Hebrew's Exalted Status
- and Source of Inspiration for the Revival of Small Peoples (Irish, Maltese, Basque, Welsh and Catalan)
by Norman Berdichevsky (October 2009)
No literate person can expect to read a daily newspaper or listen to a discussion of the arts and sciences, law, psychology, physics, mathematics, military affairs or any other professional field without encountering a wealth of phrases and expressions of foreign origin which have become a part of the English language. Expressions such as status quo, casus belli, laissez-faire, déjà vu, savoir-faire, haute cuisine, allegro, pogrom, de facto, de jure, sine qua non, prima facie, modus vivendi, leitmotif, blitzkrieg, lebensraum, etc. (yes, even et cetera itself) and thousands more, are part of our everyday language. For those to whom "classical languages" are synonymous with "dead" ones, modern languages at least offer a practical tool to aid study in prestigious professional fields - French, so closely associated with high fashion, cuisine and art. Italian with music and the opera, German with philosophy, medicine and psychology.
The contribution of Hebrew is less obvious but often overlooked. What use is Hebrew, an obscure minor language spoken by less than six million people? This is the question often posed by students who are well aware of the immense respect accorded the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome.
The negative attitude of the present generation towards foreign languages in general is common among many Jewish children in the Diaspora, for whom the Hebrew language appears to be of little use outside the synagogue or a visit to Israel. The impression is of an exotic Eastern language with no relation to European languages. Moreover, it is a Semitic language with what appears to be an unfamiliar vocabulary, grammar and alphabet.
This impression is reinforced by old world memories from our grandparents’ time of traditionally-taught Hebrew classes in the synagogue conjuring up images of a shabby, ill-lit heder (room) somewhere in an East European shtetl, presided over by a bearded rabbi with a ruler in his hand ready to smack anyone not paying attention, and monotonously teaching by rote.
The image of Hebrew as a language of ritual, prayer and Sunday School is totally wrong. It deprives us of an appreciation of the immense debt western civilization owes to the Hebrew language, which is on a par with Greek and Latin. During the Reformation and Renaissance, Christian scholars took a profound interest in the Old Testament and produced new translations directly from the original Hebrew, rather than using the Vulgate Latin texts. This interest can be seen, for example, in the poetry of William Blake and John Milton (1608-1674), who read and wrote Hebrew fluently, and in Rembrandt’s famous painting "Writing on the Wall."
Fidelity to the original Hebrew of the holy works had previously been demonstrated by the Christian scholar, Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522), whose study of the Hebrew Scriptures resulted in strong support among enlightened clergymen to prevent the burning of the Talmud as a work of heresy. Both because of a desire to read the Bible in its original tongue and a belief in Hebrew as "The Mother of Languages," it figured prominently in the Puritan movement in England, culminating in the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell.
The Puritans in New England were also instrumental in promoting Hebrew as part of the curriculum in such prominent American universities as Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Brown, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth and Pennsylvania (Yale, Columbia and Dartmouth still bear Hebrew inscriptions on their seals). In Harvard’s early years, Hebrew enjoyed an exalted status and more time was devoted to its study than Latin or Greek. This role of Hebrew in the curriculum endured until the 1820s. Graduates of Protestant Schools of Divinity had to be able to read the Old Testament in the original Hebrew - a practise still required in Scandinavia and Germany.
The House of Commons in 1649 sought to substitute Saturday as the "True Sabbath" in place of Sunday as the Lord's Day. John Selden (1584-1654) was a noted legal scholar whose study of the biblical and talmudic sources of ancient Jewish law (in Hebrew and Aramaic) helped reshape the British system of jurisprudence and establish the privilege of the individual against self-incrimination.
The designation in Modern Hebrew for The United States is “Artzot haBrit” that literally means “The Lands of the Covenant.” For Hebrew speakers, this name struck an immediate responsive chord that America was a country that placed the rule of law foremost above all persons and privileges. “Brit” means covenant and was also the term used for “circumcision,” the act that made the covenant a visible sign in the flesh between God and the descendants of Abraham and Isaac. This covenant - The Torah, constituted the voluntary acceptance of a righteous moral code.
The Torah and the Constitution were elevated by Jews and Americans respectively as the final recourse and supreme arbiter of political disputes and moral conflicts. The “LAW” rather than any President or King was acknowledged as the source of power in the state. A King Ahab or a President Nixon was displaced not by armed insurrection or devious political maneuvering but by the sense of public outrage that they had abused the moral authority entrusted to them. The Prophets had the Torah and the political opponents of the administration had the Constitution on their side. A King Solomon and a President Clinton even if not impeached or deposed, suffered the scorn and humiliation of having betrayed their sacred trust. Nowhere else but in ancient Israel and modern America is there a document that is so respected and carries such weight (see NER July, 2007; “The Torah and the Constitution”).
