180-604: Chaim Yisroel Eiss (1876–1943, Hebrew : חיים ישראל אייז ) was an Agudath Israel activist and writer. He also was among the founders of the Agudath Israel in 1912. During the First World War , Rebbe Eiss set up an aid system that located refugees, found out what they most needed and raised the required funds. During World War II , he worked on behalf of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe and he
360-685: A Hebrew form. Medieval Hebrew added 6421 words to (Modern) Hebrew. The approximate number of new lexical items in Israeli is 17,000 (cf. 14,762 in Even-Shoshan 1970 [...]). With the inclusion of foreign and technical terms [...], the total number of Israeli words, including words of biblical, rabbinic and medieval descent, is more than 60,000. In Israel, Modern Hebrew is currently taught in institutions called Ulpanim (singular: Ulpan). There are government-owned, as well as private, Ulpanim offering online courses and face-to-face programs. Modern Hebrew
540-595: A century ago, was fluent enough in this idiom to be able to follow the Mishna Berurah without any trouble." Hebrew has been revived several times as a literary language, most significantly by the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement of early and mid-19th-century Germany. In the early 19th century, a form of spoken Hebrew had emerged in the markets of Jerusalem between Jews of different linguistic backgrounds to communicate for commercial purposes. This Hebrew dialect
720-661: A corollary Hebrew ceased to function as a spoken language around the same time. Moshe Zvi Segal , Joseph Klausner and Ben Yehuda are notable exceptions to this view. During the latter half of the 20th century, accumulating archaeological evidence and especially linguistic analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls has disproven that view. The Dead Sea Scrolls, uncovered in 1946–1948 near Qumran revealed ancient Jewish texts overwhelmingly in Hebrew, not Aramaic. The Qumran scrolls indicate that Hebrew texts were readily understandable to
900-579: A distinct style of philosophical Hebrew. This is used in the translations made by the Ibn Tibbon family. (Original Jewish philosophical works were usually written in Arabic. ) Another important influence was Maimonides , who developed a simple style based on Mishnaic Hebrew for use in his law code, the Mishneh Torah . Subsequent rabbinic literature is written in a blend between this style and
1080-476: A door-to-door vendor. Later, in 1901, Eiss acquired his own shop. Later on he married Adele Holles. The couple had 10 children. Eiss was a founding member of Agudath Israel and one of its main activists. He operated mainly behind the scenes and every proposal that was brought to the presidium for ratification was first presented to him . During the First World War , Eiss set up a large aid system that located refugees, found out what they most needed and raised
1260-594: A gradually accepted movement. It was not, however, until the 1904–1914 Second Aliyah that Hebrew had caught real momentum in Ottoman Palestine with the more highly organized enterprises set forth by the new group of immigrants. When the British Mandate of Palestine recognized Hebrew as one of the country's three official languages (English, Arabic, and Hebrew, in 1922), its new formal status contributed to its diffusion. A constructed modern language with
1440-531: A great influence on the rise of Haredi Judaism all over the world, with a continuous influence through its many Hasidic dynasties including those of Chabad , Aleksander , Bobov , Ger , Nadvorna , among others. In 1742 most of Silesia was lost to Prussia . Further disorder and anarchy reigned supreme in Poland during the second half of the 18th century, from the accession to the throne of its last king, Stanislaus II Augustus Poniatowski in 1764. His election
1620-783: A great wave of Jewish emigration to the United States. An even bloodier wave of pogroms broke out from 1903 to 1906, at least some of them believed to have been organized by the Tsarist Russian secret police, the Okhrana . They included the Białystok pogrom of 1906 in the Grodno Governorate of Russian Poland, in which at least 75 Jews were murdered by marauding soldiers and many more Jews were wounded. According to Jewish survivors, ethnic Poles did not participate in
1800-522: A growing problem throughout Europe in those years, from both the political establishment and the general population. Throughout the interwar period , Poland supported Jewish emigration from Poland and the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine . The Polish state also supported Jewish paramilitary groups such as the Haganah , Betar , and Irgun , providing them with weapons and training. In 1939, at
1980-561: A large number of Jewish books, mainly of a religious character. The growth of Talmudic scholarship in Poland was coincident with the greater prosperity of the Polish Jews; and because of their communal autonomy educational development was wholly one-sided and along Talmudic lines. Exceptions are recorded, however, where Jewish youth sought secular instruction in the European universities. The learned rabbis became not merely expounders of
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#17327982394492160-452: A legend had a Jewish lover named Esterka from Opoczno was especially friendly to the Jews, and his reign is regarded as an era of great prosperity for Polish Jewry, and was nicknamed by his contemporaries "King of the serfs and Jews." Under penalty of death , he prohibited the kidnapping of Jewish children for the purpose of enforced Christian baptism . He inflicted heavy punishment for
