies. Thus, Lubman himself was responsible for a nature-study text in Hebrew, Yudeleviz prepared a geography book and another teacher at Rishon Le-Zion wrote a history book. Simultaneously, Ben Yehuda brought out a history text, while Yudeleviz and others edited general books on arithmetic, reading, grammar and so on. The first teaching of arithmetic in Hebrew took place in 1887 and in 1888, all general subjects, including history, geography and nature-study were taught in Hebrew. Thus began the revolution in education which started from Rishon Leg i o n and later spread throughout the agricultural settlements. By 1891, at least some of the general subjects, especially arithmetic, were taught in Hebrew in several colonies. In 1892, David Yudeleviz and Yehuda Grazovski founded at Rishon Le-Zion the first Teachers' Association whose members comprised the nineteen Hebrew teachers in the country at the time. At the Association's first meeting, questions were raised which were to become the future standard educational and language issues: the minimum age of students, the minimum length of the period of study, the nature of the Direct Method, the problem of pronunciation and the problem of vocabulary. The first meeting confined itself, however, to discussing the first three questions. It was decided that children of six years and older should attend school for a period of five years, the Direct Method was to be adopted unanimously, and it was agreed that, "It is necessary to teach the children all the names of the objects they see around them, in school and at home, for example, table, bottle, father, son, pen, hand, foot.... Also, short conversations by heart: 'Come here', Ί want a drink,'...."

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Further, ".. .the explanation of the Bible is to be in Hebrew and in general all studies are to be explained in Hebrew. The teacher must train himself to explain in short words... to prepare the child first in a small vocabulary of at least 200-300 words with their inflections." 5 A further decision adopted by the Teachers' Association at its first meeting was the formation of a special committee whose task it would be to review the existing children's literature and to select textbooks suitable for translation into Hebrew. At first many parents opposed the decision favoring the exclusive use of Hebrew, since they wanted French to be included in their children's schooling so that, on graduation, their children would be able to find employment. However, as the growing Levantinization of the children became more apparent and the successful results of the Direct Method were demonstrated, the cause of French receded. The Baron's relinquishment of the colonies to the Jewish Colonization Association in 1899 further weakened the position of French, the only exception being explicit foreign language courses offered mainly in French, Arabic and Turkish, where the French language was still used. By 1903, in all subjects offered in virtually all of the sixteen colonies, Hebrew had become the dominant language. Four years after the founding of the first all-Hebrew school and in the same year that the Teachers' Association was established (1892), the Baron opened a kindergarten in Zikhron Yaaqov where French was to be used as the spoken language in order to assist the youngsters in their transition to an all-French education from the very earliest years of their studies. Taking their cue as well as their warning from this kindergarten, the teachers in Rishon Le-Zion began preparations for the founding of a Hebrew-language kindergarten for preschool children aged four to five, as part of a general program of all-Hebrew studies. The forerunner of this kindergarten was opened in 1894, and served at first only as a preparatory class in Hebrew prior to the children's entry into first grade. The main focus of instruction was Hebrew conversation and the drilling of words and sentences by heart, and this was taught with the aid of pictures and a few existing songs and games. Reading and writing were also taught. Any girl who had completed four years of schooling in Rishon Le-£ion was considered qualified to act as "teacher". In 1896, the scope of the preparatory class was broadened and children three years of age were also admitted. More importantly, at this time, the teachers at Rishon Le-Zion were introduced to the work of Fröbel, the German pedagogue, and to that of his Swiss student Pestalozzi, in which creativity, activity and naturalness in teaching, especially of the younger grades, was stressed. These were the very elements singularly lacking in 5

Yizfcaq Epstein, Ivrit Be-Ivrit (Warsaw, 1901), Introduction.

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the Hebrew preparatory class and the Fröbel-Pestalozzi system was therefore adopted. To redress the absence of a qualified teacher to conduct kindergarten classes in Hebrew, Esther Shapira, one of the first pupils to have completed the Hebrew school at Rishon Le-Zion, was sent to Jerusalem for training at the Evelina de Rothschild kindergarten. There, English was used as the language of instruction, but it was nevertheless felt that in such an environment she could acquire the skills necessary to conduct a similar institution. Thus, in 1898, the first modern Hebrew kindergarten in Palestine (and in the world!) was opened in Rishon Le-Zion with an enrolment of thirty children aged from three to five. After a successful trial period, a similar one was opened in Jerusalem in 1903, and thereafter, in Safed, Jaffa, Haifa and Tiberias, in 1904, as well as in the main colonies-Rehovot, Zikhron Yaaqov and Nes Ziona, after further success. From 1904 onwards, Hebrew kindergartens were established throughout the country and these effectively neutralized the influence of their foreign counterparts, which were mainly English in the cities, French in the colonies. The problems involved in these first attempts to establish Hebrew in anything resembling a fully fledged school system are easily appreciated, and the first results proved far from promising. Most schools had no fixed curriculum and taught only two to four classes for a period of three to five years. Most study was dry and literal, being based on repetition by rote and drilling of lists, as well as translation of texts. Hebrew and Jewish studies dominated the classroom. The teachers themselves were mainly autodidacts without real educational experience and Hebrew had not as yet been perfected as an educational instrument. The most necessary terms for use in the classroom did not exist as yet in Hebrew, and very few schools possessed Hebrew textbooks. In the kindergartens, too, Hebrew games, songs and dances were yet to be invented. Yudeleviz writes, In a heavy atmosphere, without books, expressions, words, verbs and hundreds of nouns we had to begin... teaching. It is impossible to describe or imagine under what pressure the first seeds were planted.... The Hebrew teaching materials for elementary education were limited... We were half-mute, stuttering, we spoke with our hands and eyes.®

Yellin writes in the same vein, Every teacher had a French or Russian teaching book of his own, and according to it he organized his Hebrew work.... New teaching books were not yet available... terms needed for teaching did not exist. Every village teacher was an Academy member with regard to creating words according to his taste, and 6

David Yudeleviz, "First Reminiscences" in: Kimbi, ed. (1928), 150-156.

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everyone, of course, used his own creations. Every village school was a world unto itself in its curriculum, teaching and (coining of) artificial words for every subject.7

Gradually, however, classes were extended to include five and six grades, curriculums began to expand, albeit informally, and books began to appear. What was perhaps the most important aspect of this development with regard to the future of Hebrew education in the country was the fact that, as a result of the successful establishment of the kindergartens, Hebrew became a more natural and widespread vehicle of expression. As Azaryahu writes, As for... influencing the revival of the language in the mouths of the children... the kindergartens did wonders. It is only thanks to them that Hebrew became almost the daily language of the youngsters, and when they later entered school they could continue naturally the development of their inner capabilities without obstruction. Not only this, but the children taught in the kindergarten became from then on the most natural and effective propagators of Hebrew. 8

And as Zuta succinctly states, "The child became the teacher of his parents, his brothers and sisters, ...a diligent and serious teacher who would not allow any errors." 9 The success of the kindergartens strengthened the position of the Teachers' Association, and in 1892 five meetings of the Association were convened. Problems of transportation and finance prevented further meetings of the Association until 1895 when, at the first meeting session, the Hebrew language was finally and unanimously adopted by all the teachers as the language of instruction for all courses. At the closing session, the question of pronunciation was raised and it was decided that the Sephardic system of Hebrew should be used in the schools, but that, tentatively, Hebrew would be taught according to the Ashkenazic pronunciation in the first year in the Ashkenazic schools, and thereafter according to the Sephardic pronunciation, reserving the Ashkenazic form for prayers and religious ritual. The 1895 meeting of the Association proved to be the last such gathering of teachers until 1903, differences of opinion with regard to the future of Hebrew education in the country as well as problems of employment, finance and transportation all contributing to the failure of the Association to summon its members to meetings. During this period, the fragmentation and isolation of the teachers became increasingly evident and the educational system deteriorated rapidly. 7 8 9

David Yellin, "From the Beginning Days of Creation" in: Kimhi, ed. (1928), 141. Yosef Azaryahu, "Hebrew Education in Israel" in: Kimbi ed. (1928), 79. Hayyim Zuta, "At the Top of the Mountain" in: Kimbi, ed. (1928), 117.

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In 1903, therefore the central committee of the 'Lovers of Zion' (Hovevei Zion) in Odessa sent a delegation headed by Menahem Ussishkin to unify the country's burgeoning institutions, among them its schools. Ussishkin wrote to the teachers urging them to strengthen the Teachers' Association, as he felt that "There are two main demands which the settlement of the land makes on those to whom the education of the young generation in Israel is entrusted: 1. To educate and raise a generation full of strength... healthy in body and spirit, who will know and love its nation, its land and its language.... 2. To create in Israel one Hebrew... nation from all the different groups that are now in the country." 10 The teachers who had, in the interim period, been left more or less to their own efforts, responded enthusiastically to Ussishkin's proposals, and fifty-nine of their number met that year in Zikhron Yaaqov with the aim of uniting the country's kindergartens and elementary schools within a common framework and curriculum. The main purposes of the Teachers' Union, the new organization set up at this meeting were, as stated in the meeting's protocols: to improve the education of the children and to imbue it with a national Hebraic color; to revive the Hebrew language and the spirit of Israel in the schools; and to improve the lot of the teacher. At this meeting, unlike the earlier meetings held in 1892 and 1895, the question of Hebrew and the Direct Method of teaching Hebrew were accepted as a matter of course. No one queried the use of Hebrew as the language of instruction for Jewish subjects, and also as the language of instruction in the teaching of general subjects. However, language questions still remained. Thus, after Ussishkin's opening address, the question regarding the type of script to be used in the teaching of Hebrew-Ashkenazic, Sephardic or Rashi-as well as the choice of the type of pronunciation-Ashkenazic, Sephardic or Yemenitewas raised. It was generally agreed that the Ashkenazic script and the Sephardic pronunciation should be adopted in all schools, although no formal decision on this issue was taken. A further problem also still remained unresolved: should Hebrew alone be used for the teaching of all subjects or ought another language to be additionally taught, such as Arabic, French or Turkish. Finally, it was decided that Arabic would be taught as an optional subject in the schools in the colonies, in addition to Hebrew, but only to boys aged thirteen or over, and only for one hour a day in the final two grades. A related discussion arose over whether only Hebrew should be used in teaching the various general subjects or whether additional languages might be used, especially in view of the fact that teachers in foreign-sponsored schools 10

The protocols and proceedings of this meeting are reprinted in: KimJji, ed. (1928), 381-397.

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already taught subjects in the language of the supporting country: French, English or German. It was agreed that in schools for boys Hebrew should be used at least for some of the general sciences, for history and for geography, whereas in the schools for girls, if possible, everything should be taught in Hebrew, with the exception of the foreign languages taught as such. Further debate ensued with reference to the creation of a unified curriculum for the elementary school and for its future extension to the elementary school structure after its completion. In order to implement further the goal of reviving the Hebrew language, the Teachers' Union voted at this meeting and at the following meeting in Gedera in 1904 in support of several courses of action. We have already discussed its decision to revive the defunct Language Council to coordinate, unify and expand the language.11 The Teachers' Union also decided to centralize the production of Hebrew texts for both teachers and students, and for this purpose established the Hebrew publishing company outlet Qohelet, thus freeing the teachers from the time-consuming and energy-wasting tasks of individually translating foreign texts. It also recommended the production of auxiliary aids for teaching in Hebrew in the form of maps, pictures, readers, as well as the setting up of a pedagogical library and bookmobile for adults. Series of Hebrew lectures and evening classes were to be inaugurated and summer courses to be run for teachers and interested laymen. Two journals to spread pedagogical information and innovations through the schools were to be issued under the auspices of the Teachers' Union, the teachers' monthly Ha-Hinukh and the students' monthly Moledet. These resolutions, adopted in 1903 and 1904, were realized in full during the following decade and more than any other single factor they galvanized the Yishuv into forming a unified educational and linguistic Hebraic whole. As we have seen, by 1903 Hebrew had become the dominant language of education in virtually every agricultural settlement. The colonies, with Hebrew as their dominant language, comprised, however, only about 5% of the student population. The cities presented a rather different picture. In 1903, 85% of the student population studied in the ten city schools sponsored by the French Alliance Israelite Universelle (in Jerusalem, Haifa, Tiberias, Safed, Zidon), in the one city school sponsored by the German Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden (the Lemel school in Jerusalem), and at the one school under the auspices of the English Anglo-Jewish Association (the Evelina de Rothschild school for girls in Jerusalem). The other 10% consisted of an assortment of traditional Jewish schools, mostly situated in the cities, but also located on scattered colonies. Thus, 11

See above, 91 ff.