Cecil Roth, one of the most prominent Jewish historians of modern times had this to say: "Generation after generation of Englishmen heard the Bible read in church and studied it at home. In many cases, it was the only book; in all, the principal book. At last its cadences, its music, its phraseology, sank into his mind and became part of his being... Hence by slow degrees his daily speech was not merely enriched, but to some extent molded by its influence."
Hebrew held a dynamic attraction not solely for Diaspora Jews but exerted a fascination for many Christian theologians and clergymen who felt the stirring power of the language they believed God first used to speak to man. This feeling of reverence and power was beautifully expressed by the great German writer Hermann Hesse writing in his largely autobiographical novel Beneath the Wheel:
"Hebrew kept all of them on their toes. The peculiar ancient language of Jehovah, an uncouth, withered and yet secretly living tree took on an alien, gnarled and puzzling form before the boys’ eyes, catching their attention through unusual linkages and astonishing them with remarkably colored and fragrant blossoms. In its branches, hollows and roots lived friendly or gruesome thousand-year old ghosts; fantastically fearsome dragons, lovely naïve girls and wrinkled sages next to handsome boys and calm-eyed girls or quarrelsome women. What had sounded remote and dreamlike in the Lutheran Bible was now lent blood in its true coarse character, as well as a voice of an old cumbersome but tenacious and ominous life."
Without knowledge of Hebrew and its majestic cadence and imagery, we are apt to assume that certain modes of expression simply derived from old Anglo-Saxon speech, but the translation of the Bible into English directly from Hebrew exercised a major influence over the English language. When we use expressions such as a "heavy heart" or idioms like "the skin of his teeth," "a drop in the bucket," or employ certain superlatives; "Holy of Holies" (Kodesh hakedushim), King of Kings (melech hamelachim), Song of Songs (Shir hashirim), we are simply repeating a word-for-word translation of the Hebrew Bible.
Hebrew words from the Bible could not always be translated but were simply "adopted" with only a minor alteration in pronunciation - alphabet, Sabbath, amen, abbot, messiah, hallelujah, hosanna, manna, cherubim, seraphim, Satan, shibboleth, leviathan, mammon, horn, camel, jubilee (from the 50th year Yovel celebration when all slaves were to be set free), scallions (after Ashkelon), gauze (after Gaza), and sodomy (after Sodom), Armageddon (from Megiddo), behemoth (the term for wild animals which was probably the source of the name Bahama islands) and most surprising of all - probably Europe itself - after the Hebrew erev - setting sun, or evening. Europe was the land of the setting sun for the ancient Hebrews and Phoenicians.
Yet the impact of Hebrew goes back much further than the Reformation and Renaissance to ancient times! Our view of ancient history has been shaped by the enormous role Greece, Rome, and Christianity and their bias towards its Jewish origins played in the formation and development of what came to be known as Western Civilization. This term is actually a misnomer since many of its most important foundations - monotheism, the Judeo-Christian ethic, namely the belief that each individual is created in the image of God and shares in an essential sanctity and dignity as well as our alphabet originated in the heartland of the Ancient World which stretched from the Aegean Sea and the Nile Delta across the Levant, Phoenicia, Israel and Mesopotamia (including the kingdoms and empires of Akkadia, Assyria, the Hittites and Babylonia).
It is now evident that many links existed between the Old Testament and the Hebrew language and the early civilization of Greece and the classic works of the Iliad and the Odyssey. More than 30 years ago, Prof. Cyrus Gordon pointed out in his epic work of scholarship, "The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations," that both drew on a common east Mediterranean heritage with many cross-currents between them. He pointed out that "Only two of the ethnic groups that emerged historically in the eastern Mediterranean of the second millennium have enjoyed a historically conscious continuity down to the present: the Greeks and the Hebrews."
This fact had been long ignored because so few scholars were skilled in both Greek and Hebrew. A re-examination of the great works of Hellenic and Hebraic civilizations sheds light on similar customs, common aspects of kingship, military strategy and technology, sacrifice, music and the central issues of man’s fate as dramatically portrayed both in the Book of Job and the greatest Greek dramas - the problems of evil and suffering. These central elements of "western" civilization originated in the Near East - ancient Israel and Greece (which at that time included Crete, Cyprus and much of Asia Minor).
