Israel's greatest achievement: Reviving the Hebrew language

Hebrew, to be sure, had never died. But the secular Hebrew in which the ancient Jews farmed, traded, governed and wrote poems had been reduced to a language of liturgy, ritual and scholarship.

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and his wife, Hemda, working on the Hebrew dictionary, 1912, Ya’ackov Ben-Dov (id.lib.harvard.edu).

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and his wife, Hemda, working on the Hebrew dictionary, 1912, Ya’ackov Ben-Dov (id.lib.harvard.edu).

(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

JANUARY 13, 2021 11:40