2340-468: A literary language down through the Byzantine period from the 4th century CE. The exact roles of Aramaic and Hebrew remain hotly debated. A trilingual scenario has been proposed for the land of Israel. Hebrew functioned as the local mother tongue with powerful ties to Israel's history, origins and golden age and as the language of Israel's religion; Aramaic functioned as the international language with
2520-536: A literary language, especially in Spain, as the language of commerce between Jews of different native languages, and as the liturgical language of Judaism, evolving various dialects of literary Medieval Hebrew , until its revival as a spoken language in the late 19th century. In May 2023, Scott Stripling published the finding of what he claims to be the oldest known Hebrew inscription, a curse tablet found at Mount Ebal , dated from around 3200 years ago. The presence of
2700-510: A more rational basis. The progressive elements in Polish society recognized the urgency of popular education as the first step toward reform. The famous Komisja Edukacji Narodowej ("Commission of National Education"), the first ministry of education in the world, was established in 1773 and founded numerous new schools and remodeled the old ones. One of the members of the commission, kanclerz Andrzej Zamoyski , along with others, demanded that
2880-577: A number of cities within the Pale. Settlers from outside the pale were forced to move to small towns, thus fostering the rise of the shtetls . Although the Jews were accorded slightly more rights with the Emancipation reform of 1861 by Alexander II , they were still restricted to the Pale of Settlement and subject to restrictions on ownership and profession. The existing status quo was shattered with
3060-587: A series of false "Messianic" movements, most famously as Sabbatianism was succeeded by Frankism . In this time of mysticism and overly formal Rabbinism came the teachings of Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Baal Shem Tov , or BeShT , (1698–1760), which had a profound effect on the Jews of Eastern Europe and Poland in particular. His disciples taught and encouraged the new fervent brand of Judaism based on Kabbalah known as Hasidism . The rise of Hasidic Judaism within Poland's borders and beyond had
3240-548: A set of dialects evolving out of Late Biblical Hebrew and into Mishnaic Hebrew, thus including elements from both but remaining distinct from either. By the start of the Byzantine Period in the 4th century CE, Classical Hebrew ceased as a regularly spoken language, roughly a century after the publication of the Mishnah, apparently declining since the aftermath of the catastrophic Bar Kokhba revolt around 135 CE. In
3420-668: A spoken language, it continued to be used as a lingua franca among scholars and Jews traveling in foreign countries. After the 2nd century CE when the Roman Empire exiled most of the Jewish population of Jerusalem following the Bar Kokhba revolt , they adapted to the societies in which they found themselves, yet letters, contracts, commerce, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry and laws continued to be written mostly in Hebrew, which adapted by borrowing and inventing terms. After
3600-514: A stake, extended to mean the area enclosed by a fence or boundary. With its large Catholic and Jewish populations, the Pale was acquired by the Russian Empire (which was a majority Russian Orthodox ) in a series of military conquests and diplomatic maneuvers between 1791 and 1835, and lasted until the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917. It comprised about 20% of the territory of European Russia and mostly corresponded to historical borders of
3780-703: A subject of renewed scholarly interest during the 21st century. In the post-war period, many of the approximately 200,000 Jewish survivors registered at the Central Committee of Polish Jews or CKŻP (of whom 136,000 arrived from the Soviet Union) left the Polish People’s Republic for the nascent State of Israel or the Americas . Their departure was hastened by the destruction of Jewish institutions, post-war anti-Jewish violence , and
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#17327982394493960-472: A truly Semitic vocabulary and written appearance, although often European in phonology , was to take its place among the current languages of the nations. While many saw his work as fanciful or even blasphemous (because Hebrew was the holy language of the Torah and therefore some thought that it should not be used to discuss everyday matters), many soon understood the need for a common language amongst Jews of
4140-558: A vernacular in Judea until it was displaced by Aramaic, probably in the 3rd century CE. Certain Sadducee , Pharisee , Scribe , Hermit, Zealot and Priest classes maintained an insistence on Hebrew, and all Jews maintained their identity with Hebrew songs and simple quotations from Hebrew texts. While there is no doubt that at a certain point, Hebrew was displaced as the everyday spoken language of most Jews, and that its chief successor in
4320-527: A Żydowska (Jewish) street in Kraków in 1304. The tolerant situation was gradually altered by the Roman Catholic Church on the one hand, and by the neighboring German states on the other. There were, however, among the reigning princes some determined protectors of the Jewish inhabitants, who considered the presence of the latter most desirable as far as the economic development of the country
4500-518: Is 8198, of which some 2000 are hapax legomena (the number of Biblical Hebrew roots, on which many of these words are based, is 2099). The number of attested Rabbinic Hebrew words is less than 20,000, of which (i) 7879 are Rabbinic par excellence, i.e. they did not appear in the Old Testament (the number of new Rabbinic Hebrew roots is 805); (ii) around 6000 are a subset of Biblical Hebrew; and (iii) several thousand are Aramaic words which can have