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besides the colonies, very few other educational institutions were of any assistance to the cause of Hebrew. The one exception to this situation was to be found in the city of Jaffa, the main port of entry and the absorption center for the new immigrants, many of whom, as time progressed, were imbued with the new nationalist ideas. Just as the agricultural settlements had provided the model for Hebrew in the kindergarten and elementary school, so Jaffa was to be the setting for the development of the use of Hebrew in the high school. In 1890, an all-Hebrew school (apart from the teaching of arithmetric, which was carried out in Yiddish), was opened by Yisrael Belkind. In 1893, however it closed down for financial reasons and the more nationalistically minded elements among the population approached both the Lovers of Zion (Hovevei Zion) in Odessa and the Alliance Israelite Universelle in Paris for support. In the same year two schools, one for boys and the other for girls, were opened where, at first, general subjects, with the exception of arithmetic, geography and history, were taught in French. Such a policy was unacceptable to the Hovevei Zion, and after ten years of arguing, the school was entrusted in 1903 to the Alliance, while the girls' school was adopted by the Hovevei Zion. The girls' school began to function completely in Hebrew and moreover, in the years following, even the more traditionally minded Jews of Jaffa fell under the influence of Hebrew. Thus, in 1904 a group of such persons opened a modernized school (heder metuqqan) in Jaffa, the Ahawa heder, where the principal subjects were the Holy Books taught according to the Yiddish translation method while the general subjects, (in particular, arithmetic, history and Hebrew) were taught in Hebrew. Gradually, however, Hebrew took over as the only language of instruction, firstly according to the Ashkenazic pronunciation and finally, in 1909, the Sephardic pronunciation was adopted. This school expanded so greatly that the Tahkemoni philanthropic organization in Germany extended patronage to the school and in 1910 its name was changed to that of Tahkemoni School. A similar school was founded in Jerusalem during the same year called Heder Torah. Another important all-Hebrew school in Jerusalem was the Teachers' Seminary established by the Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden in 1904. These were the first all-Hebrew city schools and set the stage for the establishment of the first all-Hebrew high school. The general subject of higher education had been initially raised at the Teachers' Union meeting of 1903 by none other than Ussishkin himself, and the first steps in this direction had been taken in Jaffa in 1906, with the foundation of the Hebrew Gymnasium, later in 1910 renamed the Herzliyya Gymnasium. This school was set up by Dr. Yehuda Metmann-Cohen and began mo-

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destly, originally as nothing more than a glorified Hebrew-elementary day school. The school, however, was deliberately given the name of Gymnasium in order to reflect its future status as a European-styled educational institution in which world culture as well as Jewish culture were to be amalgamated in an effort to fulfil the main ideal of the revival, that of the 'whole Jew'. Because of the Second Aliya (1905-1914), and the continued growth of a middle class in Jaffa anxious about the future of their children as both respectable citizens and productive workers, this school gradually incorporated a full Hebrew commercial as well as a university preparatory course into its curriculum. By 1914, because of the remarkable success of the Gymnasium, the number of students on its rolls had risen to more than five hundred. (Indeed, the Second Aliya in general was crucial for the development and progress of Hebrew in the schools, since, for the first time, it brought to Palestine a flow of trained immigrants, both zealous and idealistic in spirit. These immigrants, moreover, already knew Hebrew, since they were products of a more modernized school system (the heder metuqqan) where Hebrew was taught as in Palestine, according to the Direct Method and according to the same texts as those of Epstein, Yellin and Grazovski. In this respect it is noteworthy that at the fifth meeting in Sejera of the Teachers' Union in 1907, the administration was handed over to teachers of the new Aliya and significantly, the Union's headquarters were transferred from Jerusalem to Jaffa.) The Herzliyya Gymnasium thus had become a national and cultural symbol of tremendous significance and greatly stimulated the Yishuv. The students regarded their teachers as cultural pioneers and saw themselves as the bearers of a special mission for their people and country. Following the success of the Gymnasium, two other high schools were founded in the following years, one in Jerusalem in 1909, the other in Jaffa in 1913. The progress of the development of the all-Hebrew high school altered the status of Hebrew from being the language of a small band of zealots and enlightened individuals to that of students and teachers in modern European-styled high schools, who constituted the new young intellectual elite of a growing country. Indeed, according to Arnon 12 , the period 1910-1913 marks the fruition of the young country's aspiration towards cultural and linguistic independence. In 1913, there were throughout the country, sixty-six all-Hebrew institutions, serving some 2600 students: 20 Hebrew kindergartens (10 each on the agricultural settlements and in the cities), 28 elementary Hebrew schools on the colonies and 6 in the cities (one in Jerusalem, two in Jaffa, two in Safed and one in Haifa), of which 17 had full 8-year programs, two high schools (Jaffa and Jerusalem), one 12

Avraham Arnon, "This History of Modern Hebrew Education in Israel", HaEnziqlopedia Ha-lvrit 6 (1956), 996.

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women teachers' seminary (Jaffa), one kindergarten teachers' institute (Jerusalem), two commercial schools (Jaffa and Jerusalem), an artists' school (Bezal'el, in Jerusalem), an agricultural school (Petah Tiqva). Now only a university structure was lacking. This was to arise as one of the results of the War of Languages of 1913-1914, to which we now turn. As we have seen above, the struggle of the Hebrew language against French had already been forecast before 1900, when Baron de Rothschild, after a series of revolts, relinquished his authority over the growing colonies and the Alliance teachers were discredited in the eyes of the colonists. By 1908 French had been eradicated from the colonies and Hebrew became the de facto language of instruction in all of these settlements. In the cities, too, French had occupied a strong position, but, similarly, after 1900, it began to lose ground. The chief linguistic rival of Hebrew in the cities however, was not so much French or even English as German. German was the linguistic symbol of the main Jewish philanthropic body, the Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden, which had been founded in Berlin in 1901 by Dr. Paul Nathan and Mr. James Simon as a rival to its French counterpart, the Alliance Israelite Universelle of Paris. The Hilfsverein chiefly sought to counteract the Francification program of the Alliance by attempting to adjust itself more to the wishes, needs and aspirations of the local communities where it had established itself (especially Eastern Europe and the Near East), while, at the same time, advancing the cause of the German language and culture. With this end in view, the Hilfsverein, with Jerusalem as its center, began in 1901 to set up an entire network of schools throughout the country, ranging from kindergartens to high schools. This task it accomplished both speedily and efficiently, so that by 1910 thirty schools in all parts of the country, with 3000 students and more than 100 teachers, came under its jurisdiction. In all of these institutions the role of Hebrew was at least as important as that of German, and in some of them, particularly the kindergartens and schools located in outlying and more inaccessible areas of the country, Hebrew enjoyed virtually the sole authority. German held a significant status rather in the more important cities of Jerusalem, Jaffa and Haifa. Within this setting, therefore, and with the dominance of Hebrew in all the colonies, one would have predicted in 1910 the eventual merging of the school systems of the colonies and of the cities, as well as the ultimate dominance of Hebrew within the school system as a whole operated by the Hilfsverein. However, even in 1910, events were beginning to take place that would have cast doubts as to the accuracy of such a forecast. Some of these have been well summarized by Aviezer Yellin, 13 himself a product of the Hilfs13

Aviezer Yellin, "The History of the War of the Languages-Its Jubilee 1914-1964",

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verein system. Although of all the foreign philanthropic bodies it was the most sympathetic to Hebrew, the Hilfsverein had always placed due emphasis on German language and culture, and, as Yellin points out, there existed at all times at least some friction between the Hebrew and the German teachers in the Hilfsverein schools. This was particularly the case among the younger Hebrew teachers and the veteran German staff. With the commencement of the decline of French in the agricultural colonies after 1900, and the general vacuum created there in the subsequent years, the cause of German was considerably strengthened, which in turn encouraged a bolder attitude on the part of the advocates of German in the Hilfsverein schools. The change in the delicate relationship between German and Hebrew could also be attributed to the growing German imperialist interest in the Ottoman Empire as a whole during the period before the First World War. The revelation of this interest coincided precisely with the time when the rising Jewish community, the Yishuv, was seeking increased cultural and linguistic independence and was therefore adopting a more provocative stance with respect to Hebrew and things Jewish. This growing nationalism led in particular to renewed demands on the part of Jewish groups for independence from foreign influence and can be seen as a direct outgrowth of the ideology of the Second Aliya (1905-1914). One of the main slogans of the Aliya was complete Jewish dominance over all farming and labor in Palestine, free of all outside jurisdiction, interference or philanthropy. From farming and labor, however, the ideology then spread to other spheres and institutions in the country, including the schools. The German Hilfsverein, however, established in 1901, had already adapted itself and its basic policies and goals to those of the First Aliya (1882-1904), which had been most urgently in need of foreign assistance. For this reason the Hilfsverein did not fully appreciate the shifts in attitude which had taken place in the country after the arrival of this new type of immigrant. Because of this failure to understand, and even more so because of a distinct reluctance to understand, the Hilfsverein, fostered by Germany's imperialist interests, made a fatal blunder and virtually wrecked the system it had built up with such efficiency. This act took place in 1913, but there were sporadic, token acts of demonstration against the stubbornness evinced by the Hilfsverein with respect to Hebrew even before that date. These incidents involved particularly the students of the Teachers' Seminary in Jerusalem and included their refusal to sign their Ha-Hinukh 6 (1964), 508-512; 7, 48-52; 8, 155-163. A complete study of the work of Ezra is that by Moshe Rinott, "The Educational Activities of the 'Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden' in Palestine (1901-1918)", Hebrew University Doctoral Dissertation, 1968.1 wish to thank Dr Rinott for allowing me to read his unpublished work.

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names in German, their declining to sing the German national anthem, walking out of classes, sending petitions of protest over the increased Germanization in the school, and so on. The atmosphere was already tense, therefore, in 1908, when the Hilfsverein embarked on the foundation of a Jewish technical school-the Tekhnion-in Haifa as the peak of both the educational structure of the country and of the activities of the I-Iilfsverein itself. This was to be a significant step for all concerned as it was hoped that the Tekhnion would encourage the development of manufacturing, science and industry, not only in Palestine itself, but throughout the Near East. Five years later, in 1913, the building stood near completion and plans were being drawn up for the curriculum. The question of the character of the Tekhnion was still open and had not as yet been discussed. This lack of any formal statement on the matter stirred many rumors, in particular, one which broadcast the fact that German would become the main language of instruction, not Hebrew. This fact aroused deep bitterness among the teachers of the Teachers' Union especially, for such a policy would only mean a perpetuation of both the cultural and the linguistic dualism they had fought against for so long. Moreover, this dualism was to be tolerated at no less than the highest level of education and in an institution with a promising future as a dyamic and vital force, not only in the country but in the region as a whole. In a memorandum to the Governing Board of the Kuratorium of the Tekhnion at the beginning of October 1913, the teachers stated this, their grievance, in so many words, adding that they appreciated the problems involved, in particular, that of the lack of Hebrew terms and texts in such subjects of higher learning, as well as that of the dearth of qualified and linguistically trained teachers. They were convinced, however, that time and the demands of teaching would produce the necessary results and materials. In the meantime, they wrote, some subjects could be taught in other languages, especially German, and then could be transferred to Hebrew as the language of instruction. This memorandum was ignored, however, and the Kuratorium met on October 26, 1913, as scheduled. The pro-Hebrew faction of the Kuratorium suggested a compromise against the explicit wishes of the Teachers' Union, namely, that German be the general language of instruction in the Tekhnion, while Hebrew would be the language of instruction in the high school section of the Tekhnion and also in one or two general science courses in the Tekhnion itself. This compromise was rejected by the proGerman majority and a further compromise motion was tabled, to the effect that in the high school section only geography and history need be taught in Hebrew. This compromise motion, too, was rejected. What seemed abundantly clear was the fact that the Hilfsverein simply did not

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want Hebrew to be used at all, either in the Tekhnion or in the high school. The majority of the Kuratorium decided that no language would be chosen as the official one for all courses, that Hebrew would be awarded special status in accordance with the Jewish character of the Tekhnion and that German would be adopted for teaching the natural and technical sciences, for, as "the most cultured modern language, it will provide a bridge towards the developing technology of the modern world." 14 This decision effectively gave the Tekhnion a distinct German character and relegated the use of Hebrew to the teaching of purely Jewish subjects, the exact opposite of the ideology current in the period of the Second Aliya. The pro-Hebrew minority, in protest at this decision, relinquished their posts. This gesture, however, was to be the least of the repercussions to the Kuratorium's decision. The first reaction to the Kuratorium's intentions took the form of a meeting of the students of the Hilfsverein Commercial High School and the Hilfsverein Teachers' Seminary, both situated in Jerusalem, one day after the Kuratorium's decision was announced. The students sent a memorandum with 85 signatures to the Representative Director of the Hilfsverein in Jerusalem, Dr. Ephraim Cohn. This letter demanded that Hebrew be selected as the language of instruction for all subjects of whatever type in all schools and at all levels, while German be taught as an indispensable foreign language. If their demands were not met, the students added, they would stage a walk-out. Dr. Cohn did not answer with the result that the students left their classes. These were but the first sparks in the conflict. The struggle was then transferred to the hands of the Teachers' Union, then under the leadership of Yizhaq Luria. He declared outright 'war' on the Tekhnion and called on the country's workers and institutions, as well as the general Jewish public at large, both inside the country and abroad, to band together in meetings of protest. The Union summoned a general teachers' meeting in Jaffa for the following day and a meeting of all the city's institutional representatives for the day after, while a public meeting would be organized on the Saturday afternoon, November 15, and another one on the following Monday. Even more importantly, the Union began to take steps to assume responsibility for the Hilfsverein educational establishment and immediately proclaimed that it was making plans to found a high school in Haifa to replace that of the Hilfsverein there. Further, the Union contacted the Committee in Odessa with a view to its stopping further collaboration with the Hilfsverein, and asked the Central Zionist Executive to assist in the defrayment of added expenses that would undoubtedly ensue. The Union also called on all teachers in 14

Yellin (1964), 158.

