THE RESURRECTION OF A DEAD LANGUAGE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 125, 12 June 1937, Page 11

THE RESURRECTION OF A DEAD LANGUAGE

Hebrew Has Now Become Established in Palestine as the National Language and is Binding Together Jews Who Come From The Ends of The Earth to The Promised Land

rpHERE WAS ONCE, about the vea.r 1860, a little Jewish schoolboy who Hvgu with his family in the old ghetto of '.the little town of Luschky, in the'Empirc of the Tsars. lle spoke Russ'iau and jabbered Yiddish, tliat German patois which is the usuai diuloct of the Jews of central ■ and eastern Europc. His name was E'iiezer EliunoiT-Perimann. Who can tell how a vocution .gonninatcs • and grows in the soui of a child? It was porhaps some far-off echo of thc Hapoleoiiie doctrine of natiom?tities which canie one day to the ears of this little boy and worked . dn his brain. A Jewish child, he was astonished that his co-religioni'sts did not speak, as did the Polish, Lit4iuanjau and Russian children, a language of tlieir own and tho idea eanie into his miud to restore oue day to hds race a language which Avas not tlio language oi others, but, tlieir own language, a country which should bo tlieir own country, not oue belonging to others wherc tho Jews wero oniy pcnuitted to live uiidcr humiliating aucl precarious conditions. To fuush his etudies, he Avent to Paris. It .was in .1877, at the moment whcn repuoliean pnnciples triumphed in Erance. lu Paris his uncertain aspirations began to ripen and take form; he dreamed of a Jewish state whero the ministers would speak iu Hebrc\f, realising thc idcnl of the prophets. Ho wrote an article in Hebrew and sent it to a journal, the eddtor of which kopt it for a year on his tablc ahd liually scnt it ba'clc to him. At the feorbounc, ho mot Ifiraelitisli eludents with whoni hc liad livcly arguments: they thought that theii c.o-rcligionists ought to let themselves bo assimilatcd in the country of their resddence, forgetting their nationality and keeping only their religion. He made friends with a young Pole of aristocratic birth who, 1-iko himself, nspired to the resurrection oi his fatberland and comforted him with his enthusiasm and gonerosity. Following this young man's advico, he revised his article and sent it to the great Hebrew writer, Smolensky, editor of the Shahar (The Dawn). This timo the article was publislied but with a note in which the editor de-- a elared that it was nothing but a dangerous TJtopian drpam; it was not possible to found a Jewish state nor to revive the Hebrew language as a spoken tongue. Smolensky advised his contributor to devote himself to more praetical studies and give up the pursuit of idle fancies. Meanwhile the article, which appearcd in 1879 was notieed and discussed. It was signed Ben-Jehouda (the son of Judah) and • tliis pseudonym soon replaced tbe Russian name of the young Eliezer. The pogroms of - 1882, in Russia, brouglit a new actualitv to his ideas. A movement for the return of the Jews to Palestine began to develop. received with enthusiasm by some, opposed by others. The Jewish Allianee of Erench foundation and inspiration opposed it. B6nJeliouda, ddsgusted, left Erance and went to Yienna wliere he met a friend of his child - hood, a blue-eved, golden-haired girl, who became his wife, Together they set out for Palestine. They sailed slowiy down the Dannbe and when they arrived* at the Iron Gates a radiant sun' was sctting in crimson glory. Moved by the wondorful sight, Ben-Jehouda suddenly seized' hds bride by thc arm and

cried in Russian as though inspired, "Erom this day we will 'speak nothiug but Hebrew. " "You are mad," slie replied, "1 do not know a single word. ". - . ! ■ "I will teach you. - My will shall bo ' ■ 'of 'iron like the gates that we are enteriiig; of dron also rnust be your' self-sacrifice. Tho ' child we dream of shall hear no other lan1 • guage but Hebrew." He kept liis word. As they landed at .Jali'a he uttered to his bride the Hebrew • word which signifies 'Hope.' Hebrew, for two liuman beings, had become a living language.^ - -w ... It remained, however, to get it accepted by the Jews of Palestine. Ben-Jehouda was

