Celebrating Israel's 50th Anniversary
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HANNAH KAMENETSKY
Special to The Jewish News
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—Theodor Herzl
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s Israel celebrates its 50th
birthday, the durability of its
spoken language is an apt
metaphor for the strength and
tenacity of the Jewish people.
Hebrew, whose earliest written text
dates to 973 BCE, has endured the scat-
tering and near destruction of its people
only to survive in modern times — con-
founding those who would have ban-
ished it to the pages of ancient texts.
Instead, Hebrew today is the official lan-
guage (along with Arabic) of the State of
Israel and is thriving as the language of
gigabytes and cell phones, computer
graphics and biotechnology.
Hebrew is a dialect of Canaanite.
"Hebrew was called the 'Holy Tongue'
even in antiquity," says Steven Fine,
assistant professor of rabbinic literature
and history at Baltimore Hebrew
University. "
Hebrew was preserved as the unique
language of divine communication and
human communication with the
divine."
Its modern revival was spearheaded by
Eliezer Ben Yehuda, who immigrated to
Palestine in 1881 and settled in
Jerusalem. Ben Yehuda compiled a com-
prehensive Hebrew dictionary and
helped establish the,Hebrew Language
Committee, which added to the ancient
vocabulary of kings and prophets and
built the grammar foundation of mod-
em Hebrew.
"The question was how to adapt an
ancient language, not spoken but stud-
ied and interacted with throughout
Jewish history, to modern uses," Fine
says.
And the revival wasn't supported by
everyone, adds Dr. Matthew A. Kraus,
assistant professor of classics and Judaic
studies at Williams College.
"Some Western European Zionists
contended that languages like German
were better suited to a modern state," he
says. "Religious Jews criticize[d] the use
of Hebrew as a modern, living language
because the holy tongue might then be
employed to express unholy discourse."
Nevertheless, the experiment succeed-
ed, and Hebrew continues to grow and r- : \
change. "Some people have opposed for-
eign imports," says Kraus, "but they
have become accepted. It would be
inconsistent to reject foreign words
wihch have been a part of Hebrew since
biblical times.
The Academy of Hebrew Language, a
LIVING LANGUAGE on page 110