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the Hilfsverein schools to begin teaching everything in Hebrew and promised to institute a general strike of all the Hilfsverein teachers in the country if any were relieved of their posts on account of this. The result of this feverish activity is well described by Azaryahu: "Within a few days, there arose a large popular movement for schools with Hebrew from top to bottom! In all the cities and settlements, from Dan to Beer Sheva, there were gathered large protest meetings which set forth their opinions to the Kuratorium... and among them the demand to make Hebrew the dominant language in the new institutions which were to be opened in Haifa. This was an hour of general elation of the spirit, the likes of which every nation knows only in time of national danger; all of the vital elements in the Hebrew Yishuv united around the flag of the War for Hebrew which the Teachers' Union had raised... From city and rural settlement, from institutions, organizations and agencies, from farmer and worker, pious and freethinker-all gathered and strengthened the fight of the Teachers' Union." 15 A strike fund was set up by parents and students and supported by teachers, institutions and individuals from all classes of the population to such an extent that in less than a month 30,000 francs were collected. Teacher-student walk-outs and makeshift substitute classes were staged throughout the country. In theory the 'war' had originally been waged against the use of German in the Tekhnion; in fact, however, it had spread against the dominance of German in all schools and still further against the dominance of any foreign language or culture in any school in Palestine. On November 25, 1913, the teachers of the Hilfsverein schools in Jerusalem, the main center, entered the struggle, having until now remained silent. They handed to Dr. Paul Nathan of the Berlin branch, who had come to study local conditions at first hand, a memorandum demanding that Hebrew be used in all scientific subjects in all of the Society's institutions. At the same time, in Jaffa, the pupils, with the consent and encouragement of their parents, left the Hilfsverein schools, and the Jews of Jaffa decided to establish new Hebrew schools in their place. On Friday, December 5, still without any response from Dr. Cohn, the 85 students mentioned above who had originally sparked off the conflict sent Dr. Nathan a further memorandum signed by eighteen Hilfsverein teachers in Jerusalem, requesting a definite reply to their previous demands of October 27, within four days. If their demands were not met, the 18 teachers would also leave their schools, after a two month period during which time Dr. Cohn was to hire replacements. In the meantime, Dr. Cohn and Dr. Nathan began negotiating with the teachers who had not signed the memorandum, and an agreement was 15

Azaryahu in: Kimhi, ed. (1928), 91.

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reached to reopen the Seminary in Jerusalem. The day classes resumed, Dr. Cohn, accompanied by the German Consul-General and a number of policemen, entered the school premises and had the eighteen dissenting teachers expelled from the building, whereupon the pupils, in sympathetic protest, also left and classes were held across the street from the Seminary. In protest against this 'brutality' in Jerusalem, the teachers and pupils also walked out of the Hilfsverein schools in Haifa. Thus, by its stubborn refusal to adopt a flexible attitude, the Hilfsverein had succeeded only in alienating itself from the three main centers of the country- Jaffa, Jerusalem and Haifa, and by its foreign ideology it had also antagonized the agricultural settlements. Its future was bleak. On January 30, 1914, the Russian members of the Kuratorium of the Tekhnion, already pro-Hebrew, but having previously adopted an accomodating position with regard to the Hilfsverein's demands, expressed their opposition to the standing Berlin resolutions of October 26. In the middle of February, the American members followed suit, whereupon Dr. Nathan and Mr. Simon, the founders of the Hilfsverein, ordered the stopping of work on the Tekhnion and resigned. They were, however, too late. On February 22, 1914, the Tekhnion was completed although not opened. With respect to language, it was decided that, once it opened its doors, mathematics, and physics were to be taught there in Hebrew, while additional subjects would adopt Hebrew as the language of instruction as the language developed in scope. Teachers not acquainted with Hebrew had to undertake in their contracts to master the language within four years of teaching. In the high school section of the Tekhnion, Hebrew was to be the sole language of instruction from the outset, while German was to be given widest scope as a European language. The War of Languages was over: the battle for Hebrew was won. Ultimately of greater importance, however, is the fact that, as Arnon points out, "The participation of the Yishuv in the War over Hebrew and its identification with the stand of the teacher was a declaration to itself and to the outside world that it had taken upon itself to be a Hebrew Yishuv." 16 As Rabin writes, "For the first time a Jewish group acted towards its spoken language in the same way that European nations would have acted towards their national languages." 17 The Jewish Yishuv ('Settlement') of Palestine, by their voices and their actions, had placed their confidence in the future of the Hebrew language and had assured its place in the future of their country. World War I, although causing some damage to the country and its educational structure, could not dampen 16

Avraham Arnon, "Sixty Years of the Hebrew School in Palestine", Hed HaHinukh 9 (1947), 40. 17 Chaim Rabin, "Goremim Soziologiim Be-Toledot Ha-Lashon Ha-Ivrit" (New York 1967), 15.

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this spirit of confidence. In the census of 1916, fully 40% of the total Jewish population, 34,000 out of 85,000, declared that Hebrew was their first or daily language. 18 This included more than three-quarters of the children and one-third of the adults in the agricultural villages and in new Jaffa. Even in the country, as a whole, nearly one-half of the children were already Hebrew speakers. Only the Holy Cities resisted. There only 3% of the children could speak Hebrew. The Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, which viewed with favor "the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine", and the British Mandate of September 29, 1922, which stated in Article 22 that "English, Arabic and Hebrew shall be the official languages in Palestine", 19 and which recognized Hebrew as the language of the Jewish Yishuv in Palestine, merely gave official status to already established facts. Although Hebrew was to undergo many changes in the following years, particularly in the realm of vocabulary, in all its essentials its status as a daily language of a nation living in its homeland was assured by the victory in the War of Languages in 1914. Ben Yehuda's dream of thirty-five years previous had finally been realized: Hebrew had been revived.

18

On these and other pertinent statistics, cf. the article of Bachi, cited in the Bibliography. We also note that, if only young people under 15 are considered, a full 53.7% according to Bachi used Hebrew as their first or only daily language. According to Rabin, "The Revival of Hebrew", Israel Today (August 1958), the percentage was as high as 77% in Tel Aviv and the villages. 19 Cf. Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers (1922), 1-11.

VI

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF BEN YEHUDA'S SEVEN STEPS

In his pioneering work on Israeli society, Eisenstadt writes, "[One] major characteristic of the cultural sphere whose importance can hardly be overrated is the renaissance of Hebrew and its establishment as the common language of the Yishuv [Jewish Settlement]. It is beyond the scope of this analysis to explain the social and linguistic reasons for its success."1 This lack of sociological analysis of relevant linguistic topics is typical of virtually all sociological studies in the literature. This study has sought to partially remedy the situation with respect to one society at one particular time and to partially fill the gap in Eisenstadt's book. In particular, we have tried to begin explaining the success of the Hebrew revival in terms of seven projects initiated by Eliezer Ben Yehuda and elaborated and expanded by his followers, who were at first restricted to a small group of individuals centered in conservative Jerusalem, later spreading to nationalistic settlers on the rising agricultural settlements and finally reaching the laborers and workers in the newly developing towns and cities. In attempting to explain the revival in terms of Ben Yehuda's seven initiatives, we do not mean to imply that he was the sole factor in the revival, and have tried to indicate the several elements involved as well as the roles and influence of others, especially teachers, in the Hebraic renaissance. It cannot be stated too emphatically, and contrary to the impression given by many articles, that Ben Yehuda did not revive Hebrew either singlehandedly or otherwise, but rather, by his actions, he set the example to be followed by others. Moreover, as we have stated in the introduction to this book, Hebrew 1

Shmuel Eisenstadt, Israeli Society (Great Britain, 1967), 34-35.

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at the time was not a dead language which had to be artificially revived, but was, in fact, a flexible instrument of expression for many purposes, including even some topics of everyday conversation. As Cohn-Schachter notes, "Hebrew had lost only the language of the market and the kitchen." 2 The linguistic situation before the revival, especially among the Jews of Eastern Europe who came to Palestine, was such that the speaking of Hebrew, once begun, was almost natural. As Rabin points out, Hebrew at that time was "on the threshold of speech". Ben Yehuda, who himself was actually little different from others who had commenced using Hebrew, both in Palestine and in Europe, had even felt that the Hebrew of the late Enlightenment was sufficient for everyday purposes, as he wrote in his first article. For, as Rabin rightly states, "For one whose entire intellectual life took place in that language, speaking it offered no difficulty."3 In this connection, Blanc writes, Its [Hebrew's] most unusual feature was not that it was 'dead' [a much abused term] and had to be 'artificially revived', but that it was no one's mother tongue, and that there were no speakers of any dialects closely related to it. The language makers thus had to rely entirely on literary and traditional sources, and to impart the new standard not to speakers with related dialect substrata, but to immigrants with foreign [chiefly European] substrata. This posed a number of special problems, but it is by no means clear whether, on balance, the nonnative and heterogeneous character of the first speakers of Hebrew was a handicap or an advantage. 4

With the above facts in mind, we now turn to a closer examination of the effectiveness of the seven initiatives Ben Yehuda took in order to revive Hebrew. Reviewing them in this perspective, we may say that, if Ben Yehuda had been left solely to his own devices, the revival of Hebrew would not have succeeded, and his dream would have died with him. Rather, the society around him, in particular the young immigrants and their children, are ultimately those most responsible for the revival of the language. As Rabin writes, "It is hard to believe that Ben Yehuda would have succeeded in his propaganda for the speaking of Hebrew and for the use of Hebrew in the schools, were it not for the people of the agricultural colonies who wanted to break all connections with the Diaspora and therefore were also ready to go over to Hebrew." 5 Indeed, the truth of the matter is more along the lines sketched by Yudeleviz: "Much has been said... about the influence of literature in the matter (of the revival 2

Cohn-Schachter, "The Hebrew Language and Education", Shevile Ha-Hinukh 3 (1947/8), 218. 3 Both quotes from Rabin (1970), 1. 4 Blanc in: Fishman et al. eds. (1968), 237. 5 Rabin (1967), 15.

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of the language), the influence of the schools, the matter of publishing textbooks and children's books, but among all these important things the most important influence is forgotten-the influence of the society in which we live."6 Let us now examine the steps taken by Ben Yehuda within this society.