History is always written by the victors. Rome vanquished Greece, mostly peacefully, and absorbed much of the Greek legacy - mythology, philosophy, and laws. Two other rivals, however, were crushed in a series of violent wars - Israel and Carthage. These two shared much the same Semitic heritage in language and did not accept Rome’s claims to a superior civilization.
The Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon had been close allies of the ancient Israelite kingdom and helped King Solomon build the First Temple. Migrants from these two Phoenician cities founded Carthage and spread across the Western Mediterranean to Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia and Southern Spain. More than a thousand years before Islam, much of Europe was characterized by a pre-Christian, pre-Muslim Semitic civilization.
Noted Israeli writer Amos Kenan gave expression to this link between ancient Israel and Carthage – Rome’s bitterest opponents. In a article entitled "Envy Tyre," he wrote:
"I always had an attraction to this wonderful phenomenon called Tyre and Sidon, and as one who was born on the sands of Tel Aviv on the coastal lowland, I feel a closeness to all that was, is and will be, on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean which I am a part of, and which is a part of me.
The Hebrew language, which is my language today, was 2,500 years ago the language spoken in Jerusalem and Tyre, in Shechem and Sidon, in Jaffa and Ugarit... and in Carthage. Tyre and Sidon and Jerusalem were two axes of one culture... the spiritual one of Jerusalem and the material one of Carthage. In the days when the prophets of Israel tried to create a universal code of morality, the seamen of Tyre established their colonies...
Why shouldn’t we feel a sense of pride in our proximity to that ancient contemporary of ours who stamped his image on the area, gave to the world writing, and once sent his elephants across the Alps under Hannibal’s leadership and momentarily brought mighty Rome itself in danger of destruction?"
In addition to their "strange" religion, the Jews spoke a language that was very similar to the Punic-speaking Carthaginians who had nearly conquered Rome. It is no wonder that the Romans, who willingly acknowledged their cultural debt to Greece, were loath to grant any credit to the vanquished Jews, Phoenicians and Carthaginians.
In contrast to so many other subject peoples under Roman rule, these Semites put up stubborn resistance and even claimed the superiority of monotheism (first Judaism and then Christianity), and were proud of their alphabet which was borrowed first by the Greeks and later by the Romans. Our alphabet is a direct descendant and still bears the names of the first two letters of the early Phoenician-Hebrew alphabet (alef and bet).
Many of the most common personal (Christian) names used throughout the world are directly derived from Hebrew, such as Jonathan (Yonatan), Joseph (Yosef), David, Isaac (Yitzhak), Jacob or Jack (Yaakov), Sarah, Esther, Eve, Rachel, Deborah, Rebecca (Rivka) and Leah. The last reigning Emperor of Ethiopia inherited the title of "Lion of Judah" (claiming descent from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba) and chose the name Haile Selassi (Hayl hashlosha - in Hebrew, "The Power of the Trinity"). The Puritans held the Hebrew language in such high regard that their military banners were inscribed with the emblem of the Lion of Judah and their battle hymns were taken directly from the Psalms.
Some Hebrew words of Biblical origin were so distinctive that no attempt was made to find equivalents for them in English or in the other languages which likewise adopted them. One of them, shibboleth, described a biblical story which had very modern applications, directly repeating the biblical event.
On Feb. 22, 1995, British Prime Minister John Major, spoke to the House of Commons in Parliament about the initiatives taken to reach a peaceful settlement in Northern Ireland acceptable to both Protestants and Catholics appealed to both sides to “avoid the shibboleths of the past”. He used the Hebrew term “shibboleth” with complete confidence that all members of the House would immediately grasp the significance of this solemn concept in the original language, drawn from the Old Testament (Judges, 12:1-6).
Shibboleth (the Hebrew word for an "ear of corn") was pronounced with the "sh" sound by the Gideonites, while the hostile tribe of Ephraimites could not say the "sh" and pronounced it sibboleth. The self-same strategy of detection was used in a peasants’ revolt in Flanders in the town of Brugge (Bruges) in the 13th century. The Flemish-speaking peasants distinguished their comrades from French-speaking nobility who were clad in peasant garb by asking them to repeat the Flemish slogan "Friend and Shield." The French speakers could not pronounce the "sch" in the Flemish word for shield. A similar shibboleth technique was used in World War II by the Dutch resistance and British intelligence to uncover German SS officers pretending to be Dutch civilians, who were unable to pronounce the name of the town of Scheveningen.