4680-644: Is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family . A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages , it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language until after 200 CE and as the liturgical language of Judaism (since the Second Temple period ) and Samaritanism . The language was revived as a spoken language in the 19th century, and
4860-486: Is a permanent guest at our friends' homes." Sometimes he was able to be more explicit, and he wrote to the London branch of Agudath Israel, "The situation of our French brethren and even more, of our Polish brethren, is getting worse each day. In Warsaw the Jews are dying at a rate of 6,000 per month, mostly from hunger." Hundreds, maybe thousands of people were prevented from dying by Eiss’s efforts, but these were not
5040-476: Is estimated to have between 10,000 and 20,000 members. The number of people with Jewish heritage of any sort is several times larger. The first Jews to visit Polish territory were traders, while permanent settlement began during the Crusades . Travelling along trade routes leading east to Kyiv and Bukhara , Jewish merchants, known as Radhanites , crossed Silesia . One of them, a diplomat and merchant from
5220-567: Is fighting to stop businesses from using only English signs to market their services. In 2012, a Knesset bill for the preservation of the Hebrew language was proposed, which includes the stipulation that all signage in Israel must first and foremost be in Hebrew, as with all speeches by Israeli officials abroad. The bill's author, MK Akram Hasson , stated that the bill was proposed as a response to Hebrew "losing its prestige" and children incorporating more English words into their vocabulary. Hebrew
5400-531: Is one of several languages for which the constitution of South Africa calls to be respected in their use for religious purposes. Also, Hebrew is an official national minority language in Poland , since 6 January 2005. Hamas has made Hebrew a compulsory language taught in schools in the Gaza Strip. Polish Jews The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland
5580-573: Is the only successful large-scale example of linguistic revival . It is the only Canaanite language, as well as one of only two Northwest Semitic languages, with the other being Aramaic , still spoken today. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date back to the 10th century BCE. Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew , with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around
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5760-457: Is the primary official language of the State of Israel. As of 2013 , there are about 9 million Hebrew speakers worldwide, of whom 7 million speak it fluently. Currently, 90% of Israeli Jews are proficient in Hebrew, and 70% are highly proficient. Some 60% of Israeli Arabs are also proficient in Hebrew, and 30% report having a higher proficiency in Hebrew than in Arabic. In total, about 53% of
5940-547: Is used to pronounce the Hebrew Bible; however, properly it should be distinguished from the historical Biblical Hebrew of the 6th century BCE, whose original pronunciation must be reconstructed. Tiberian Hebrew incorporates the scholarship of the Masoretes (from masoret meaning "tradition"), who added vowel points and grammar points to the Hebrew letters to preserve much earlier features of Hebrew, for use in chanting
6120-650: The Chayei Adam in Hebrew, as opposed to Yiddish , as a guide to Halacha for the " average 17-year-old" (Ibid. Introduction 1). Similarly, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan 's purpose in writing the Mishnah Berurah was to "produce a work that could be studied daily so that Jews might know the proper procedures to follow minute by minute". The work was nevertheless written in Talmudic Hebrew and Aramaic, since, "the ordinary Jew [of Eastern Europe] of
6300-727: The Ancient Greek Ἑβραῖος ( hebraîos ) and Aramaic 'ibrāy , all ultimately derived from Biblical Hebrew Ivri ( עברי ), one of several names for the Israelite ( Jewish and Samaritan ) people ( Hebrews ). It is traditionally understood to be an adjective based on the name of Abraham 's ancestor, Eber , mentioned in Genesis 10:21 . The name is believed to be based on the Semitic root ʕ-b-r ( ע־ב־ר ), meaning "beyond", "other side", "across"; interpretations of
6480-537: The Black Death led to additional 14th-century outbreaks of violence against the Jews in Kalisz , Kraków and Bochnia . Traders and artisans jealous of Jewish prosperity, and fearing their rivalry, supported the harassment. In 1423, the statute of Warka forbade Jews the granting of loans against letters of credit or mortgage and limited their operations exclusively to loans made on security of moveable property. In
6660-730: The Bund labor union which supported assimilation and the rights of labor . The Folkspartei (People's Party) advocated, for its part, cultural autonomy and resistance to assimilation. In 1912, Agudat Israel , a religious party, came into existence. Many Jews took part in the Polish insurrections, particularly against Russia (since the Tsars discriminated heavily against the Jews). The Kościuszko Insurrection (1794), November Insurrection (1830–31), January Insurrection (1863) and Revolutionary Movement of 1905 all saw significant Jewish involvement in
6840-547: The Canaanite group of languages . Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages. Hebrew was the spoken language in the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the period from about 1200 to 586 BCE. Epigraphic evidence from this period confirms the widely accepted view that the earlier layers of biblical literature reflect the language used in these kingdoms. Furthermore,
