Eliezer Ben-Yehuda

    http://www.jajz-ed.org.il/100/people/bios/beliezer.html

Can you imagine if your family was the only family in the world to speak Hebrew?  You would not have many friends because people wouldn't understand what you were saying..  You could not ask for help in a store.  You could only speak to the people in your home.

That is what it was like in the home of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda.  Actually, that was not even his real name.  He was born in Russia in 1858 with the name Eliezer Perelman.  Eliezer wanted very much to learn Torah but his family was terribly poor.  They sent him to a rich uncle who could pay to send him to a Yeshivah.  The uncle was not nice to Eliezer .  He did not believe that Eliezer should read any new books.  Eliezer’s uncle  threw Eliezer out of his house.  With no money, Eliezer wandered to another town and fell asleep in the shul there.  A kind wealthy man invited him to his home.  Eliezer soon became like a son to the man and lived with this family.  Now he learned Torah but also learned General Studies subjects, too.  He even went to France to get a better education. 

During all of this time, Eliezer had a dream.  He wanted to make Hebrew the spoken language of the Jews.  At that time, over 100 years ago, Hebrew was only used for reading or studying the Tanakh.  However, a few people had begun to write articles and poetry in Hebrew.  Eliezer changed his name to Ben-Yehudah, so that he would have a Hebrew name.

He married the daughter of his new family.  She agreed to learn Hebrew and together they moved to Jerusalem.  At that time, Jerusalem was a difficult place in which to live. There was not much food, the city was dirty, and everyone was poor.  Eliezer and his wife Devora both taught to make a living.  When their son, Ben-Zion was born, Eliezer and Devora decided that he would speak only Hebrew.  They would not allow him to hear other languages.  Ben Zion would be the “first Hebrew child.”  He would be the first child in thousands of years to speak only Hebrew.

Life was very hard for the family.  They were poor.  Ben Zion was not allowed to play with other children because he might hear them speak other languages.  Since Hebrew had not been spoken in thousands of years, there were no words for many things.  Eliezer had to invent words for “cereal” and “choirs.”  Can you think of other things that were not in the Torah that might need new words?  How would you  make those words?  It was a tremendous job that took hours and hours of Eliezer’s time.  Eliezer worked on the first modern dictionary of the Hebrew Language.  He also published a Hebrew newspaper.  Some Orthodox Jews did not like what Eliezer was doing.  They thought that Hebrew was a holy language that should only be used for prayer and for studying Torah. 

Finally, Devora was very tired and very sick with a disease called tuberculosis.  She died when Ben-Zion and his brothers and sisters were very young.  Then three children in the family died, too.  Eliezer became very sad.  He had no time for Ben Zion and his sister.  But, after a short time he married Devora’s sister Hemda.  At first, Hemda did not know any Hebrew.  She spoke Russian.  Hemda realized that she needed to learn Hebrew.  It took her just six months.  From that time on, she spoke only Hebrew.  Meanwhile, in 1897, just before Herzl held the first World Zionist Congress where the Israeli flag was created and Hatikvah  was sung, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda published the first modern Hebrew dictionary of 1,000 words.  All of the copies were sold immediately.  Later, he published a dictionary with thousands of words.  They filled four enormous books.  Although their life was hard, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda’s family was proud to be part of his work.  Many call Ben-Yehuda the Father of the modern Hebrew Language.

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