The capital is rich with historical sites marking
the life and work of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and his family, who toiled to
give the nascent Jewish state a language of its own
By Aviva and Shmuel Bar-Am1
One day in the late 19th century, a woman in labor opened the
gate at the Jerusalem home of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. Lying in the courtyard
in front of his house, she screamed with every new pain: “Gevald!”
(a Yiddish expression of anguish). Only after some time had passed did
Ben-Yehuda poke his head out of a window. “You!” he shouted. “Scream in
Hebrew!”
This is one of those stories that you hear so often and in so many
variations that you begin to believe them. We heard it at a lecture in
the Old City during a summer cultural program inside the New Gate.
Giving the lecture was Ben Yehuda’s great-grandson, master
storyteller/writer/chef/journalist Gil Hovav.
Whether this one is true or not — and it probably isn’t — it does say
a lot about Ben-Yehuda, a fanatic who dedicated his heart, soul and
mind to reviving Hebrew into a living language that would replace the
Yiddish spoken by the Jews of the time. Nothing swayed Ben-Yehuda from
his path, not a few nights in jail, and not even the Zionist visionary
Theodor Herzl, who ridiculed the idea of Hebrew as a modern national
language.
Ben-Yehuda was born Eliezer Yitzhak Perlman in 1858 in Lithuania. In
his early years, he studied the Bible and Jewish commentaries, but as a
teenager, he became acquainted with Hebrew grammar and secular books.
Near the end of his studies in a Jewish secondary school he began to
realize the necessity for a Jewish homeland, and while studying in Paris
was heavily infected with the Zionist bug. He became a Zionist activist
and in 1879 changed his name to Eliezer Ben-Yehuda.
Thus in 1881, full of Zionist fervor, he decided the time had come to
move to the land of Israel. Before he left Paris, he was offered a job
as assistant editor for the Jerusalem-based Hebrew-language newspaper
Havatzelet. Although the proposed salary was meager, Ben-Yehuda accepted
the position after the paper’s editor, Israel Dov Frumkin, promised
that he and his fiancée Dvora would be provided with lodgings — which
they were: a room in Frumkin’s home, for which they paid a fee.
A few weeks later they moved into a modest second-story apartment above the Old City’s raucous Cotton Market. Unfortunately, there was no staircase, so whenever they wanted to enter or leave their little dwelling, the couple had to climb up and down a ladder.
Their first child was born in 1882 on the Jewish holiday of Tu B’Av. To the delight of Ben-Yehuda, who strongly supported the idea of Jewish farming settlements in the land of Israel, the birth took place the very day on which Rishon Lezion was founded as the first
moshava(agricultural settlement) in the Land of Israel. In one of his publications, Ben-Yehuda wrote of that glorious day when “we conquered both the land and the language.”
From day one, Ben-Yehuda and his wife spoke only Hebrew to their
baby, with his father declaring that his son “would either speak Hebrew
or won’t speak at all.” The child, a boy named Ben-Zion Ben-Yehuda, was
the first youngster in pre-state Israel whose first words were spoken in
Hebrew. Some of the words were not in the Bible, and Ben-Yehuda had to
make them up — words like bicycle, jam, and ice cream.
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Ben-Zion was a solitary lad, for he was not allowed to mix with his
non-Hebrew-speaking contemporaries. The nursemaid helping out his mother
had to be let go, as she was unable to converse in Hebrew. Ben-Zion
would later change his name to Itamar Ben-Avi and join his strong-willed
father as a journalist and editor of the Ben-Yehuda publications.
The Ben-Yehudas were as poor as church mice, especially after
Ben-Zion was born. Dvora was forced to sell the elegant garments and
expensive jewelry she had brought with her from her well-to-do home in
Russia, and began sewing for the ladies of Jerusalem to help with
expenses. Ben-Yehuda taught Hebrew to anyone who could afford a tutor
and got a job teaching Hebrew in a local school where he continued his
campaign of having Hebrew become the language of study. But the pay was
so trifling that there still wasn’t enough to live on.
That same year, a wealthy merchant from Belarus named Moshe
Wittenberg arrived in the Holy Land, intent on doing something
worthwhile with his money. His first project, soon after he arrived, was
the purchase of a beautiful courtyard complex for indigent Jews, a
former hotel that had at one time provided lodgings for Mark Twain.