7020-634: The German occupation of Poland between 1939 and 1945, called the Holocaust . Since the fall of communism in Poland , there has been a renewed interest in Jewish culture, featuring an annual Jewish Culture Festival , new study programs at Polish secondary schools and universities, and the opening of Warsaw 's Museum of the History of Polish Jews . From the founding of the Kingdom of Poland in 1025 until
7200-572: The Gospel of Matthew . (See the Hebrew Gospel hypothesis or Language of Jesus for more details on Hebrew and Aramaic in the gospels.) The term "Mishnaic Hebrew" generally refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud , excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible. The dialects organize into Mishnaic Hebrew (also called Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew I), which
7380-549: The Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, as well as from Austria , Hungary and Germany , thus stimulating Jewish immigration to the much more accessible Poland. Indeed, with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain , Poland became the recognized haven for exiles from Western Europe; and the resulting accession to the ranks of Polish Jewry made it the cultural and spiritual center of the Jewish people. The most prosperous period for Polish Jews began following this new influx of Jews with
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7560-495: The Latin alphabet of ancient Rome . The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels , and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places in which later Hebrew spelling requires them. Numerous older tablets have been found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example, Proto-Sinaitic . It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to Egyptian hieroglyphs , though
7740-682: The Maccabean Revolt (167–160 BCE) and the emergence of the Hasmonean kingdom , the Great Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE), and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE). The nationalist significance of Hebrew manifested in various ways throughout this period. Michael Owen Wise notes that "Beginning with the time of the Hasmonean revolt [...] Hebrew came to the fore in an expression akin to modern nationalism. A form of classical Hebrew
7920-727: The Moorish town of Tortosa in Spanish Al-Andalus , known by his Arabic name, Ibrahim ibn Yaqub , was the first chronicler to mention the Polish state ruled by Prince Mieszko I . In the summer of 965 or 966, Jacob made a trade and diplomatic journey from his native Toledo in Muslim Spain to the Holy Roman Empire and then to the Slavic countries. The first actual mention of Jews in Polish chronicles occurs in
8100-507: The Ottoman Empire . Arabic-speaking Mizrahi Jews and Persian Jews also migrated to Poland during this time. Jewish religious life thrived in many Polish communities. In 1503, the Polish monarchy appointed Rabbi Jacob Pollak the first official Rabbi of Poland. By 1551, Jews were given permission to choose their own Chief Rabbi. The Chief Rabbinate held power over law and finance, appointing judges and other officials. Some power
8280-781: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . The worldwide Jewish population at that time was estimated at 1.2 million. In 1768, the Koliivshchyna , a rebellion in Right-bank Ukraine west of the Dnieper in Volhynia , led to ferocious murders of Polish noblemen, Catholic priests and thousands of Jews by haydamaks . Four years later, in 1772, the military Partitions of Poland had begun between Russia, Prussia and Austria. The culture and intellectual output of
8460-438: The Sadigora Rebbe who blessed him and gave him an additional name, Chaim. Eiss got no secular education. ‘ I taught myself to write at a later age. I did not learn any trade either as my father wanted me to be a rabbi. For this reason, I then only completed Jewish religious studies ’, he declared in 1943. In 1900, he moved to Switzerland and came to Zurich where he wanted to study. However, having no money, he started working as
8640-422: The Second Aliyah , it replaced a score of languages spoken by Jews at that time. Those languages were Jewish dialects of local languages, including Judaeo-Spanish (also called "Judezmo" and "Ladino"), Yiddish , Judeo-Arabic and Bukhori (Tajiki), or local languages spoken in the Jewish diaspora such as Russian , Persian and Arabic . The major result of the literary work of the Hebrew intellectuals along
8820-409: The annexations of 1772 , and even more of its peoples. Jews were most numerous in the territories that fell under the military control of Austria and Russia. The permanent council established at the instance of the Russian government (1773–1788) served as the highest administrative tribunal, and occupied itself with the elaboration of a plan that would make practicable the reorganization of Poland on
9000-416: The assassination of Alexander in 1881 – an act falsely blamed upon the Jews. The assassination prompted a large-scale wave of anti-Jewish riots, called pogroms (Russian: погро́м ;) throughout 1881–1884. In the 1881 outbreak, pogroms were primarily limited to Russia, although in a riot in Warsaw two Jews were killed, 24 others were wounded, women were raped and over two million rubles worth of property
9180-414: The brewing industry . The harshest measures designed to compel Jews to merge into society at large called for their expulsion from small villages, forcing them to move into towns. Once the resettlement began, thousands of Jews lost their only source of income and turned to Qahal for support. Their living conditions in the Pale began to dramatically worsen. During the reign of Tsar Nicolas I , known by
