ABSTRACT

In Eastern Europe and in the land of Israel, Hebrew was revived as a spoken language. The leading Hebrew poets and novelists of the 1881–1948 sought to adapt the biblical and rabbinic traditions into a viable culture for the modern world. Hebrew became a powerful outlet for their anguish and rage at anti-Jewish hatred and violence. Jewish writers committed to Hebrew, such as Bialik and Agnon, often contrast strikingly with their Jewish counterparts writing in other languages: the Hebrew writers love Hebrew as much as others seem at times to detest it. By the late 19th century, Jewish educators such as Chaim Tchernowitz in Odessa and David Yellin in Jerusalem introduced for the first time since the Roman era the policy of using Hebrew as the language of instruction (Ivrit be-Ivrit) in the classroom: this was the foundation for the re-creation of modern Hebrew as a national language. Mainly owing to the efforts of Eastern European Jews, there was a Hebrew-speaking community in the land of Israel by the early 20th century. By 1914, Hebrew was the language of instruction in Jewish schools in Palestine and in many schools in Eastern Europe. After the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the British Mandatory government of Palestine declared Hebrew an official language. Hebrew again became the daily language of a whole society, not just its religious life but also its secular educational system, the vernacular of its children, its laborers in the fields and on the roads, its businesses, shops and offices, its creative literature, its press, its political, cultural and economic life.