Eliezer Ben-Yehuda: Father of Modern Hebrew, Israel’s Mother Tongue

Eliezer Ben Yehuda (Jan. 7, 1858 – Dec. 16, 1922) was the main force behind the revival of Hebrew as a modern, living, spoken language. A lexicographer and newspaper editor, he immigrated to Palestine, then ruled by the Ottoman Empire, in 1881. Ben Yehuda set out to develop a new language from a largely moribund one — a language that could replace Yiddish and other regional dialects as a means of everyday communication among Jews who moved to the Jewish homeland from various regions of the world.
 
Quotes: “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 home and… become a living language” | “If we wish that the name Israel be not extinguished, then we are duty bound to create something which may serve as a center for our entire people, like the heart in an organism, from which the blood will stream into all the arteries of the national body and fill it with life.”
 
Sources: Wikipedia, AZ Quotes
 
Learn more about Eliezer Ben-Yehuda on Wikipedia. >>
 
Watch “Israel’s Mother Tongue Has a Father — Eliezer Ben-Yehuda’s Life and Legacy” [53:34]. >>
 
Photo: My Jewish Learning