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#17327982394499360-399: The literary and liturgical language into everyday spoken language . However, his brand of Hebrew followed norms that had been replaced in Eastern Europe by different grammar and style, in the writings of people like Ahad Ha'am and others. His organizational efforts and involvement with the establishment of schools and the writing of textbooks pushed the vernacularization activity into
9540-507: The official language of the State of Israel . Estimates of worldwide usage include five million speakers in 1998, and over nine million people in 2013. After Israel, the United States has the largest Hebrew-speaking population, with approximately 220,000 fluent speakers (see Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans ). Modern Hebrew is the official language of the State of Israel, while pre-revival forms of Hebrew are used for prayer or study in Jewish and Samaritan communities around
9720-484: The ostraca found near Lachish , which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BCE. In its widest sense, Biblical Hebrew refers to the spoken language of ancient Israel flourishing between c. 1000 BCE and c. 400 CE . It comprises several evolving and overlapping dialects. The phases of Classical Hebrew are often named after important literary works associated with them. Sometimes
9900-441: The 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic period , the traditional time of the reign of David and Solomon . Classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew , the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar (named after the city in whose proximity it was found) is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that, through the Greeks and Etruscans , later became
10080-409: The 11th century, where it appears that Jews then lived in Gniezno , at that time the capital of the Polish kingdom of the Piast dynasty . Among the first Jews to arrive in Poland in 1097 or 1098 were those banished from Prague . The first permanent Jewish community is mentioned in 1085 by a Jewish scholar Jehuda ha-Kohen in the city of Przemyśl . As elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe ,
10260-452: The 14th and 15th centuries, rich Jewish merchants and moneylenders leased the royal mint, salt mines and the collecting of customs and tolls. The most famous of them were Jordan and his son Lewko of Kraków in the 14th century and Jakub Slomkowicz of Łuck , Wolczko of Drohobycz , Natko of Lviv , Samson of Zydaczow , Josko of Hrubieszów and Szania of Belz in the 15th century. For example, Wolczko of Drohobycz, King Ladislaus Jagiełło's broker,
10440-417: The 16th century, established his yeshiva in Kraków . In addition to being a renowned Talmudic and legal scholar , Isserles was also learned in Kabbalah , and studied history, astronomy, and philosophy. He is considered the " Maimonides of Polish Jewry." The Remuh Synagogue was built for him in 1557. Rema (רמ״א) is the Hebrew acronym for his name. After the childless death of Sigismund II Augustus ,
10620-454: The 1980s in the USSR , Hebrew studies reappeared due to people struggling for permission to go to Israel ( refuseniks ). Several of the teachers were imprisoned, e.g. Yosef Begun , Ephraim Kholmyansky , Yevgeny Korostyshevsky and others responsible for a Hebrew learning network connecting many cities of the USSR. Standard Hebrew, as developed by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, was based on Mishnaic spelling and Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation. However,
10800-535: The 19th century was a lexical modernization of Hebrew. New words and expressions were adapted as neologisms from the large corpus of Hebrew writings since the Hebrew Bible, or borrowed from Arabic (mainly by Ben-Yehuda) and older Aramaic and Latin. Many new words were either borrowed from or coined after European languages, especially English, Russian, German, and French. Modern Hebrew became an official language in British-ruled Palestine in 1921 (along with English and Arabic), and then in 1948 became an official language of
10980-463: The 19th century. By the late 19th century, Haskalah and the debates it caused created a growing number of political movements within the Jewish community itself, covering a wide range of views and vying for votes in local and regional elections. Zionism became very popular with the advent of the Poale Zion socialist party as well as the religious Polish Mizrahi , and the increasingly popular General Zionists . Jews also took up socialism , forming
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#173279823944911160-495: The 6th century BCE, during the time of the Babylonian captivity . For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Lashon Hakodesh ( לְשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶש , lit. ' the holy tongue ' or ' the tongue [of] holiness ' ) since ancient times. The language was not referred to by the name Hebrew in the Bible , but as Yehudit ( transl. ' Judean ' ) or Səpaṯ Kəna'an ( transl. "the language of Canaan " ). Mishnah Gittin 9:8 refers to
11340-579: The Aramaized Rabbinic Hebrew of the Talmud. Hebrew persevered through the ages as the main language for written purposes by all Jewish communities around the world for a large range of uses—not only liturgy, but also poetry, philosophy, science and medicine, commerce, daily correspondence and contracts. There have been many deviations from this generalization such as Bar Kokhba 's letters to his lieutenants, which were mostly in Aramaic, and Maimonides' writings, which were mostly in Arabic; but overall, Hebrew did not cease to be used for such purposes. For example,
