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Prophets transcend practicality, and Ben-Yehuda labored on. He started Jerusalem's first Hebrew newspaper in 1883; he founded in 1889 what is now the authoritative Hebrew Language Academy; he published in 1909 what would eventually become (in 1959) the 16-volume standard dictionary of Hebrew. Among his first and most important disciples were schoolteachers, who found in Hebrew a way to instill in each wave of newcomers a sense of themselves and of their once and future nation. Shortly before Ben-Yehuda's death in 1922, the newly established British authorities decreed Hebrew, Arabic and English to be the official languages of Palestine. When Israel was reborn in 1948, so was Hebrew.
Like any living language, Hebrew needs to be re-created daily.* Of the 100,000 Hebrew words now in use, only about 12,000 date back to the Old Testament. Ben-Yehuda alone contributed thousands of new words, and his heirs follow his basic principles, starting with a search for biblical precedents. Thus it is that the Hebrew word for electricity derives from the light that Isaac saw in the sky, garage from a part of Solomon's palace, and terrorist from the little foxes in the vineyard of the Song of Songs. The 45 sages of the Hebrew Language Academy have subdivided into committees on fields as diverse as sports, sewing and computer technology. Their recommendations are then submitted to as many as 200 experts in the field and finally referred to the full academy. "The process can take years," sighs one member. Even then, the academy's verdicts can be overruled by popular usage.
Ben-Yehuda named the telephone a sakrahok, meaning long-distance conversation, but everybody calls it a telefon. Hebrew sport terminology has largely caught on well: soccer is kaddor regel (ball foot), boxing is igruf, but tennis remains tenis. Lehiz-dangef, meaning to hang around, indisputably comes from a Tel Aviv square named Dizengoff, where what people do is hang around, but if they want to order a sandwich, should they ask for a karikh or a sendvich! If they need to get some money, should they cash a hamkha ha or simply a chek? The jury of public opinion is still out.
Since that jury includes a large share of the world's 15 million Jews, the arguments will not end soon. Israel's President, Yitzhak Navon, leading the celebration of the Ben-Yehuda centennial, used the occasion to warn that the language must be defended against "non-Hebraic influences." By contrast, Novelist Amos Oz becomes rhapsodic over the constant shifting of "a language being born." Says he: "Modern Hebrew is my torture, my love affair and my musical instrument." As for Ben-Yehuda, who watched his first-born son grow into a well-known journalist, he now lives on in a Ben-Yehuda Street here, a Ben-Yehuda school there, a Ben-Yehuda taxi company or hotel, names woven into the everyday language that was once just the dream of a young student in Vilna. —By Otto Friedrich. Reported by David Aikman/Jerusalem
* Hebrew is the most successful example of revitalization, but not the only one. The Irish government has encouraged the teaching of Gaelic in schools. Nationalists in Wales are promoting the use of Welsh, while in Spain separatists advocate Basque and Catalan.