The influence of the Hebrew language, however, extends far beyond the field of linguistics and religion. Its contribution is much more profound than the borrowing of individual words and concepts. Hebrew mental patterns have been so long encased in English words and phrases that we scarcely give a thought to their origins. Classics of English literature, both prose and poetry, political oratory, the popular stage, song and screen, and inscriptions on historical monuments, are strewn with titles lifted directly from the pages of the Old Testament where they appeared for the first time in Hebrew.
The cherubim and seraphim, these two types of winged celestial beings protected the Holy Ark (II Chronicles 3:10-13, II Kings 6:23-28 and God is said to dwell among them (Psalms 99:1) They are described in many verses in Exodus, Ezekiel, I Kings and II Chronicles and figure prominently in English art, sculpture and poetry (See Piers Plowman by William Langland, Paradise Lost by John Milton, A Song to David by Christopher Smart, Auguries of Innocence by William Blake, Cain by Lord Byron and The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge).
The ability of Hebrew words and expressions serve as allegories, proverbs and parables for modern situations and events that recall the Bible. This has been a hallmark of great literature, debate and oratory. Below are just a few examples among many that were familiar to almost all Americans including those without any formal education and whose only book at home was the Bible a hundred years ago. These sayings were used by writers, newspaper editors, politicians, judges and even high school teachers without thinking twice, convinced that their audience would immediately know the circumstances from the Bible where these words were first used:
The writing on the wall (Daniel, 5:25), The mark of Cain (Genesis, 4:15), scapegoat (Leviticus, 16:26), The meek shall inherit the earth (Psalms 37:11), The Grapes of Wath (Deuteronomy, 32:32), Am I My Brother’s Keeper?” (Exodus 4:9), The Way of All Flesh (Genesis 6:12), The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11), They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks (Isaiah 2:4), Green Pastures (Psalms 23:2), Dust to Dust (Genesis 3:19); East of Eden (Genesis 4:16), My Cup Runneth Over (Psalms 23:5). How the Mighty Have Fallen, (II Samuel 2:19), The Fat of the Land (Genesis 45:18), Ivory Tower (Solomon's Song 7:5), The Good Earth (Deutoronomy 6:18) and Gone with the Wind ( Psalms 103:16). These and scores of others were chosen as the titles of books, plays and films beloved by millions.
Many non-Jews familiar with Yiddish expressions that have entered popular American slang are unsure of the relationship between Hebrew and Yiddish and occasionally confuse the two as both are written with the same alphabet. It is estimated that Hebrew words comprise close to 15 percent of the Yiddish vocabulary and a somewhat lesser proportion in the other “hybrids” Many Hebrew words which were absorbed by Yiddish indicate specific religious beliefs and practices. But a parallel vocabulary developed, in which words of Hebrew origin were used specifically to designate a concept, occupation, ceremony or item with Jewish content as opposed to the parallel word of foreign origin.
For a time, a lively rivalry existed between Hebrew and Yiddish, and competed for the loyalty of several generations of literary figures, writers, playwrights and philosophers. Supporters boldly proclaimed Yiddish as a "Jewish National Language" at a famous conference in Czernowitz in 1908, pointing to the tremendous numerical superiority of Yiddish speakers. Hebraists, on the other hand, at their conference in Vienna in 1913, laid claim to Hebrew as the Jewish national language, emphasizing the superiority of its historical continuity, the immense prestige of the Bible, its influence upon much of European literature, and its venerable age. It is hard to imagine a more persuasive Zionist argument than that the Land of Israel "speaks" Hebrew through the countless inscriptions uncovered throughout its length and breadth on parchment, stone, clay, papyrus and wood.
Yiddish progressively lost strength because emigration and assimilation, while Hebrew grew in strength due to territorial concentration through migration to Palestine and then Israel. Many Hebrew words were later absorbed by Yiddish and became part of the linguistic baggage of Jewish immigrants that became widely known by gentile neighbors and eventually adopted into English and other languages, such as maven (expert), ganef (thief), hutzpah (cheek), mishpocha (family), kosher and many others.
Yiddish reflected the folkways and religious life of the mass of European Jews and later was adapted to meet the requirements of sophisticated urban life and modern literature. The Holocaust dealt it a death-blow as a spoken language (other than among some ultra-orthodox Jews), although there has been an academic revival in its study, and as late at 1978, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to the Yiddish writer, Isaac Bashevis Singer.