11520-503: The British Mandate who at the turn of the 20th century were arriving in large numbers from diverse countries and speaking different languages. A Committee of the Hebrew Language was established. After the establishment of Israel, it became the Academy of the Hebrew Language . The results of Ben-Yehuda's lexicographical work were published in a dictionary ( The Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew , Ben-Yehuda Dictionary ). The seeds of Ben-Yehuda's work fell on fertile ground, and by
11700-467: The Christian population (fur making, tanning, tailoring). In 1454 anti-Jewish riots flared up in Bohemia 's ethnically-German Wrocław and other Silesian cities, inspired by a Franciscan friar, John of Capistrano , who accused Jews of profaning the Christian religion. As a result, Jews were banished from Lower Silesia. Zbigniew Olesnicki then invited John to conduct a similar campaign in Kraków and several other cities, to lesser effect. The decline in
11880-413: The Crown hetman Stefan Czarniecki of the Ruthenian and Jewish population. He defeated the Swedes in 1660 and was equally successful in his battles against the Russians. Meanwhile, the horrors of the war were aggravated by pestilence . Many Jews along with the townsfolk of Kalisz , Kraków, Poznań , Piotrków and Lublin fell victim to recurring epidemics. As soon as the disturbances had ceased,
12060-460: The Fat of Legnica in 1290–95, and Bolko III the Generous of Legnica and Wrocław in 1295. Article 31 of the Statute of Kalisz tried to rein in the Catholic Church from disseminating blood libels against the Jews, by stating: "Accusing Jews of drinking Christian blood is expressly prohibited. If despite this a Jew should be accused of murdering a Christian child, such charge must be sustained by testimony of three Christians and three Jews." During
12240-416: The Great conquered Babylon, he allowed the Jewish people to return from captivity. In time, a local version of Aramaic came to be spoken in Israel alongside Hebrew. By the beginning of the Common Era , Aramaic was the primary colloquial language of Samarian , Babylonian and Galileean Jews, and western and intellectual Jews spoke Greek , but a form of so-called Rabbinic Hebrew continued to be used as
12420-432: The Hebrew name of god , Yahweh, as three letters, Yod-Heh-Vav (YHV), according to the author and his team meant that the tablet is Hebrew and not Canaanite. However, practically all professional archeologists and epigraphers apart from Stripling's team claim that there is no text on this object. In July 2008, Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa that he claimed may be
12600-437: The Hebrew Bible. The Masoretes inherited a biblical text whose letters were considered too sacred to be altered, so their markings were in the form of pointing in and around the letters. The Syriac alphabet , precursor to the Arabic alphabet , also developed vowel pointing systems around this time. The Aleppo Codex , a Hebrew Bible with the Masoretic pointing, was written in the 10th century, likely in Tiberias, and survives into
12780-454: The Israeli population speaks Hebrew as a native language, while most of the rest speak it fluently. In 2013 Hebrew was the native language of 49% of Israelis over the age of 20, with Russian , Arabic , French , English , Yiddish and Ladino being the native tongues of most of the rest. Some 26% of immigrants from the former Soviet Union and 12% of Arabs reported speaking Hebrew poorly or not at all. Steps have been taken to keep Hebrew
12960-530: The Jewish community in Poland had a profound impact on Judaism as a whole. Some Jewish historians have recounted that the word Poland is pronounced as Polania or Polin in Hebrew , and as transliterated into Hebrew, these names for Poland were interpreted as "good omens" because Polania can be broken down into three Hebrew words: po ("here"), lan ("dwells"), ya (" God "), and Polin into two words of: po ("here") lin ("[you should] dwell"). The "message"
13140-461: The Jews as " Haman the Second", hundreds of new anti-Jewish measures were enacted. The 1827 decree by Nicolas – while lifting the traditional double taxation on Jews in lieu of army service – made Jews subject to general military recruitment laws that required Jewish communities to provide 7 recruits per each 1000 "souls" every 4 years. Unlike the general population that had to provide recruits between
13320-637: The Jews began to return and to rebuild their destroyed homes; and while it is true that the Jewish population of Poland had decreased, it still was more numerous than that of the Jewish colonies in Western Europe. Poland continued to be the spiritual center of Judaism. Through 1698, the Polish kings generally remained supportive of the Jews. Although Jewish losses in those events were high, the Commonwealth lost one-third of its population – approximately three million of its citizens. The environment of
13500-423: The Jews of his benevolence on the basis of "the principle of tolerance which in conformity with God's laws obliged him to protect them". The policy of the government toward the Jews of Poland oscillated under Casimir's sons and successors, John I Albert (1492–1501) and Alexander Jagiellon (1501–1506). In 1495, Jews were ordered out of the center of Kraków and allowed to settle in the "Jewish town" of Kazimierz. In
13680-629: The Khmelnytsky Uprising until after the Deluge (1648–1658) left a deep and lasting impression not only on the social life of the Polish–Lithuanian Jews, but on their spiritual life as well. The intellectual output of the Jews of Poland was reduced. The Talmudic learning which up to that period had been the common possession of the majority of the people became accessible to a limited number of students only. What religious study there
