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March 11, 2005
A visit from Ben-Yehuda
Grandson of Hebrew pioneer speaks to language class.
PAT JOHNSON
So central to the Zionist narrative is the name of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda
that it is a rare Israeli city or town that does not have a street
named after the pioneer of the Hebrew language.
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who lived from 1858 until 1922, is conventionally
credited with inventing the modern Hebrew language that is now the
lingua franca of Israel and the national language of the Jewish
people. Moving to Palestine in 1881, with one of the early Zionist
aliyot, Ben-Yehuda proceeded to create Hebrew words where none existed
– applying neologisms to modern concepts for which the ancient
Hebrew language had no terminology. The Hebrew words for ice-cream,
jelly, omelette, handkerchief, towel, bicycle and doll, among hundreds
of others, were all invented by Ben-Yehuda.
He would go on to author a 16-volume dictionary of the Hebrew language,
placing himself in the history of Hebrew just as Noah Webster had
done for English in America earlier in the same century.
The pioneering spirit of Ben-Yehuda was brought to Vancouver last
week by the man's eponymous grandson – Rabbi Elie Ben-Yehuda,
who now lives in Florida.
The grandson of the great linguist brought to life the pioneer's
wit and spirit, though he noted that a well-known folk song trumpeting
Ben-Yehuda's heroism incorrectly dubbed his grandfather "an
amusing man." Though Ben-Yehuda was many things, amusing doesn't
seem quite the right monicker, said the grandson. He was "a
fanatic for the Hebrew language" and not a particularly humorous
fellow, according to family reports.
Born Eliezer Yitzhak Perelman, in Lithuania, Ben-Yehuda was seized
early on by the idea that the redemption of the Jewish people depended
not only on a return to the land of Zion, but also to the revival
of a single, unifying language for the Jewish people. Hebrew, by
the 19th century, was a primarily written language, used almost
exclusively for religious instruction and devotion. In fact, Ben-Yehuda's
insistence on turning Hebrew into a vernacular language was seen
– and is still seen by some – as an affront to the inherent
sanctity of a holy tongue.
"The holy tongue can only be spoken with kosher lips,"
said the grandson, summarizing the attitude of religious Jews to
Ben-Yehuda's idea of turning Hebrew into a language in which the
masses could order falafel. Some religious Jews still refer to Hebrew,
said the grandson, as Ben-Yehudaloshon, Ben-Yehuda's language.
According to the grandson, when certain religious Israelis want
to protest the secularization of their society, they spray-paint
the grave of Ben-Yehuda. But the late Ben-Yehuda gets the last laugh,
says his grandson.
"My grandfather smiles down from heaven," he said, "because
the spray-paint is in Hebrew."
Ben-Yehuda was a precursor of the modern Zionist movement, said
his grandson. According to his grandson, by 1897, which was the
time of the First Zionist Congress, his grandfather had lived in
Israel for 18 years.
In addition, Ben-Yehuda represented a distinct stream in the emerging
Zionist movement.
"He was the only one of the early Zionists who realized that
you can't redeem the land if you don't give them a language,"
said his grandson. Some Zionists in the 19th century and early 20th
century believed that German should have become the language of
the Zionist movement, he added, a proposal that would presumably
have resulted in the state of Israel being proclaimed in German
three years after the Holocaust ended.
Though only six volumes of Ben-Yehuda's landmark 16-volume dictionary
had been published at the time of his death, the work had been completed
for the entire project and the last volume was published on the
eve of what would have been his 100th birthday, in 1958.
Ben-Yehuda made a living in Jerusalem as a newspaper writer, eventually
producing his own magazine, in Hebrew, with a glossary of new words
he invented. Ben-Yehuda also did extensive translation into Hebrew,
including contemporary authors like Jules Verne and Jack London,
as well as mathematics texts and other scholarly works. (By training,
the linguist was an agronomist with a degree from the University
of California at Davis.)
Elie Ben-Yehuda was asked about modern revisionism, which suggests
the Hebrew language was more commonly used in pre-Zionist times
than the Zionist narrative would suggest, a reconsideration that
diminishes Ben-Yehuda's role in the Zionist narrative. The grandson
dismissed new scholarship.
"That's the truth that I know," he said.
Ben-Yehuda spoke at length of his grandfather's unique contributions
and how his own home, while he was growing up, was an incubator
of linguistics. His parents used Hebrew words that never quite caught
on in general usage, but which the grandfather had created.
The senior Ben-Yehuda died in 1922, just a month after the British
mandatory authority recognized Hebrew as the official language of
the Jews of Palestine. Ben-Yehuda's family froze his remains until
it became possible to bury the pioneer on Jerusalem's Mount of Olives
in the 1940s.
Ben-Yehuda's visit to Vancouver, where he spoke to the Jewish Community
Centre of Greater Vancouver language class, led by Myer Grinshpan,
was sponsored by Zev Shafran. Grinshpan, who has a fascination for
Jewish languages, also credited the late Leon Kahn with inspiring
his devotion to the greater understanding of Hebrew and its centrality
to the Jewish experience.
"It's been like a dream for me," Grinshpan said of meeting
the grandson of the Hebrew pioneer.
Pat Johnson is a B.C. journalist and commentator.
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