1. THE FIRST HEBREW-SPEAKING HOUSEHOLD

Of all Ben Yehuda's projects, this one was undoubtedly a success, in setting the example for others to follow and showing that the Hebrew language had within itself the capabilities of becoming a natural everyday language of the home, the language of a parent talking to a child. However, although Ben Yehuda succeeded here in what was perhaps his most daring project, paradoxically he also failed. Had he found himself in a different locale, for example in the environment of Jaffa, or on one of the more influential agricultural colonies such as Rishon Le-Zion, he could have succeeded still further in setting the example for others. Instead, Ben Yehuda chose to remain and live in conservative, tradition-bound Jerusalem, surrounded by many Orthodox fanatics who harassed him, excommunicated him and finally even jailed him for a time. That Ben Yehuda failed in his own surroundings is perhaps most dramatically indicated by the fact that after forty years of his efforts to revive Hebrew in Jerusalem, not more than 1% of the Jews of that city spoke the language at the beginning of the British Mandate. Furthermore, these Jews were mostly Sephardic Jews and therefore more sympathetic to the cause of Hebrew than their Ashkenazic brethren, even before Ben Yehuda's arrival in Jerusalem. Thus, of all places in the country, Ben Yehuda's home-base, Jerusalem, fared the worst in the revival of the language and only after his death on December 22, 1922, did Hebrew begin to win the attention of the residents of Jerusalem, inasmuch as it had now been declared the official language of the Jewish Yishuv under British jurisdiction with Jerusalem as its center. The fact that Ben Yehuda lived in Jerusalem, removed from the centers of innovation, resulted in the additional paradoxical fact that his speech played a very minor role in the revival of actual Hebrew speech. As we have shown, the true revival of Hebrew took place on the agricultural colonies, which Ben Yehuda was only able to visit at infrequent intervals, due to his other activities, including his other projects. Moreover, it is relatively clear that, even if he had been able to go to the settlements more often, Ben Yehuda would not have affected the revival, or, if he had, his influence would not have been great. For, as Brainin writes, β Ila-Zevi 90 (1897/98), 2.

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The author of the largest treasury of Hebrew words we have... would use in his living speech a small number of words.... He would struggle... with the pronunciation, would have difficulty in choosing his idiom and would not get [the words] out of his mouth without great difficulty. The Hebrew language in his mouth was pale. It lacked color and nuance. It was too cold and dry. Perhaps this was the influence of his... opposition to the old Hebrew flowery phrases which were too smooth and slick.7 Similarly, Kimhi notes, "His conversation... was not the conversation of the great... He was dry in his speaking. Even his conversational Hebrew was dry, hard."8 Tur-Sinai has made a very perceptive statement on the speech of the leaders of the entire period which deserves being quoted at this point in order to explain and appreciate in particular the speech of Ben Yehuda himself. It was... a curious sort of language which the fathers of Modern Hebrew started to speak. It was a... kind of mosaic work, a literary Hebrew, composed of phrases and quotations from Hebrew literature, i.e. especially those parts of the Bible that were read in synagogues, certain chapters of the Talmud and its commentaries, and religious poems and philosophical treatises which everybody who had some basic Jewish learning knew from prayers and studies.... It was a Hebrew consisting mostly of quotations from books, a literary and high-flown Hebrew, using... figurative phrases from poetic books, allusions rather than actual names for the things and ideas of the modern world.... It also involved difficulties owing to differences in the pronunciation of Hebrew and the different use of words and phrases.... As a matter of fact, the first generation, the scholars, writers and teachers of the first generation, did not actually learn to speak Hebrew. They knew some Hebrew from the sources and wrote and spoke Hebrew remembering those sources and combining phrases drawn from them. But the new population born in Israel... learnt Hebrew as a practical spoken idiom, and what before might have been literary quotations were for them words and phrases from actual life.9 Thus, it is even more clear that Ben Yehuda's personal brand of Hebrew played but a minor role in the revival. Nevertheless, we would like to know more about his form of spoken Hebrew, but, unfortunately, very few examples of his usage remain, these being confined to a few differences of word-usage. These include Ben Yehuda's use of amma for 'mother' (on the analogy of abba, father) in contrast to the Yishuv's imma; his use of bandura for 'tomato' (as in various Arabic dialects), in contrast to the Yishuv's agvaniya; his use of kozit for 'spinach' in contrast to the Yishuv's tered] his use of hen, hen and 'ahanhen for 'thank you' in contrast 7

Ha-Toren 10 (1933), 5.

8

Ha-Poel Ha-Zair 16 (1928), 11.

9

Tur-Sinai (1960), 12.

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to the Yishuv's toda, and his use of bexavod for please in contrast to the Yishuv's bevakasha. These examples are few, and yet, as very basic everyday words, they indicate some far-reaching differences in Ben Yehuda's speech patterns which unfortunately have been virtually lost.

2. THE CALL TO THE DIASPORA AND TO THE LOCAL POPULATION

As we have shown above, this step, taken at the very beginning of the revival, although it appears to be perhaps in theory a most logical form of action, nevertheless proved almost fruitless, since it evoked almost no enthusiastic response. The answer to Ben Yehuda's call for a linguistic and national revival would take time, a factor that Ben Yehuda, with his urgent sense of mission, did not and would not comprehend. His appeals and exhortations thus fell on unsympathetic ears in the early years of the revival, as we have seen, and he often thought the situation was hopeless. In general, the local population remained either apathetic or hostile to Ben Yehuda until after the revival of the language. As for those in the Diaspora, many to whom his appeals were addressed ultimately came to Palestine, and it was through these people and their children that Hebrew was revived, but they did not come in direct response to Ben Yehuda's early calls.

3. THE HEBREW-SPEAKING SOCIETIES

In our study above, we outlined the activities of two societes dealing with the problems of Hebrew speech which had been established in the main by Ben Yehuda, the Tehiat Yisrael Society and the Safa Berura Society. Whereas the first-named society dealt with other matters of national revival language, the second devoted itself completely to language problems. Very little information exists concerning the Tehiat Yisrael Society, particularly because it took the form of a secret society with as few written records as possible, preferring to disseminate its rules and proceedings by hand or by word of mouth. Mal'akhi has published certain of these records, and his conclusions are quite revealing for our purposes here. He writes, To the Jews of the Diaspora, the ideas of Tehiat Yisrael were vague and not sufficiently clear. Even in Israel the Society influenced only a handful, and it is even possible that its founders [Ben Yehuda and Yehiel Pines-J.F.] were its

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only members. From the work of Yaaqov Goldman it is possible that the Society did not even exist. In his article on Ben Yehuda, he writes, 'At that time, the idea formed between Ben Yehuda and Pines to form a society for the 'Revival of Israel' [Tehiat Yisrael], but for various reasons the idea didn't actualize." But even if it did, it did not influence the Yishuv. The good intentions of Ben Yehuda and Pines did not produce results.10

Thus, we see that the first of Ben Yehuda's societies achieved no substantial results towards his goal for reviving Hebrew. Membership was limited and the surrounding environment and ruling authorities remained hostile. Contrary to Goldman above, Ben Yehuda 11 notes that at least four families lived up to the Tehiat Yisrael tenet of speaking only Hebrew "even in the marketplace and on the street"; the families of David Yudeleviz, Yosef Meyuhas, Yehuda Grazovski and Arye Hurviz. However, four families was not a very significant number, and the very fact that Ben Yehuda is at pains to point out the fact leads one to suspect that they were the only four to listen to his ideas. As for the Safa Berura Society, although its format was more extensive and its functioning public, it too enjoyed little influence, if only because, as we have noted in our discussion above, it was so short-lived, with a total existence period of less than two years. This Society, however, encouraged the establishment during the 1890's and 1900's of many Safa Berura societies throughout the Diaspora, which adopted the same goals and ideologies as those of the parent-model in Jerusalem.12 We may therefore say that, as in our discussion of Ben Yehuda's first step above, he failed at home, but by his example and ideas he succeeded elsewhere. In the first case, 'elsewhere' indicated the agricultural settlements, in the second, it signified the Diaspora. The combination of these two sociogeographic groups ultimately brought about the success of the Hebrew revival by the utilization of Ben Yehuda's fourth field of activity, to which we now turn.

4.

HEBREW THROUGH HEBREW IN THE SCHOOLS

The introduction and spreading of Hebrew in the schools, the development of the Direct Method and more modern techniques of pedagogy, the establishment of an educational structure based on Hebrew-these factors more than any other effected the revival of Hebrew in the mouths 10

Eliezer MaPakhi, "A Secret Society for the Redemption of the Land", Horeb 8 (1944), 120-134. 11 Ben Yehuda (1918), 28-37. 12 These societies have been surveyed by Yisrael Klausner. Cf. his "The Pioneers of Hebrew in the Diaspora", Leshonenu La-Am 15 (1964).

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of the new generation. These achievements are to be attributed in the main to the efforts of the teachers on the agricultural colonies, and not to those of Ben Yehuda, whose teaching career was of approximately threemonths' duration. Although by introducing the Hebrew through Hebrew method into his classroom in Jerusalem he initiated the method's success, the original source of the idea was not Ben Yehuda's but Nissim Bechar's. Had it not been for Bechar's encouragement, Ben Yehuda would not have been able to exert this influence on the development of Hebrew in the schools. Rather, as we have already seen,13 Epstein would have replaced him as the influence in the schools. As for the establishment of a complete Hebrew educational system, Ben Yehuda, preoccupied as he was with his other projects and activities, played no real role in this sphere. For, as we have seen, the Hebrew revival took place on the agricultural colonies and in the newly populated cities, and not in the traditional cities such as Ben Yehuda's Jerusalem, where Hebrew through Hebrew had first been initiated. The individual teachers of Hebrew in the colonies, by means of their translations and preparations of school books and children's books, formed the spearhead of the revival, although it is true to say that Ben Yehuda did participate in this work. His influence in this sphere cannot, however, be considered decisive.

5. THE NEWSPAPER

The circulation and influence of Ben Yehuda's newspapers were indeed considerable and through them many readers became acquainted with novel ideas, concepts, techniques, sciences and philosophies, and hence broadened their outlook on the modern world while at the same time they became more enlightened and better informed about the world around them. What concerns us most here, however, is to what extent the readers also learned the new words Ben Yehuda introduced into his newspapers, or put differently, how far did the newspapers play a significant role in the linguistic revival. Ben Yehuda's assumption that a newspaper could achieve far more than literature and poetry in the sphere of the revival of the language proved correct, and some words were indeed learned through this medium. These new words, however, were learned piecemeal, precisely as they were created, and it is at least questionable whether these words could not have been learned more effectively and more quickly had Ben Yehuda proceeded differently. Thus, for example, it is open to discussion whether, for example, a few new words inserted in what was at best a weekly newspaper such as Ha-Zevi in a random and 13

Cf. 51 ff.

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unannotated fashion actually had a direct effect on the majority of readers. If Ben Yehuda had been truly convinced that the newspaper offered the most effective means of disseminating language material amongst the people, he could have approached this task in a more deliberate and systematic fashion, for example, by publishing weekly word lists on everyday topics together with their translations. In a letter to the editor of Ha-Zevi, for example, we read: A new newspaper, a new style.... The... papers are full of life.... How precious is the material! How alive the style! How sweet and uplifting is the language of life, movement and work, the language of the agricultural colonies!... And how dear to us are... the new and revived words which we meet most in the descriptions of the life on the agricultural colonies! But... most of the young readers (and this includes old readers) simply do not understand the new words and of course they will not remember them.... For example... we find: hatmad, ha-qaqtus, hit'aqlemut, avatihim, ha-qitoria, be-maamad ha-melay, ha-bandora, ha-zabbar, ha-aspargil, and so on. Even though most of the words are taken from the Mishna and the Talmud, their meaning lies hidden even from the young person who has read Talmud; and the great majority of the names of grain, fruits and vegetables are strange even to old and regular readers! Far be it from me to ask that [the newspaper] be a dictionary or primer... but I would like to suggest to the editor and his writers in the name of most of the young Hebrew readers, to translate at least the new and revived words into a European language for the benefit of the readers and for the expansion and acceptance of the words in our language.14

Ben Yehuda, in reply to this letter,15 does give a short bilingual word-list, the first to appear in his paper, and promises to comply with the reader's request in subsequent issues. This he does for one further issue only, and after that he stops. Similarly, even earlier, Dr. Masie had written to Ben Yehuda that "At the end of each year in the last issue (you)... should give an alphabetical listing of the new words and their place in the paper, so that your work will not be in vain", to which Ben Yehuda replies: "We will work as much as possible to heed the advice of our distinguished friend." 16 Nowhere, however, do we find such a list of words. In brief, Fuchs was right when he wrote "Ha-Zevi creates a language which perhaps only its steady readers know, and to every stranger who looks at it, it looks like a foreign language."17 It is clear, however, that Ben Yehuda approved of Dr. Masie's idea outlined above, for in an earlier book review, Ben Yehuda commended a writer for performing precisely such a service, that is, 14 15 16 17

Ha-Zevi 6 (1898/99), 23. Ha-Zevi (1898/99), 28. Both quotes from Ha-Zevi 18 (1893/94), 62. Ha-Maggid 6 (1898), 45.