13860-454: The Law, but also spiritual advisers, teachers, judges, and legislators; and their authority compelled the communal leaders to make themselves familiar with the abstruse questions of Jewish law . Polish Jewry found its views of life shaped by the spirit of Talmudic and rabbinical literature, whose influence was felt in the home, in school, and in the synagogue. In the first half of the 16th century
14040-477: The Middle East was the closely related Aramaic language, then Greek , scholarly opinions on the exact dating of that shift have changed very much. In the first half of the 20th century, most scholars followed Abraham Geiger and Gustaf Dalman in thinking that Aramaic became a spoken language in the land of Israel as early as the beginning of Israel's Hellenistic period in the 4th century BCE, and that as
14220-692: The November Insurrection of 1830–1831, the January Insurrection of 1863, as well as in the revolutionary movement of 1905. Many Polish Jews were enlisted in the Polish Legions , which fought for the Polish independence, achieved in 1918 when the occupying forces disintegrated following World War I. Official Russian policy would eventually prove to be substantially harsher to the Jews than that under independent Polish rule. The lands that had once been Poland were to remain
14400-648: The Polish Commonwealth, according to Hundert, profoundly affected Jews due to genuinely positive encounter with the Christian culture across the many cities and towns owned by the Polish aristocracy. There was no isolation. The Jewish dress resembled that of their Polish neighbor. "Reports of romances, of drinking together in taverns, and of intellectual conversations are quite abundant." Wealthy Jews had Polish noblemen at their table, and served meals on silver plates. By 1764, there were about 750,000 Jews in
14580-724: The Swiss police in May 1943, Eiss admitted to having worked together with Polish diplomats to illegally obtain a fake passport from a corrupted honorary consul of Paraguay Rudolf Hugli . ‘ I always contact the Polish Consul, Rokicki , who then, in turn, contacts the Paraguayan Consul, Hügli in Bern , who issues the documents. Then, presumably, Rokicki must pay some amount to Mr Hügli. The certificates are then be sent to Poland in
14760-674: The Talmud, the Gemara , generally comments on the Mishnah and Baraitot in two forms of Aramaic. Nevertheless, Hebrew survived as a liturgical and literary language in the form of later Amoraic Hebrew, which occasionally appears in the text of the Gemara, particularly in the Jerusalem Talmud and the classical aggadah midrashes . Hebrew was always regarded as the language of Israel's religion, history and national pride, and after it faded as
14940-460: The Talmud, various regional literary dialects of Medieval Hebrew evolved. The most important is Tiberian Hebrew or Masoretic Hebrew, a local dialect of Tiberias in Galilee that became the standard for vocalizing the Hebrew Bible and thus still influences all other regional dialects of Hebrew. This Tiberian Hebrew from the 7th to 10th century CE is sometimes called "Biblical Hebrew" because it
15120-488: The ability to speak the language and attempted to promote its use. According to the Jerusalem Talmud , Megillah 1:9: "Rebbi Jonathan from Bet Guvrrin said, four languages are appropriate that the world should use them, and they are these: The Foreign Language (Greek) for song, Latin for war, Syriac for elegies, Hebrew for speech. Some are saying, also Assyrian (Hebrew script) for writing." The later section of
15300-478: The above phases of spoken Classical Hebrew are simplified into "Biblical Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 10th century BCE to 2nd century BCE and extant in certain Dead Sea Scrolls) and "Mishnaic Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE and extant in certain other Dead Sea Scrolls). However, today most Hebrew linguists classify Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew as
15480-540: The ages of 18 and 35, Jews had to provide recruits between the ages of 12 and 25, at the qahal 's discretion. Thus between 1827 and 1857 over 30,000 children were placed in the so-called Cantonist schools, where they were pressured to convert. "Many children were smuggled to Poland, where the conscription of Jews did not take effect until 1844." The Pale of Settlement ( Russian : Черта́ осе́длости , chertá osédlosti , Yiddish : תּחום-המושבֿ , tkhum-ha-moyshəv , Hebrew : תְּחוּם הַמּוֹשָב , tḥùm ha-mosháv )
15660-580: The articles himself and was personally responsible for printing and distributing the paper. He was also a regular contributor to the then Agudath Israel weekly Kol Yisrael , printed in Jerusalem, and used it to make his opinions known to the population of Eretz Israel . Eiss lived in Switzerland , which was neutral during World War II , and was therefore able to serve as the link between people living in countries under Nazi occupation and residents of
15840-513: The authority of both was recognized by the Jews throughout Europe. Heated religious disputations were common, and Jewish scholars participated in them. At the same time, the Kabbalah had become entrenched under the protection of Rabbinism ; and such scholars as Mordecai Jaffe and Yoel Sirkis devoted themselves to its study. This period of great Rabbinical scholarship was interrupted by the [Khmelnytsky Uprising and The Deluge. The decade from
