Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

How the rebirth of the Hebrew language has been the glue that has united Jews from the world over.

Today, Hebrew is the national language of the Jews in Israel. But in the first century after Christ, the language fell out of use other than as a written language for the study of the Hebrew scriptures.

In 1879, Eliezer Ben Yehuda wrote a powerful article in the journal Ha-Shahar. He advocated for the revival of the vernacular Hebrew language so that it might become the spiritual centre of the Israeli Jewish community, the Palestinian Jews of the day.

Ben Yehuda was studying medicine at the time in Paris, France. He was diagnosed with terminal tuberculosis and was advised to migrate to Palestine, where he was predicted to have only one year to live.

He arrived in Jaffa in 1881. He started with his own family, demanding only Hebrew be spoken. In 1884, he founded a Hebrew weekly newspaper. In 1889, he began compiling his Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew.

Ben Yehuda went on to live a further 40 years after his TB diagnosis, devoting his whole time and energy to the rebirth of his beloved Hebrew tongue. There is now a street named after him in the heart of Jerusalem.

Listen to his remarkable story, as told by his grandson:

Israel’s Population Growth

The population living west of the River Jordan grew substantially in the 150 years up to the establishment of the State of Israel on Friday, 14 May 1948. The population of the whole of Palestine in 1800 was merely that of a small town, about 275,000, but by statehood, it had grown to nearly 2 million.

In 1800, there were 7,000 (2.5%) Jews, 246,000 (90%) Muslims, and 22,000 (8%) Christians.

A census of Palestine conducted by the Mandatory government on 23 October 1922. Population figures in the census featured a breakdown by district of residence, religion, language and age. The total population of Palestine was given as 757,182, of whom 590,890 (78%) were Muslims (“Mohammedans”), 83,794 (11%) Jews, 73,024 (9%) Christians and 9,474 others. The population of Jerusalem was given as 62,578, of whom 13,413 were Muslims, 33,971 Jews, 14,699 Christians and 495 others. (J.B Barron).

By 1944, Palestine’s total population was 1.7 million — 1 million Muslims (61%); 529,000 Jews (30%); 136,000 Christians (8%) and 14,000 others (1%) (Global Education Project).

Today (as of 2021), Israel’s population (including the West Bank) is 9.5 million – 6.98 million (74%) Jewish; 1.99 million (21%) Muslim; and 472,000 (5%) neither (Central Bureau of Statistics data). However, according to Emeritus Professor Arnon Soffer, a geographer at Haifa University, who included hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish people living in Israel who are not citizens, the figures take on a different look — 7.53 million Arab Israelis and Palestinians (including the West Bank and Gaza) and 7.45 million (47%) Jews. (Times of Israel)

Regardless of the potential of the Arnon Soffer reversal, according to Jonathan Boyd (2023), today almost half of the world’s Jewish population lives in Israel. 75 years ago, it was only 6 percent.

Western Multiculturalism – Fail!

For as long as I can remember (back to 1960s), Western nations have been importing people from all over the world. (I am a migrant to Australia from the United Kingdom). Typically, the migrants have come in waves because of various political, societal or security challenges. However, in recent decades, most migrants can be described as economic migrants.

What have Western nations done with their migrants? Celebrated their diversity, enjoyed their various culinary delights, tolerated some of their dress codes, but above all, encouraged them to keep using their native tongue. So much so that when I took a walk in my suburb for an hour this week, I never heard English being spoken once!

Each group will return to their own community and continue to use their native tongue. Social services ensure that, safeguarding tolerance and diversity, every language under heaven is made available for our migrants. The result: total fragmentation of society and the entrenchment of cultural ghettoes.

We kid ourselves to think that this has been a success. We are divided nations that have lost our cultural heart. The tensions in the United Kingdom are perhaps the beginnings of the real fruit of Western multiculturalism.

Israeli Multiculturalism – Success!

Some have described Israel as perhaps the most multicultural nation on earth.

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you. The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will bring My people Israel and Judah back from captivity and restore them to the land I gave their ancestors to possess,’ says the Lord.” (Jeremiah 30:1-3)

Yes, Jews have poured into Israel from every culture, cuisine and language under the sun, and have been united by their Hebrew language. Many are religious Jews, but there are more who are not. Nevertheless, they have been able to identify with the spiritual centre of the Israeli Jewish community, thanks to the passion and self-sacrifice of Eliezer Ben Yehuda.

Imagine if they had been encouraged to keep their native tongue! Israel would most certainly be divided. They would not have been able to go to war against any of their enemies. Imagine the issues the Israeli Defence Force would have had in giving instructions to their service men and women.

If all the migrants had retained their own language, I don’t think there would be a state of Israel today. I don’t think the state of Israel would have ever been declared on 14 May 1948, and I don’t think there would have been a Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917.

Language is key. Western nations’ unwillingness or inability to insist on full cultural integration of their migrants will be their undoing. Most Western nations have already lost their core values and as a result, their culture and their national pride.

___

Image courtesy of Adobe.