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appending a glossary of new words to his book "so that everyone can find them easily. Truly the writer did a good thing." 18 If we ask, then, why did Ben Yehuda not supply such guides and word lists for his readers, certain answers suggest themselves. (1) In the short amount of time at his disposal for the preparation of his weekly paper, Ben Yehuda could not spare sufficient time to go through the columns one by one to pick out the Post-Biblical and newly revived words. (2) Moreover, even if he had been able to carry out such a task-if he in fact did so desire-Ben Yehuda, steeped as he was in traditional Hebrew literature, might have overlooked the non-Biblical word which to him did not seem as strange as it did to his readers. His newly created words likewise were incorporated quickly and naturally into his vocabulary and he would therefore be unaware of the difficulties these words posed for others. (3) Many of the revived or newly-created words were already in daily use in Palestine, whether in their Arabic or in their new Hebrew form, through the efforts exerted by Ben Yehuda, his family and others. Many of these new words were therefore already familiar to Palestinian readers from their daily conversation. Rather, they posed more of a problem for the Eastern European readers who lived far removed from the living Hebrew center. As we have seen, however, Ben Yehuda concentrated his activities among the Jewish settlements in Palestine, both old and new, and did not direct his energies towards the particular needs of the Jewish readers in the Diaspora. (4) After 1900, when the first pamphlets of his Dictionary became available, Ben Yehuda wanted people to buy these leaflets and therefore mounted a campaign in his newspaper to promote their sale. The first advertisement appeared in the Tehiat Ha-Lashon ['Revival of the Language' ] column in folio 54 of his newspaper for 1900/1901. This column usually appeared on the last one or two pages of his newspaper, but this time it was displayed on the front page, its caption forming the headline to the paper as a whole, and reading: "There has begun to be published the big book The Dictionary of the Hebrew Language in Modern Times, compiled by Ben Yehuda." (The italics are Ben Yehuda's.) Because he wanted people to purchase the pamphlets, Ben Yehuda forbore to explain the new or obscure words found in his articles. For example, Ben Yehuda affixes an asterisk to a word in the following folio (55) of the paper and adds in the footnote: "See the Dictionary of the Hebrew Language of Modern Times by Ben Yehuda." ι8

Ha-Zevi 18 (1887/88), 72.

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(5) What was perhaps a crucial reason for Ben Yehuda's failure to supply glossaries and word lists can be found in an anonymous article in T/a-^m itself which states, It is in the nature of our writers that they will not voluntarily concede anything, and never will they submit to the will of others. For example, if the editor of [Ha-Zevi] revives any word offhandedly, then little by little the writers will accept this word. But if he were to revive that same word in a special paragraph entitled 'The Revival of the Language' or some other name, then not only will they not accept that word, they will also be likely to laugh and mock at it. 19

That is, Ben Yehuda preferred not to draw attention to his new creations precisely because he wanted them unconsciously, almost naturally, to become part of the readers' vocabulary, without the artificiality of learning word-lists and the like. This last seems to us to be the most cogent reason for the non-appearance of the word-lists in the newspapers because it finds echoes in other material written by Ben Yehuda. For example, he writes, Every new creation of ours and every foreign word we tried to insert into our language was a... source of mockery and derision, and everyone found in 'our language' the place to take out their vengeance. But all this derision could not really do anything against the unquestionable necessity [of new creations], and many of our creations... already have become glorious citizens of our language, and many use them without knowing who their creator is. 20

In another context, he writes, "I succeeded in having many of them accepted gladly, and the best writers use them and they have already become common.... Their use in newspapers has spread so that already it is forgotten who their coiner is, and many who use them, if they knew who created these words, would outlaw them." 21 Whether his choices for new words were accepted or not, however, did not necessarily concern Ben Yehuda. He was more interested that new coinages be created and generally approved to express necessary concepts and ideas. General concensus and agreement on a unified usage, whether based on his innovations or not, was what Ben Yehuda strove to achieve and "the hope that the day will come when the nouns and usages will be clear and fixed, and there will not be in our language the chaos of the Tower of Babel generation" 22 was the wish he held most dear. As he writes, 19 20 21 22

Ha-Or 12 (1892/93), 58. Ha-Or 39 (1891/92), 160. Cf. the introduction to his Dictionary, 13. Ha-Zevi 6 (1889/90), 23.

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We are a simple laborer; we form bricks and the builders will come and construct from them a palace for our language.... We know that not all our creations will be accepted... that not all will become citizens in our language.... We know that our method in reviving the language is not correct in the opinion of many, even of the best writers and learned men whose judgment we admire and respect.... We know that from time to time we bring pleasure to those who like a joke, when we give them cause to laugh a bit about one of the words for which, in their opinion, it is good to [use] lofty phraseology instead of... a simple word taken from Arabic or... from... our wide literature.... And we are happy even with this little bit of pique we cause... (for) our feeling tells us that even if all the words we bring to our language are not accepted, at least a half, or a quarter of them will finally penetrate and their birthplace will be forgotten. 23 All this, however, by no means implies that Ben Yehuda did not consider that his creations in particular were not the best possible, or that he should not be given the chance and right to be heard. As he writes, It is... years since we have put all our heart into investigating the nature and spirit of our language, the way it composes nouns and verbs. We read the... literature from the Middle Ages, we paid special attention to the use of the language in the first days of the Talmudic scholars while the language was still alive.... We investigated and compared our language with Arabic,... all this with the particular aim of fixing new nouns and verbs for the concepts which aren't in our language... and our work has not been in vain.... The living speech which I and my whole family speak and which forces us to express our wants and thoughts in this language... all this gives me the right to think, that even if I am not above error, I am much further away from error in this than other writers, and even with respect to the matter of style and language in general, my approach is... better. 24 In the same vein as above, we read 25 that Ben Yehuda had wanted to compile an Appendix to his Dictionary of all the new words he had introduced into Hebrew through the medium of his newspaper. Unfortunately, this desire never materialized, although various of his neologisms are given in the Dictionary itself and are preceded by a special sign. We may assume, at least partly, that he did not have enough time to complete this task, although he had collected the rest of the material for the Dictionary before his death. Perhaps a better reason for the absence of any Appendix on the lines suggested can be drawn from the quotations above. Simply stated, if everyone were to know exactly which were the words that Ben Yehuda had created, these words might be rejected on grounds of personal jealousy, and the like. Ben Yehuda wished the words to be judged on their own merits, and not on their creator's. Thus, concerning «

24 25

Ha-Zevi 6 (1889/90), 23. Ha-Zevi 3 (1889/90), 12. Ha-Zevi 17 (1901/1902), 6.

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these neologisms in his Dictionary, he writes, "I brought in it a number of new words that I created in my work on this subject during the past... years to fill the gap still existing in our language with respect to new concepts.... All of these words are expressly indicated... so that the reader will immediately see that it is a new word, and if it is not fitting in his eyes let him consider it as if it never was and never had been created." 26 However, even those new words created by Ben Yehuda which were explained in his newspapers caused further difficulties because of absence of vocalization, at times confronting the reader with added obstacles. Various subscribers drew Ben Yehuda's attention to this fact, including Dr. Masie, 27 in the same article discussed above, and David Yudeleviz, whose humorous piece deserves quoting. I am crazy over one thing. I want to speak only Hebrew in my home. My wife... agreed to [this]... but only on the condition that every word that she doesn't know in Hebrew I have to tell her and also give her its complete inflection and explanation. Once my wife wanted to say to me 'sympathy' and she asked me: "How do you say 'sympathy' in Hebrew?" I immediately remembered that the Editor... wrote concerning this < ? h d h > , but how do you say this in speech with vowels? And what is its origin?-I began to stutter to her aha... ahi.... "Aha!" my wife cried out in the happines of victory, "I said to you that it isn't possible to talk only in Hebrew! Because many words are missing in it, and now please tell me how do you say 'sympathy'!" "God," I cried... "Send these problems to the language purists....!"-and my wife, standing by my side, cried out in a smile, "Now, so, I want to speak-you don't want me to say a nonHebrew word, do you- < ? hdh > , where does this word come from? And how should I say Ί sympathize': ani me ? ahedetl I took out the copies (of the newspaper) from my trunk and began searching, I found it and showed it to her. "Here it is written...!" Then she asked, "And from where did the [Editor] get it...?" Here I present to you a suggestion and a plea... please, my dear Editor, every time you present a new word in Ha-Zevi, vocalize it, and give its source and inflection in a footnote, and I will be freed of my wife's complaining. 28 Here again, the time factor involved in the preparation of the newspaper and the difficulties of type-setting must be seen as responsible for the fact that, in general, Ben Yehuda did not vocalize the new words. We would also stress the additional fact that, had Ben Yehuda vocalized his new words, they would, he feared, become instantly and obviously recognizable in the newspaper which was, as a rule, not vocalized, and they would therefore not be integrated successfully into the language. However, the spreading of new words was only part of the linguistic 26

A letter written by Ben Yehuda to Professor William Bacher of Budapest, undated. Hebrew Language Academy Archives, Ben Yehuda file. 27 Ha-Zevi 18 (1893/94), 62. 28 Ha-Zevi 11 (1900/01), 5-6.

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function of Ben Yehuda's newspapers. Perhaps more importantly, as we have seen, Ben Yehuda wanted to create a new style of Hebrew writing. In this, however, he failed, for his main base was still the Biblical Hebrew style. His attitude to style was too conservative, for Biblical style sounded artificial in the modern world, and connoted too close a reliance on a written text. As people began speaking Hebrew, they instinctively moved away from undue dependence on a given text, no matter how holy or revered it was, and adopted a style of Hebrew more in keeping with the Indo-European style of their mother-tongues, generally Yiddish, Rumanian, Polish or Russian. This form of Hebrew resembled the Post-Biblical Mishnaic style rather than the Biblical style. A further point is the fact that whereas the Mishna treats of more common, daily, commonplace matters, the mood of the Bible is more lofty and exalted. As Kreschevski writes, "In the spoken language everyone uses Midrashic (Mishnaic-J. F.) style, even the teachers who write pure Hebrew." 29 It is, however, uncertain whether Ben Yehuda had a true appreciation of matters of style. As Tamir writes, "Ben Yehuda did not feel exuberating freshness nor depressing boredom (in language). He only looked for words." 30 In the same vein Klausner writes: "In his style he united two extremes which cannot be joined: extreme novelty with conservatism. He used many Biblical forms which were antiquated even in the time of the Mishna." 31 Frischmann's comments, too, are instructive: For this type of work, some sense of taste,... of sound... is needed, which will always tell what is acceptable and what is forbidden.... Ben Yehuda did not... realize that everything which is acceptable for the language of the market is not acceptable for the language of a newspaper, and everything which is acceptable for a newspaper is not acceptable for a literary language. He brought... to the world of language a kind of freedom that no sensitive person could allow. 32

And, as Brainin writes, [The newspaper] was not free of artificiality, floridness, repetition of unnecessary words and phrases. There was not yet a difference between the language of the book... and the language of... daily speech.... There was lacking the flexibility of a living language. There were not a few hesitations and doubts with respect to the real meaning of individual words and expressions... In brief, the linguistic material was still raw, and the form-unstable and weak. 33

29

Mordekhai Kreschevski, "The Correcting of Pupils' Compositions", Ha-Hinukh 2 (1911), 112 ff. 30 Noab Tamir, Seminaristim Be-Maavag Am (Tel Aviv, 1963), 76. 31 Yosef Klausner (1939a), 133. 32 David Frischmann, Kol Kitve David Frischman (Poland, 1937), Vol. 7:979. 33 Ha-Toren 10 (1933), 4.