The originator of the international language Esperanto, Dr Lazar Ludwig Zamenhof, was a Jew whose knowledge of Hebrew undoubtedly played a role in the successful development of the only devised language to make the transition from a desk project to a living tongue. Although the Esperanto vocabulary is largely derived from the Romance, Germanic and Slavic families, it is likely that Zamenhof’s profound knowledge of Hebrew contributed to the logical structure of what all linguists recognize as the easiest language to learn (see NER December 2007; “Why Esperanto is Different”).
Zamenhof used a logical grammatical system found in Hebrew in which words are constructed by three key consonants and words of a similar meaning are immediately recognizable by the presence of the same consonantal pattern. For example, the root SFR is used for SeFeR ("book"), SiFRiah ("library"), and SiFRut ("literature"), all words relating to the art of writing and storing books. There are other structural similarities between Hebrew and Esperanto, such as the addition to the root of prefixes which transform the verb from the simple active into a causitive or passive form.
This means that a Hebrew speaker/reader encountering a word for the first time should instantly recognize the important three consonants that indicate a particular concept and from the context of the sentence be able to guess the meaning of the word.
For example, the root letters CH-SH-V indicate the basic action/process of thinking/thought. Note that in Hebrew the sounds of SH and CH are rendered by single letters (the letters shin and chet). The active verb is CHoSHeV in the present tense = thinks. The causitive function of an initial m sound/letter creates maCHSHiV meaning to consider or esteem someone or something else as important. The initial sound/letter n creates the passive form so that something that is neCHSHav is considered/regarded as important. The reflexive form of a verb begins with the prefix "mit" so we have mitCHaSHeV meaning to take into account. The adjective "important" (thought of) is rendered as CHaSHooV. The modern word for computer in Hebrew is MaCHSHeV - a thinking device. In the following sentence the words in bold all bear the consonants CH-SH-V.
Moshe is considered the most important expert in Israel on economics. The finance minister accords great importance to his opinion and almost always takes his recommendation into account and the newspapers always check what he thinks.
The translation is....Moshe neCHSHaV lemumche heCHaSHooV biyoter biYisrael al kalkala. Sar haOtzar maCHSHiV et da'ato umitCHaSHeV behamlatzotav vihaitonim tamid bodkim mah hu CHoSHeV.
The immense achievement of restoring Hebrew as a spoken vernacular with a modern literature within three generations and its existence today as a living language, has inspired proponents of "minor" languages, overshadowed by powerful neighbors elsewhere. Proponents of Erse (Irish), Gaelic, Basque, Maltese, Norwegian and Welsh have all drawn inspiration from Israel and visited the country to specifically observe the operation of the teaching methods used in the Hebrew ulpan - intensive language courses taught to new immigrants in a "Hebrew" environment.
As early as 1927, the President of Ireland, Eamon de Valera, lamented to the head of the World Zionist Organization, Nahum Sokolow, that the Irish, in spite of having all the tools available to a national government, had been incapable of imitating the successful revival of Hebrew that was already apparent in Palestine (see NER April 2009, ”The Jewish and Irish Debate over a National Language”). Nuala Ni Dhomnaill, the best-known and most colorful woman poet writing in Irish today is a major cultural personality who has won wide acclaim in her native Kerry, all of Ireland and throughout the Irish Diaspora.
Nevertheless, much of her work is read in English translation in spite of her assertion that it thereby loses its effectiveness. She has made direct reference to the comparison of her native Irish with Hebrew today asserting that it is now too late to impose Irish as a national language as was done with Hebrew in Israel.
Supporters of Maltese as a national language sought to encourage and inspire their people to take pride in their language as a close relative of Hebrew and Aramaic - the tongues of Jesus and his disciples. But how was Maltese preserved and elevated, and what was Hebrew’s role in the matter? In the late 1870s, a handful of local scholars believing that Maltese descended from the dialect spoken in Carthage and originally brought there by the Phoenicians and later known as “Punic” deserved to be respected rather than held in contempt (see NER May 2007, "The Renaissance of Hebrew and Maltese”).
They argued that, as a language closely related to the Hebrew and Aramaic spoken by Jesus and the disciples, Maltese had a noble affiliation to them both. How could such a language be fit only for the market or the fisherman’s wharf and boat? Why should it be denied as the language of instruction in the schools, the courts and capable of producing a great literature?