The liistoric Biblical River Jovdan lias been harnessed to the service of the new Palestine, one of the benefits conferred 011 the country by Zionist energ-y and enterprise. The picture shows the liydro-, ^lectric power station at Tel Or. not at the end of his trdbulations. At Jerusalem he persisted in speaking nothing but Hebrew to his co-religionists; the devout Jews regarded him as mad and saerilegious. He would walk through the streets shouting, "Jews, speak Hebrew! Speak Hebrew, and you will become once more a people " Tlie populace stoned him; the rabbis excommulidcated him; the editor of the little paper to which he contributed dismissed him. In his distress he received the support of Baron Edmond de Rothschild and, thanks to him, was able to bring out' a little paper, the Hatzevy (The Glory), whieh he. devoted . to the struggle for spoken Hebrew and in which he fo'rged new words to express all that men have invented and thought since tlie captivity of Babylon. The iirst pioneers

arriving from Russia, Roumania, Morocco, became his diseiples; with themihe created Hebrew elubs which soon sprcad to other countries; he introduccd into the schools the teaching of science in Hebrew. In his own house all other languages Avere forbiddcn. He went into shops and asked for articles in- Hebrew; if the storekeepers replied to . him in another language he went out without buying; if they replied to him in Hebrew he paid doublo the price asked. Suck an argument was arresistible in poor Palestine which only lived by the exploitation of tourists and pilgrims. The tongue of the prophets became a common language. A son was born in the Ben-Jehauda home — a splendid 'oppor tunity for an experimen,t. The f ather Avished his son to hear no other word but Hebrew. But by the time he was three years old the child had not • begun to talk. , The more they spoke Hebrew to k'im tho mpre he.simply cried or laughed, ■ out would not speak a word. The mother was in despair. . A great and famous Jewish ocholar said to her, "That's the result of sacrilege. Hebrew is written but not spoken. Give.up this folly; speak to tlie baby in a human language and he will be all right. The fourth anniversary of his birth having a"mved without any change, the mother ventured for the first time to sing him a Russian song. Ben-Jehouda heard it and' flew into a violent rage; he naved and stormed and struek the table a tremendous blow with liis. list; the inkstand broke and the books fell with a crash. The 1 mother sobbed and all at once the child ran to his'f ather and cried in Hebrew, "Papa." j±e had spoken! He had spoken Hebrew,! Hebrew had become a "mother tongue." This child is to-day Mr. Ramar Ben-Avi, one of the leaders of the Zionist movement. The news of. this miracle spread and people began to translate into Hebrew, for the babies- of Israel, Russian, Erench, Italian and Polish songs. Diseiples became legion but the old Rabbis of Palestine were , not appeased. The son of Ben-Jehouda had a pet dog which also understood Hebrew. One day the child was playing with the dog ■i-A front of a syhagogue in Jerusalem and ad'dressed it in Hebrew. This causod a scandal The poor animal was stoned to death. He was buried in his master's garden under a stone bearing the Hebre'w inscriptibn: "Here lies the first Jewish dog." Such were the romantic vicissitudes through which the old tongue oft the prophets passed in the course of becoming once . more an ordinary language. BenJehouda realised his bold ambition. Barely 50 years after the. birth *of the first child to hear Hebrew spoken around his cradle, 13 years after the death of the tenacious instigator of this astonishing resurrection, nearly half a million Jews established ii n Palestine speak Hebrew as their national language. All the schools teach Hebrew. The newspapers are printed an Hebrew, political speeches are made in Hebrew, radio announcements are made in Hebrew and Hebrew words are synehronised with cinema films. The use of Hebrew is spreading outside Palestine. More and more literary masterpieces are b'edng translated into Hebrew. The old tongue has become a cement .binding together Jews that come from all the ends of the earth to the Promised Land.