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Moreover, as if unknowingly substantiating the above comments, Ben Yehuda himself writes, "We have chosen... to prefer the fullness of the language, its breadth and power, to its beauty." 34 Ben Yehuda's main interest, then, in the language was in words, not style. His chief aim was to add words, to make the language 'full' and 'broad'. As with his words, Ben Yehuda never claimed that his views alone provided the final answer to questions of style. As he himself writes concerning his style, "We know that this (style) is like a jargon, and we do not think that as it now stands it is fine and good." 35 Ben Yehuda preferred to consider himself with regard to questions of style as again the "simple laborer who builds bricks and others will follow." Indeed, the main forerunners and molders of Modern Hebrew style had no connection with Ben Yehuda and exerted their influence from the Diaspora, not from Palestine, which, understandably, was a milieu too young and inexperienced to produce anything of outstanding merit in the early years of the revival. Chief among these writers were Asher Ginsburg (Ahad HaAm) in the field of non-fictional prose, Shalom Yaaqov Abromoviz (Mendele Mokher Sefarim) in fiction and Haim Nahman Bialik in poetry. These, as well as other writers opposed, at least initially, the revival and use of spoken Hebrew, and would refer to it variously as the "language of tricks", "children's speech", "a foolish habit" and "Gentile Hebrew". Ben Yehuda's style, therefore, was not a success, neither in its spoken, nor in its written form. After 1895, and especially after 1903, the circulation figures of his newspapers as well as its standards began to decline because of differences of opinion over Ben Yehuda's support of the Baronial administration of the settlements on the one hand, and his support of Herd's Uganda plan for a Jewish home in East Africa rather than in Palestine on the other. Thus, Klausner writes in 1903: "In the last two-three years,... [the newspaper] has gone down considerably. It is small and poor in its quantity and even its quality is not worth much.... A newspaper is needed in Palestine." 36 With the commencement of the Second Aliya in 1903-1905, many of the dynamic elements in the country began turning their backs on traditionalist Jerusalem and its spokesman, Ben Yehuda, and devoted their interests to Jaffa, the agricultural colonies and the expanding workers' movements. They gave their support to the main newspaper of the Second Aliya, Ha-Poel Ha-Zair (The Young Worker), which was founded in 1907 partly as an antidote to the "maudlin, melodramatic, baroque and old fashioned" newspapers of Ben Yehuda. After 1903, 34

Cf. for example the remarks by Moshe Leib Lilienblum in 125 if. 35 Ha-Zevi 39 (1891/92), 160. 36 Ha-Shiloah 12 (1903/04), 285.

Ha-Shiloah 3 (1898),

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therefore, even the newspapers of Ben Yehuda failed in their attempt to revive the language. For Ha-Poel Ha-Zair adopted as its style the synthetic Mishnaic Hebrew of the Diaspora writers, in particular that of Asher Ginsburg (Ahad Ha-Am), as if in defiance of Ben Yehuda's more Biblical style of writing. Kressel gives us an impression of the Second Aliya's opinion of Ben Yehuda's newspaper: The newspaper is low, small, petty... an extravagant style... overstatement and exaggeration, a pathetic style.... The reviver of the Hebrew language reached a Hebrew style in his newspaper the like of which is difficult to find in all the literature and Hebrew journals outside the realm of Ben Yehuda's home. It was a style free from all attempts to being of Hebrew base. It was a type of showing off in which no type of phraseology was used from the sources but rather all is for the sake of newness.37 In the period after 1900, moreover, Ben Yehuda had virtually entrusted the newspaper to the care of his son and had begun giving his attention almost exclusively to his Dictionary. As IJemda Ben Yehuda writes, The newspaper we had already given a long time ago to Ben-Avi, who had grown up in this and been trained in this. What was good and right in his eyes he could do in it, as long as it remained an instrument for spreading light in the life of Jerusalem, which was still dark, [and] as long as it was used as a means for publishing all the neologisms and necessary terms for spreading the Hebrew language in the country and for the complete dominance of the language. Only from the side did Ben Yehuda interest himself in the newspaper, and all his time was devoted to the Dictionary. Only to the Language Council did he still give of his time.... He did not participate in gatherings or public events, unless his participation was most urgently demanded. He did not visit friends and even at home, at the time for receiving guests, he stayed in his workroom and only for a few moments would come out to greet the guests.38 To sum up, then, Ben Yehuda's newspapers played a dominant role in the revival of the language in particular during the First Aliya, that is, until 1903. Thereafter, their influence declined rapidly, their place having been taken by the journal of the Second Aliya. Ben Yehuda during this period continued to exert a diminishing personal influence on his paper, his attention being directed to his Dictionary and 'his words'. Even during the period when the newspapers enjoyed their greatest prestige, however, Ben Yehuda's positive influence on the language was wielded not in the realm of style but rather in the sphere of individual words.

37

38

Both quotes from Kressel (1964), 97-98, 101.

Hemda Ben Yehuda (n.d.), 9:10.

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THE DICTIONARY

Of this project, Ben Yehuda was to write in later years, "He whom God wishes to severely punish, He decrees upon him to be a dictionary compiler. ... The life of the compiler is like living in Hell." This task, which was to cost Ben Yehuda so much time and effort that even he was forced to admit that, "If I had known this was what it would entail, I never would have begun", 39 must also be judged wanting if, as Ben Yehuda repeatedly stated, the Dictionary's main purpose was to "be a useful book to the reader of our ancient and modern literature and especially for he who wants to write or speak Hebrew". 40 Only five volumes covering only twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet appeared during the formative years of the revival and the first only in 1909. Thus, during the most critical years of the revival (1881-1900) there existed no such Dictionary for the benefit of the common reader. Ben Yehuda realized this deficiency and very early applied himself to finding a solution to the problem. The simplest method, one would have thought, to introduce the necessary Hebrew words into circulation would have been to devote column space to word lists with their equivalents given in the principal European languages familiar to his readers: Russian, Yiddish, German and French. Surprisingly, however, very little recourse is given to this means of popularizing new words in his newspapers. 41 Annotated words and words to which an asterisk is affixed also appear rarely in his newspapers, as we have seen above. 42 Discussion of new words was limited to the language columns in his newspapers and even there, as we have noted, such features were infrequent occurrences. For a time, interestingly enough, the newspaper did serve as a means for the publication of his Dictionary leaf by leaf, as it appeared. Ben Yehuda adopted this procedure as a service to the average reader whom, he felt, would be unable to defray the cost of acquiring the complete Dictionary, whose length at one time he had estimated in his naivete would not overrun a thousand pages. If he printed the Dictionary piecemeal, as a column, in his newspaper, it would lie within the grasp of all his readers, as well as being accessible to so many potential users. As Hemda Ben Yehuda writes, "Ben Yehuda decided to publish his Dictionary weekly on the corner columns of his newspapers, in a way that everyone could cut it out, and later connect all the sections and have a Diction39

Both quotes from Ben Yehuda (1909/58), Vol. 1:24. Ben Yehuda (1896), 8. 41 We mention in particular the lists he gives in his newspaper of 1903, folios 15, 16, 17 and 18, pp. 123, 127, 137 and 147, respectively. These cover a total of 28 words altogether. 42 Cf. 64 ff. 40

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ary!... W h o will not want to buy the newspaper for a poor penny and alongside it get a free Dictionary." This idea very soon came to nothing and only five such Dictionary leaves appeared. As Hemda Ben Yehuda continues, " H o w childish this idea was Ben Yehuda understood quickly enough when he saw the first sections rubbed out and smudged by the fingers while reading the newspaper, because it was published on poor paper." 4 3 Another way to remedy the absence of a Dictionary for use by the common man during the critical years of the revival could have been to popularize the sample monographs Ben Yehuda wrote, the first of which appeared in 1896, although the second was published only in 1901, five years later. However, these monographs, ultimately ten in number, were composed chiefly for the benefit of scholars who would thereby validate the Dictionary's scientific and cultural worth and thus indirectly promote its publication. They were not intended to be sold to the ordinary reader. As a whole, the monographs covered only the first two letters of the alphabet and therefore, from a practical point of view, contributed little to Ben Yehuda's overall purpose of popularizing new words. Ben Yehuda also made his own contribution in the field of bilingual pocket dictionaries, publishing two, a Russian-Hebrew edition which appeared in 1899 and contained over 30,000 entries, a second edition of which was produced in 1905 with Yiddish additions by Yehuda Grazovski, and a Hebrew-Russian-Yiddish dictionary which was published in 1902, with 15,000 entries. The contribution of these two dictionaries to the language revival was positive and considerable since, although their preparation had been based on Ben Yehuda's scholarly researches, they were in fact directed towards the needs of the average man and therefore assumed an immediate, useful and practical role in this sphere. Simple, brief translation-equivalents were given for the various entries, with a minimum of abstract scholarly discussion or etymological comments. Perhaps more such dictionaries were needed, and not the compendium Ben Yehuda envisaged. The notion of a Dictionary for the common man as envisaged by Ben Yehuda actually seemed naive to some at the time. As Avi-Dor comments sarcastically, These naive people see their people, this chosen people, the people of the Book, the people of the spirit, sitting and worrying many years now and genuinely miserable over the lack of a 'Dictionary of the Hebrew Language'.-"How can I take a Hebrew book in my hand, when I have free time, when I don't have a good Dictionary by my side to explain the difficult words..."-thus will claim and complain the Jew steeped in sorrow and hiding shamefaced.... "Because every other language is built on its Dictionary and our Holy Tongue is down43

Both quotes from Hemda Ben Yehuda (n.d.), Chapter 9:10.

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trodden, destroyed, and desolate. The people of every other nation sit and derive pleasure from the Encyclopedias arranged and shining in their cases from behind the glass of the bookcase, sit and savor their great wide lexicons and as for u s we don't have an Encyclopedia, nor a Lexicon, nor a Treasury of Judaism,... and where will we hide our shame? Where will we run?" And all the Jews, saddened and ashamed, sit and wait... for the time of miracles, when the blessed hour will arrive, when the great Trumpet is sounded to herald and proclaim: "... Arise thou Hebrew language... thy Redeemer cometh, from atop the Holy Mountain is heard the voice of Ben Yehuda heralding the publication of the Dictionary of the Hebrew Language. Here is the work before thee.... And immediately all the Jews will come thronging...." 44

The real aids to the common man in the field of new words proved, therefore, to be the word lists, the bilingual dictionaries in pocket format produced by Ben Yehuda and others, and not the Dictionary, which in its final form became more of a scholar's reference work and was in fact bought mainly by teachers and other erudite workers, not by the ordinary reader. The Dictionary, too, then, can be written off as a failure since it did not reach the layman for whom it had initially been compiled. Moreover, even as a scholarly work, the Dictionary's value was debatable. We have already noted above45 how unprepared Ben Yehuda was for serious scholarly work and how unsystematic were both his approach to and methods of research. It is clear that Ben Yehuda was not himself a scholar and did not adequately control the materials of his Dictionary. As a Jew, Ben Yehuda knew both Hebrew and Aramaic, but his knowledge was not scientific and ordered. With this intuitive background, the acquisition of the Canaanite languages and (Northern Classical) Arabic and its dialects did not pose especially difficult problems for him. When at work on the Dictionary, Ben Yehuda, not being a philologist, was unable to read Akkadian and Ethiopic and generally was forced to rely on secondary sources. This applied also to Egyptian and Coptic which languages, according to Gemzer,46 Ben Yehuda also investigated in the course of his researches. With respect to Akkadian, Ben Yehuda acknowledges the assistance offered by Father Dhorme and mentions the dictionaries of F. Delitzsch and Muss-Arnolt. Albright recalls having helped Ben Yehuda with Egyptian and Coptic.47 Being a self-taught layman in these matters, Ben Yehuda, by unwittingly restricting himself to Ancient Aramaic and Northern Arabic languages, added considerably to the difficulty of his task, since he neglected the 44

Ha-Zevi 17 (1901/02), 1-2. P. 71 ff. 46 Quoted in Ben-Dor, ed. (1947), 66. 47 William Albright, "Eliezer Ben Yehuda", Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society 3 (1923). 45

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Steps

existing literature on Modern Aramaic and (Ancient and) Modern South Arabic dialects, both of which tongues could have been of considerable assistance to Hebrew, since they constituted further living remnants of extinct Semitic tongues other than Arabic. The above stricture also applies to the Semitic languages and dialects of Modern Ethiopia, which in addition to Classical Ethiopic, were unknown to Ben Yehuda. Bialik writes, in connection with Ben Yehuda's Dictionary, "It is not very scientific.... He was not a specialist but a dilettante." 48 In Zifrinoviz's opinion, "From the abundance of material collected from many and various books, sometimes important and known words are missing or not explained correctly.... Sometimes Ben Yehuda puts doubtful explanations and dubious opinions in his Dictionary as if they were established facts." 49 Avrunin 50 and Avineri 51 cite particular examples of errors and omissions from the Dictionary, including some indicating faulty understanding of texts, faulty pointing, faulty spelling and spurious forms. The layout of the Dictionary has also been subjected to criticism. Regarding Ben Yehuda's adoption of the Thesaurus method, Zifrinoviz continues, "For main concepts he brings also all pertinent words according to their similarity and associativeness in ideas. However, this... is too broad.... Almost every concept can be brought into connection with a great number of others." 52 As for the citation method, Bialik writes, "It is artificial broadening which is not needed. For every word there are all sorts of citations, not emphasizing nuances but to multiply the number of volumes." 53 For example, as Epstein points out, "The citations are not only many, but also long.... He sometimes brings an entire sentence or a long paragraph. Next to the word ken 'yes' are 210 examples comprising 24 columns, next to the word lo 'no' 335, next to ahaz 'hold' 58, next to lakah 'take' 175."54 With regard to the entries, Tur-Sinai writes, "There is almost no root in the language whose meaning does not have to be changed, either wholly or in part," 5 5 while Sivan, with regard to the definition of entries, writes, "The form of the definition of words is very different from the perfected and meticulous definition of the dictionaries of our time." 56 48

Bialik (1935), 208-209. Aharon Zifrinoviz, "A Work Unique in Kind", Ha-Shiloah 24 (1921), 68-69. 50 Cf. the various articles by Avrunin in Leshonenu cited in the Bibliography. 51 Yizhaq Avineri, "On Errors in Dictionaries", Leshonenu La-Am 17 (1966), 35-96. 52 Zifrinoviz (1921), 68-69. 53 Bialik (Tel Aviv, 1935), 208-209. 54 Yizhaq Epstein, Mehkarim Be-Pesikhologia Shei Lashon We-Hinukh Ivri (Jerusalem, 1947), 333. 55 Tur-Sinai, "Work on the Hebrew Dictionary", in: World Congress of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem, 1947), 90. 56 Sivan (1961), 39.