Although originally it belonged to a local Christian Arab man, the
property was now in the hands of the well-heeled Latin Catholic
Patriarchate in Jerusalem.
The Wittenberg House in Jerusalem, today. (Shmuel Bar-Am)
In his book “Unknown Jerusalem,” author Shabtai Zacharia writes that
Wittenberg wanted to negotiate directly with the Latin Patriarch, who
spoke only French. Ben-Yehuda — for whom French was only one of the
languages in which he was fluent — was hired as a translator. When the
purchase was complete, Wittenberg asked him to name his fee. Incredibly,
considering his disastrous financial state, Ben-Yehuda refused, saying
that it was payment enough that a Jew had been able to take property in
the Holy City out of the hands of the wealthy patriarchate.
At heart a writer and journalist rather than a teacher, Ben-Yehuda
founded his first newspaper on October 24, 1884. It was called “HaZvi”
(The Gazelle). Due to a virtually non-existent budget, Ben-Yehuda did
all of the work himself, writing the articles, printing — done manually —
and proofreading the galleys. He rented a printing press from Yitzhak
Hirschenzon, who owned a publishing company.
The Hirschenzon courtyard, today. (Shmuel Bar-Am)
The press was located in the courtyard of the Hirschenzon home in the
Old City, and known as a meeting ground for many of the city’s
teachers, writers, and Zionists from abroad. It is said that among the
people who enjoyed a drink there with his friends was Naphtali Hertz
Imber, whose poem “Tikvateinu” would one day be slightly changed into
“Hatikva” and become Israel’s national anthem.
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Jerusalem’s Jewish religious extremists, who believed that Hebrew may
be spoken only in prayer and service to God, were horrified at
Ben-Yehuda’s insistence on turning the holy language in which their
Bibles were written into everyday speech. At first, Ben-Yehuda and Dvora
tried to fit in. Both wore head coverings and long garments. Ben-Yehuda
grew a beard, and in the beginning, despite their secular leanings, the
family led overtly religious lives. But nothing helped. They were
persecuted, excommunicated, boycotted — and, on one occasion, Ben-Yehuda
was even jailed for a time, after extremists tricked the authorities
into believing that he wanted his readers to overthrow the government.
Great-grandson of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and
storyteller, journalist and chef Gil Hovav speaks inside the New Gate in
Jerusalem’s Old City during a summer cultural program. (Shmuel Bar-Am)
In 1890, Ben Yehuda founded the Hebrew Language Committee and acted
as its first president. A multitude of words used in Hebrew today were
coined by the Committee. It was succeeded in 1953 by the Academy of the
Hebrew Language, which continues to create new words suitable for
contemporary Israeli society.
Ben-Yehuda also compiled the first modern Hebrew dictionary in the
world, five volumes of which were published incrementally between 1908
and 1922, the year of Ben-Yehuda’s death.
Dvora died in 1891 and, honoring her request, Ben-Yehuda married her
sister, Hemda, who had been at a Moscow University studying chemistry.
After her marriage, Hemda became a writer, journalist and women’s rights
activist. The mission to complete the Hebrew dictionary was as much
Hemda’s as it was her husband’s, and she continued adding entries until
her own death in 1951. The last volume of this pioneer achievement came
out in 1958.
In 1909, the Ben-Yehuda family moved out of the Old City and rented
the second floor of a lovely Arab-style villa on Ethiopia Street. So
hated was Ben-Yehuda by the city’s Jewish extremists that the house has
never ceased to be a target for vandalism and defacement, including in
recent years. Today the building is the responsibility of the Society
for the Preservation of Historic Sites and boasts a picture of
Ben-Yehuda along with a sign about the great man who revived the Hebrew
language.
One month after the British declared Hebrew to be one of the
country’s official languages, Ben-Yehuda succumbed to the tuberculosis
that had plagued him almost his entire life. He was buried in what would
become a family plot on the Mount of Olives.
During his lifetime, Ben-Yehuda would often say that he had only two
regrets: he was sorry that he wasn’t born in Jerusalem, and that he
hadn’t spoken Hebrew from the very beginning. Imagine his joy if he had
lived to see the establishment of the State of Israel, with Jerusalem as
her capital.
Many thanks to Gil Hovav for his help in preparing this article.
Aviva Bar-Am is the author of seven English-language guides to Israel. Shmuel Bar-Am is a licensed tour guide who provides private, customized tours in Israel for individuals, families and small groups.
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