Only in the mid 19th century, did scholars finally adapt Maltese to a written standard using Latin letters and thereby greatly increased literacy. This success brought immense new prestige to the language that was the spoken vernacular of more than 95% of the island’s population. The publication of a book in Italian “Saggio intorno alla lingua Maltese come effine all’Ebraico (The Wisdom of the Maltese Language and its Affinities with Hebrew) in 1880 enabled the cause of Maltese to finally make headway among many of the island’s Italian speaking intellectuals who had previously spurned the language. The author of the book, Annibale Preca, argued for the close association of Hebrew and Arabic with Maltese.
Universal literacy in Malta is an achievement due in large measure to a phonetic alphabet and instruction in the native vernacular in the primary grades. The use of a Romanized script and the enormous impact of two Indo-European languages on Maltese are of interest to students of the other two Semitic languages, Hebrew and Arabic. Problems of literacy and printing have led to many reform proposals for both Hebrew and Arabic which have all been essentially rejected on the basis of practical grounds and religious sentiment.
In Northeast Spain, in Catalonia or what was once known as the Kingdom of Aragon, Catalan nationalists took inspiration from the success of the restoration of Hebrew as a spoken and literary language in Israel and carried on a long campaign to grant Catalan equality with Castilian Spanish.
More remarkable is the parallel with the Basque nationalist campaign. Even more ancient than Hebrew, the Basque language was in danger of a slow death due to the lack of a standardized literary form, oppression by the regime of General Franco and the educational means to create a modern language. Here too, Hebrew’s success as a modern and literary language inspired Basque nationalists exiled in France who contacted the Israeli consul, S. Levine in 1957 with a long letter imploring him to enable Basque intellectuals to visit Israel and learn how the Israelis had restored Hebrew. Basque linguists have used some of the same strategies as Hebrew in creating words for abstract concepts that were previously lacking.
Many scholars during the Renaissance and later under the sponsorship of several monarchs, such as James IV of Scotland, tried to establish Hebrew as "the mother of all languages." They believed that Hebrew was the original source from which all other languages developed. It was for this reason that Columbus brought Luis de Torres, a converso (Jewish convert to Catholicism) with him on his voyage to the Americas. De Torres was a skilled interpreter who first addressed the Indians they met in Hebrew.
The assumption was that such far-flung peoples were probably related to the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel and therefore must have been influenced by the Hebrew language. De Torres remained in the New World and is thought to have been responsible for the origin of "Turkey" as the name for the strange new bird he observed - a corruption of the Hebrew tukki ("parrot").
This view of Hebrew as the origin of all the language families was subsequently repudiated as simplistic. However, some recent scholarship has indicated the possibility that Hebrew is indeed much older than the other Semitic languages. Its geographic location at the crossroads of the three continents of the Old World may have resulted in its having been an important source for other language families. Hebrew’s sister languages - first Akkadian and then Aramaic - functioned for a time as the lingua franca of the Near East.
To know Hebrew is to enjoy direct access to one of the world’s oldest continuous cultures. For the Jewish people, it is perhaps the most crucial element of their unity. Knowledge of Hebrew provides direct access to the Bible, over 3,000 years of cultural creativity, a better understanding of the development of English and even a possible key to comparative linguistics, an appreciation of the biblical heritage in modern literature, cinema, song, art, oratory and politics, and an insight into the moral, ethical, religious and judicial foundations of what we know today as Western Civilization.
The Bible and the works which followed - the Talmud, the Mishna- were written in Hebrew and Aramaic. In principle, every Jew could be learned, and the people were encouraged by their rabbis to be literate in Hebrew. More than 60 years ago, Mordechai Kaplan, one of the greatest Jewish thinkers of the 20th century, and founder of the Reconstructionist Movement in the United States, argued that:
"Once Hebrew becomes a foreign or ancient tongue to the Jew, he ceases to experience any intimacy with Jewish life... the first practical step in any effort to live Judaism as a civilization should be to learn Hebrew. It should be included among the languages that Jewish children are taught in the high schools and colleges, and it should be given the same academic credit as Latin and Greek."
Last, but by no means least, Hebrew is the language of modern Israel and an indispensable key to understanding and appreciating Israeli society and culture. Although in the Israeli linguistic marketplace, English will undoubtedly continue to enjoy immense prestige, the day is not far off - sometime in the 21st century when a majority of the Jewish people in the world will be Hebrew-speaking Israelis. For Jews in the Diaspora, Hebrew remains important as part of their religious heritage, but increasingly it will also function as a window to Israel, and a key to better appreciating their own cultural heritage.
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