49

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In fact, the whole scope of the Dictionary has been called into question. Rabin notes, "[The Dictionary] is far from recording the entire vocabulary of the... sources."57 Bialik comments, "The tragedy is that he did not even cover all the language. It is not in the power of one man to do this." 58 The number of Hebrew works extant to be examined is estimated, according to Ben-Hayyim,59 at "approximately 30,000". Similarly, Zinger writes, It is... doubtful whether all the main points in the explanation of many words, which even the giants among the commentators of all generations left aside, can be explained with certainty by one man only, if all the concepts old and new in the different branches of learning and the sciences, if all the kinds of animals and birds and many things in every corner we look... [can] be named by one man even if he is a very learned writer like Ben Yehuda or even greater than him. 6 0

Assuming, however, even some measure of completeness in its scope, the Dictionary still remains faulty, in its periodicization of the various eras and ages of the language. Zifrinoviz notes the lack of a clear system on the part of Ben Yehuda with respect to Hebrew words in the Talmud, some of them being incorrectly listed as Medieval, and to Greek and Latin words in the Talmud. Shakheviz writes, further, "Ben Yehuda's Dictionary... states in which period the word entered into use, but it does not give examples of its use in periods after its entry into the language, and there are even times when it doesn't even do this. However, when it doesn't, this does not at all mean that the word in question is not found in these periods." 61 Even more cogently, Bacher notes, "It is... a genuine fault of the Dictionary that nineteenth-century (Pre-Modern) words are not given a special sign and that Ben Yehuda disparaged the Enlightenment period so much." 62 Moreover, the entire basis of the Dictionary has been called into doubt by Ben-Hayyim. He considers the Dictionary too atomistic and piecemeal and that even when it was published it was outdated. As he writes, Its format was fixed when the author began his labors eighty years ago.... The Dictionary, by its very nature, only deals with details, every detail taken by itself 57

Chaim Rabin, "Sources for a Modern Hebrew Vocabulary", in: Aharon Dotan and Shlomo Ketko, ed., The Academy of the Hebrew Language (Jerusalem, 1963), 18. 58 Bialik (Tel Aviv, 1935), 208-209. 59 Zeev Ben Hayyim, "Composing the Historical Dictionary of the Hebrew Language by the Hebrew Language Academy", Leshonenu 23 (1959), 102. 60 Abraham Zinger, "Concerning the Hebrew Language and Its Expansion", HaMeliz (1902), 274. 61 Boaz Shakheviz, "Vocabulary Layers in Divre Shalom We-Emet of Ν. H. Wessely", Leshonenu 32 (1968), 304, footnote 1. 62 Ha-Zofe Me-Erez Haggar 1 (1911), 47.

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since... the way of looking at language in those days was historical.... As a whole the book falls short of our needs.... In truth the compilation of a lexicon of a language spanning three thousand years is so formidable a feat that only an intrepid individual like Ben Yehuda could ever have dreamt of being able to accomplish it. 63

Ben Yehuda, however, should not be taken too heavily to task for his scholarly errors. As he himself writes in the first sample pamphlet of his Dictionary, "a forty-page booklet... badly printed on cheap yellow paper",64 From all that we have said above the reader should understand the extent of this work and all the hardships of work which the author had in compiling this book, and he should deal with him kindly and forgive him his many errors and omissions from which a large work cannot escape, especially a work new in so many matters.... The author knows that many new things were discovered in language investigation in the last years, and he did not get to see them. He knows certainly that he missed many things and especially in citations. In many things he has most suredly erred. But even with all this he is pleased that the book has been compiled... and it should not fall due to these errors. 65

Moreover, Ben Yehuda never claimed that his Dictionary was even a complete dictionary of the Hebrew language. As he writes, "There is no doubt in the matter that even after all my work and effort, much has been left out, ...I even have gathered additions and comments."66 Similarly, he adds, "In it are all the words of the Bible and most (italics mine-J. F.) of the words from Talmudic literature and the new literature which our writers are accustomed to use."67 Further, he states, "I am not exaggerating if I say that in this Dictionary come almost all the words in our language as it is now in our hands, from the Bible, the Talmud and Midrashim, to the words in our scientific literature and the words coined in recent times."68 It is quite clear from this that Ben Yehuda never intended his Dictionary to be regarded as a work of pure scholarship. Indeed, it was only in 1896, on the advice of Professor Samuel Krauss, a scholar who had come to visit him, that Ben Yehuda began changing the nature of his work from 63

Zeev Ben-Hayyim, "A Hebrew Dictionary on Historical Principles", in: Fourth World Congress of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem, 1968), 428. 64 St. John (1952), 193. es Ben Yehuda (1896), 12. 68 Ben Yehuda (1896), 24-25. 67 Ben Yehuda and Steinberg, Millon Ivri Meturgam Ashkenazit Ha-Medubberet Ben Ha-Yehudim We-Russit (Vilna, 1905/6), Introduction: 1. 68 Ben Yehuda and Grazovski, Millon Russi-Ivri-Ashkenazi (Warsaw, 1899/1900), Introduction: 1.

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"a purely national one to a scientific one". 69 As Hemda Ben Yehuda writes, "Our first and foremost duty was: to the nation, the language and the land. To science?-Only as an afterthought did we do what we did. At the base of all was the nation, to that and only to that were our lives dedicated."70 In the same vein, Tur-Sinai writes, "All this gigantic work of gathering material from innumerable books, newspapers and written manuscripts, and ordering it into a Dictionary, Ben Yehuda did, not because he was entranced by learning and found personal satisfaction in research, but in order to give nourishment to the impoverished soul of the nation."71 Ben Yehuda, then, had no pretensions to being a scholar. For him, actually, "the principal of all principals was the newspaper";72 "On it was his pride; it was his child of delight." 73 And he only gave it up, as we have seen, because of nationalistic reasons. Thus, Ben Yehuda writes, Because of the many matters in the past months we have not been able to devote space in our papers to articles dealing with the revival of the language, because our first duty, we think, is to give to our reading public all the news and the deeds which are done and being newly enacted in the entire world, everything which can interest our readers and bring them some use or pleasure. The news and daily events are things that time necessitates and it is impossible to defer them. The theoretical discussions about the revival of the language, however dear they are to our heart, we fell it our duty to our reading public to put them aside until the appropriate time, when we can devote space to them without any other important or urgent matter.74 In many respects, moreover, it was just as well that Ben Yehuda was not, in fact, a true scholar. He himself admits, It is good... that I didn't know at first what I was taking upon myself, because there is no doubt that if I had seen what this work entailed, how big and broad it was, and how hard, I certainly would not have found the strength to begin it.... Scholars in this field know how great, how vast and how difficult is the work of compiling a Dictionary such as this, and they retreat. I at first had no such project in mind... and afterwards, when I saw that I would have to do such work, I didn't know what it was, I didn't see all its size, and I didn't feel its difficulty.... The better that it happened so! 75 However, even from a strictly scholarly viewpoint, Ben Yehuda may be 68

Hemda Ben Yehuda, (n.d.), Chapter 5:2. Hemda Ben Yehuda, (n.d.), Chapter 8:3. 71 Naftali Tur-Sinai, "The Scientific Work of Eliezer Ben Yehuda", Leshonenu 8 (1937), 86-90. Reprinted in Ben-Dor ed., 72-73. 72 Hemda Ben Yehuda (n.d.), Chapter 5:3. 73 Rabbi Binyamin (1960/1), 17. 74 Ha-Zevi 6 (1894/95), 23. 75 Ben Yehuda (1909), Introduction: 6. 70

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forgiven. As Tur-Sinai writes, "It is clear that like every researcher, Ben Yehuda was not free of errors in his work... But many of these mistakes... are not mistakes if we will only understand completely the... intention of their originator. Ben Yehuda, for example, explains this word or that as a new word with a new meaning while at the same time we do not see in it anything but a known word in its regular meaning. But is Ben Yehuda, according to his methods and goals, required to give also this other possibility, because maybe, in spite of all this, there is a new word here in our vocabulary? Is he allowed to leave aside a single shoot which perhaps can give a branch to flower, and give fruit in the vineyard of the language?" 76 Similarly, the fact that one man had taken upon himself the difficult task of composing a dictionary singlehandedly is not to be criticized for it is clear that virtually all great dictionaries were the work of one of two persons. The dictionaries cited by Ben Yehuda as influencing his own work were all so compiled. 77 Taken as a whole, and within its total context, then, Ben Yehuda's Dictionary must be considered a monumental work arousing both awe and admiration. But it did not substantially further the cause of the language revival except perhaps emotionally, in that it did bring some lukewarm persons to express a newly discovered pride in 'their language' and also perhaps psychologically, in that it proved to some skeptics that Hebrew was a language like every other language, since it now possessed a lexicon on which it could be based. For many people believe that a language is based on its dictionary. Therefore it follows logically that a language without a dictionary is simply not a language but only a dialect or jargon bereft of the prestige that is conferred automatically on what is accepted as a true language. Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic-Talmudic Hebrew, for example, had dictionaries and were therefore considered languages. Medieval and Modern Hebrew did not, and were for this reason relegated to the class of secondary, unimportant appendages to the classical Hebrew language. Ben Yehuda's Dictionary demonstrated the untenability of this thesis with respect to Modern Hebrew. A new, revived language for a new, revived nation had appeared on the stage of history.

7. THE LANGUAGE COUNCIL

We have already noted above how limited a role the Language Council could play in the early years of the revival, handicapped as it was by an 76 77

Tur-Sinai (1937), 86-90. Cf. p. 72 if. above.

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unjustified apathy towards its work and its shortage of funds. As Silman writes, in connection with the work of the Council, "A bunch of foolishness, less than half a word a year per man... has been created." 78 The transformation of the Language Council into an effective instrument which could influence the growth and development of the language was achieved by the joint action of the teachers and the Teachers' Union, and was not effected in any way by Ben Yehuda. As for his personal influence on the work of the Council, we have already noted that Ben Yehuda was responsible for the drawing up of the Council's protocols, and thus in a certain sense he can be said to have determined its work and functioning. From a reading of the Council's proceedings, however, it becomes evident that general agreement on the main spheres of the Council's activities had already been reached before Ben Yehuda wrote the Protocols, and therefore his role became more or less a secretarial activity. Of the four main tasks with which he confronted the Council-the creation of a unified terminology, the unification of its pronunciation, the unification of the spelling system and the fixing of grammatical forms-his individual ideas were rejected in those areas into which he personally had ventured. This refers in particular to the firstand last-named tasks, since for the questions of spelling and pronunciation the Council's Vice-President David Yellin assumed the principal responsibility. With respect to the creation of a unified terminology, general agreement on the procedures Ben Yehuda had originally incorporated in the Council's protocols was early reached. In 1914, however, Ben Yehuda addressed the Council, placing before it two further suggestions he wished to make: to make use of all the roots found in Arabic dictionaries in order to form new Hebrew terms, since the "two languages were originally one and the same," and at the same time to employ every possible combination and permutation of the twenty-two Hebrew consonants with a view to creating new triliteral verb-roots. Both of these motions were rejected by all the members of the Council on the grounds that they were at best "impractical", "unnatural" and "unrealistic", and at worst "antinationalistic" "unpatriotic" and an "insult to the Hebrew language". 79 Regarding the issue of the fixing of lingustic forms, we have already mentioned that in 1913 Ben Yehuda had introduced the motion to use Mishnaic Hebrew forms even in cases of conflict with Biblical Hebrew forms. Over this question, too, he was opposed by all the members of the Council with the exception of one, Dr Masie. 78

Qaddish Yehuda Silman, "About This and That", Ha-Poel Ha-Zair 20 (1912/13), 14-15. 79 These lectures and the general discussions which followed are preserved in the Zikhronot Waad Ha-Lashon of 1914.

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To explain these facts we must examine the Council's own concept of its role in the language revival, as well as consider Ben Yehuda's standpoint regarding both the Council's and his own mission towards the achievement of the greater goal of the language revival. Ben-Asher80 has distinguished two views the Council might have adopted, a rationalistic view symbolized by Ben Yehuda, who looked at Hebrew as one continuously developing language with no phase intrinsically preferable to any other, and a romantic view as symbolized by David Yellin, who, while he viewed Hebrew in its historical development, particularly hallowed the Hebrew of the Bible. From all the Council's proceedings it becomes obvious that the Council inclined itself more to the standpoint of Yellin than to the position of Ben Yehuda. That is, the Council considered itself primarily a traditionalist body, its foundations firmly secured on the Sacred Text as a base for its chief mission, that of a learned preservative defense against the penetration of foreignisms into the language. Ben Yehuda's radical views could not be tolerated by such a body, no matter how rational they might appear to the outsider. The soundness of the Council's position may be gauged by its relative success, to which, briefly, we turn now. Few positive results emerged as a result of the Council's work. Only one section in the four main fields of activity the Council had set itself originally 81 -that of word-coining-can be considered to have succeeded. Pronunciation, as we have seen, did ultimately become uniform, but this is attributed not to any planned campaign on the part of the Council, but rather to a slow "koinezation" process. Moreover, the results of this koinezation were not the results the Council itself had predicted. As for unified spelling, no agreement was reached within the Council itself on this issue, while that of the fixing of grammatical forms was handicapped by the Council's firm efforts to restrict the development of the language to the limits and standards of Biblical Hebrew correctness. The speakers of the revived language did base their speech on Biblical Hebrew norms, but not exclusively. Rather, they drew on the Post-Biblical sources at their common disposal in the fashioning of their speech. The new generation of children speakers learned Hebrew as a practical spoken idiom before they were able to read any sources at all. They were therefore even farther removed from the influences of written texts and their Hebrew departed significantly from that recommended by the Council. As Ben-Asher writes (although in a somewhat different connection), "There is no cause why certain forms [were] accepted and others rejected. Biblical words 80

Mordekhai Ben-Asher, Hitgabbeshut Ha-Diqduq Ha-Normativi Be-Ivrit Modernit, unpublished doctoral thesis, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1967), Chapter 1. 81 Cf. above, p. 82 ff.

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[did] not prevail over Mishnaic ones, older words [were] not preferred to new ones, phonetically easy words [did] not replace difficult ones. No one particular method [was] followed." 82 In brief, as Tur-Sinai writes, "If the purpose was to revive the language of the Bible proper, it (was) not achieved."83 The only one, therefore, of the four tasks the Council had set itself, to succeed to any appreciable extent was that of word-coining. Blanc in this connection (although in a slightly different context), points out, "Standardizing efforts [were] strong in vocabulary, moderate in grammar..., weak in orthoepy." 84 From examining the Council's records, it becomes obvious that its members were unknowledgeable regarding the true nature of language. In their opinion, language could be defined as a collection of words, pronounced, spelled, defined and inflected in a certain predetermined fashion. This conception coincides precisely with that of the layman. The Council neither realized nor appreciated the fundamental roles syntax and style play within language structure, and which, in the case of Hebrew at that time, just beginning to discard the strictly prescribed domains and to be revived in full living speech, with all its functions, levels and uses, were ultimately questions of far greater importance. The problem of vocabulary -the one stressed most by the Council-was after all merely a matter of words. This neglect of syntax and style reflects again the influence of Ben Yehuda, this time negative, on the Council for it was he who wrote the Council's protocols and for him, as we have seen,85 the question of style was limited mainly to words. We may, in brief, quote Rosen, whose view, although somewhat pronounced, is still significant. The real image... of Hebrew was... left to develop without any control on its own lines. Had the declared principles of language guiding the Jewish community of Palestine... taken notice of the intrinsic nature of... Hebrew as a language, that is, as an activity of the human mind facing the world and its realities and 'expressing itself into them', then... Hebrew... would have been stillborn.86

However, going one step further than Rosen, we may conclude that the Language Council was ineffectual in the language revival because the very fact of its foundation indicated that Hebrew was already being spoken by a sizeable number of persons and that the language merely needed regulating and expanding rather than actual reviving. 82

Ben-Asher (1967), conclusions. Tur-Sinai (1960), 19. 84 Blanc (1968), 239. 85 Cf. above, pp. 124 if. 88 Haiim Rosin, "Israel Language Policy, Language Teaching and Linguistics", Ariel 25 (1969), 93. 83

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Summarizing the above, therefore, we may say that Ben Yehuda had in mind almost no real plan of action for the revival of the Hebrew language when he arrived in Palestine, except for a firm decision based, as he admits, on the "rashness of youth", to speak only Hebrew himself, to set up a Hebrew-speaking home with a wife who did not herself know Hebrew, to issue a summons to the Diaspora for others to follow this example, which met with little or no response, and to put into practice a partial school solution which he himself later acknowledged as "ein frummer Wunsch". On his own admission, he was totally unprepared for what lay in store and he was spurred on only by the idealism of youth. His character, too, was not suited to the task he had set himself. As Kimhi writes, "In a certain sense he was... limited.... His conversation... was not the conversation of the great. Of poetic instinct-that possession of all creators-he had none. He was dry.... Ben Yehuda was not a man of vision who could give wisdom to the masses." 87 Moreover, when he finally embarked on a course of action, none of his projects fully succeeded and many can be written off as almost complete failures. Even when we consider the role of Hebrew in the schools-the single most important factor in the revival-we see that Ben Yehuda played a very minor role in its implementation. Similarly, when the War of the Languages was being waged, Ben Yehuda was virtually inactive, since he was preoccupied with his Dictionary which paradoxically was being partly sponsored by the protagonist in the struggle, the Hilfsverein. He did, however, in his capacity as President of the Language Council, deliver a speech whose contents critized the Hilfsverein, and he also sent a letter of protest to Dr. Nathan, which is most instructive for our purposes. In it, Ben Yehuda writes, As the author of The Dictionary of the Hebrew Language, Ancient and Modern, I have the right, more than any other person, to decide whether it is possible to study sciences in Hebrew and I proclaim and say: indeed scientific study is possible in Hebrew! And if the terminology for the branches of the known sciences is not yet perfected as much as necessary-this is only a question of time.... 88

Ben Yehuda, then, exerted only a very limited influence during the two peaks in the chronicle of the Hebrew revival. What then was his total contribution towards the revival of the language? Unassumingly, Ben Yehuda writes, "We were fortunate to be at the right time and place for this great event." 8 9 Yaaqov Yehudi, however, has captured the essence of Ben Yehuda's role more accurately when he writes, 87

David Kimhi, "Eliezer Ben Yehuda, Lines on His Personality", Ha-Poel Ha-Zair

12/13(1923), 11. 88

Ha-Hinukh 4 (1924/25), 18.

89

Ha-Zevi 18 (1889/90), 58-59.

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Ben Yehuda worked for the revival of the language and its extension in speech as well as in literature. But besides that and more than that was his strong spirit, which influenced all the members of that generation,... the holy flame which consumed him all the days and which he had in his power to kindle in the hearts of everyone who was near to him. 90

Ben Yehuda was not a methodical planner or thinker. Rather, as TurSinai notes, his actions were based "not on scientific reasoning but on inspired feeling". 91 Ben Yehuda's claim to significance in the revival of the Hebrew language consists, then, of two points. (1) He was the instigator of all the projects connected with the revival of the language, including the initiation of the very idea of the revival itself. (2) Through his charismatic personality, he installed into those who showed some initial receptiveness to his projects the determination to go forth and complete the tasks on which he had embarked, whether these persons later acknowledged his influence or not. He was, moreover, possessed of the strength of character and single-mindedness of purpose to continue what he had begun, even in the face of what seemed unsurmountable obstacles and even among those who were apathetic, antagonistic or not interested in his projects, ultimately to transform "ein frummer Wunsch" to "eine wirkende Realität". Roth has summed up admirably Ben Yehuda's contribution to the Hebrew language revival when he writes, "Before Ben Yehuda... Jews could speak Hebrew; after him they did,"92 Or, as Ben Yehuda writes in an entirely different context, but appropriately enough for here: For everything there is needed only one wise, clever and active man, with initiative to devote all his energies to it and the matter will progress, all obstacles in the way notwithstanding.... Not by cold judgment [and] precise and factual approaches of sensible people are all the steps of human progress in the world made, all the revolutions great and small. In every new event, in every step, even the smallest in the path of progress, it is necessary that there be found one pioneer who will lead the way without leaving any possibility of turning back. 93

For the revival of the Hebrew language in Palestine, that pioneer was Eliezer Ben Yehuda himself. 90

Hashkafa 65 (1906/07), 1-2. Tur-Sinai (1960), 19. 92 Cecil Roth, "Was Hebrew Ever A Dead Language?" in his Personalities and Events in Jewish History (Philadelphia, 1953), 136. 93 Ha-Zevi 86 (1908/09), 1-2. 91

HEBREW LANGUAGE BIBLIOGRAPHY

Note: Titles of books and periodicals are transliterated according to the system adopted by the Hebrew Language Academy and given in the Proceedings, Volume 3-4, 1957-1958. However, commonly recognized English spellings of certain Hebrew proper names have not been altered to conform with the Academy's rulings. Names of articles are translated into English but names of books and periodicals have been left in Hebrew. All dates are to be taken as given, plus the year following, as is customary in equating the general and the Hebrew calendars. Arnon, Avraham 1947 "Sixty Years of the Hebrew School in Palestine", Hed Ha-Hinukh 9, 8-40. 1956 "The History of Modern Hebrew Education in Israel", Ha-Enziqlopedia Ha-Ivrit 6, 983-996. Avineri, Yizbaq 1966 "On Errors in Dictionaries", Leshonenu La-Am 17, 35-96. Avishor, David 1928 "The First Rumblings (Concerning the History of the War with Ezra)", in: Kimbi ed., 237-239. Avrunin, Avraham 1924 "Correcting the Language in the Mouths of the Children", Ha-Hinukh 4, 15-21; 5, 22-27; 7, 25-31. 1938 "Eliezer Ben Yehuda, A Dictionary of the Hebrew Language, Ancient and Modern, Volume 8", Leshonenu 9, 229-234. 1944 "The Hebrew Language Dictionary of Eliezer Ben Yehuda", Leshonenu 13, 236-248. 1946 "Notes on the Dictionary of Ben Yehuda, Volume 10", Leshonenu 14, 50-57. 1951 "Notes on Ben Yehuda's Dictionary", Leshonenu 17, 44-53. 1952 "Notes on the Dictionary of Ben Yehuda", Leshonenu 18, 31-40, 193-200. 1953 "Further Notes on the Dictionary of Ben Yehuda, the Letter 'Alef'", Leshonenu 19, 105-114. 1955 "Notes on the Dictionary of Ben Yehuda, the Letter 'Pe"\ Leshonenu 21, 166-175.

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Kimhi, David, ed. 1928 Sefer Ha- Yovel Le-Aggudat Ha-Morim (1902-1927) (Jerusalem). Klausner, Yisrael 1962 Be-HWorer Am (Jerusalem). 1963 "The Pioneers of Speaking Hebrew in Palestine", Ha-Umma 2, 442-450.

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