16020-561: The average Jew, and that the language had evolved since Biblical times as spoken languages do. Recent scholarship recognizes that reports of Jews speaking in Aramaic indicate a multilingual society, not necessarily the primary language spoken. Alongside Aramaic, Hebrew co-existed within Israel as a spoken language. Most scholars now date the demise of Hebrew as a spoken language to the end of the Roman period , or about 200 CE. It continued on as
16200-547: The beginning of the 20th century, Hebrew was well on its way to becoming the main language of the Jewish population of both Ottoman and British Palestine. At the time, members of the Old Yishuv and a very few Hasidic sects, most notably those under the auspices of Satmar , refused to speak Hebrew and spoke only Yiddish. In the Soviet Union, the use of Hebrew, along with other Jewish cultural and religious activities,
16380-459: The border in Lithuanian territory as far as Kyiv . Bolesław III recognized the utility of Jews in the development of the commercial interests of his country. Jews came to form the backbone of the Polish economy. Mieszko III employed Jews in his mint as engravers and technical supervisors, and the coins minted during that period even bear Hebraic markings . Jews worked on commission for
16560-642: The cause of Polish independence. During the Second Polish Republic period, there were several prominent Jewish politicians in the Polish Sejm, such as Apolinary Hartglas and Yitzhak Gruenbaum . Many Jewish political parties were active, representing a wide ideological spectrum, from the Zionists, to the socialists to the anti-Zionists. One of the largest of these parties was the Bund, which
16740-456: The censors while being understood by the intended recipients. An example of this can be seen in a letter that he wrote to Agudath Israel’s American branch at an early stage, before people were yet aware of the Nazis’ extermination efforts. It stated: "Our friend Rav Alexander Susha Friedman wrote me a letter of thanks on behalf of Mr. Mekayem Nefesh" and that "Mr. Chalelei Raav (Dying of Hunger)
16920-674: The commercial interests of the land. Another factor for the Jews to emigrate to Poland was the Magdeburg rights (or Magdeburg Law), a charter given to Jews, among others, that specifically outlined the rights and privileges that Jews had in Poland. For example, they could maintain communal autonomy, and live according to their own laws. This made it very attractive for Jewish communities to pick up and move to Poland. The first mention of Jewish settlers in Płock dates from 1237, in Kalisz from 1287 and
17100-602: The composition of 1 Maccabees in archaizing Hebrew, Hasmonean coinage under John Hyrcanus (134-104 BCE), and coins from both the Great Revolt and Bar Kokhba Revolt featuring exclusively Hebrew and Palaeo-Hebrew script inscriptions. This deliberate use of Hebrew and Paleo-Hebrew script in official contexts, despite limited literacy, served as a symbol of Jewish nationalism and political independence. The Christian New Testament contains some Semitic place names and quotes. The language of such Semitic glosses (and in general
17280-468: The content of Hebrew inscriptions suggests that the written texts closely mirror the spoken language of that time. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a spoken vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile when the predominant international language in the region was Old Aramaic . Hebrew was extinct as a colloquial language by late antiquity , but it continued to be used as
17460-681: The cooperation of the Polish princes for enforcement, which was generally not forthcoming, due to the profits which the Jews' economic activity yielded to the princes. In 1332, King Casimir III the Great (1303–1370) amplified and expanded Bolesław's old charter with the Wiślicki Statute . Under his reign, streams of Jewish immigrants headed east to Poland and Jewish settlements are first mentioned as existing in Lvov (1356), Sandomierz (1367), and Kazimierz near Kraków (1386). Casimir, who according to
17640-642: The desecration of Jewish cemeteries . Nevertheless, while the Jews of Poland enjoyed tranquility for the greater part of Casimir's reign, toward its close they were subjected to persecution on account of the Black Death . In 1348, the first blood libel accusation against Jews in Poland was recorded, and in 1367 the first pogrom took place in Poznań . Compared with the pitiless destruction of their co-religionists in Western Europe , however, Polish Jews did not fare badly; and Jewish refugees from Germany fled to
17820-568: The dialects of Classical Hebrew that functioned as a living language in the land of Israel. A transitional form of the language occurs in the other works of Tannaitic literature dating from the century beginning with the completion of the Mishnah. These include the halachic Midrashim ( Sifra , Sifre , Mekhilta etc.) and the expanded collection of Mishnah-related material known as the Tosefta . The Talmud contains excerpts from these works, as well as further Tannaitic material not attested elsewhere;
18000-444: The direction of the rabbis, in the more prominent communities. Such schools were officially known as gymnasia , and their rabbi principals as rectors . Important yeshivot existed in Kraków, Poznań, and other cities. Jewish printing establishments came into existence in the first quarter of the 16th century. In 1530 a Torah was printed in Kraków; and at the end of the century the Jewish printing houses of that city and Lublin issued
18180-624: The dogmatic clergy pushed for less official tolerance, pressured by the Synod of Constance . In 1349 pogroms took place in many towns in Silesia. There were accusations of blood libel by the priests, and new riots against the Jews in Poznań in 1399. Accusations of blood libel by another fanatic priest led to the riots in Kraków in 1407, although the royal guard hastened to the rescue. Hysteria caused by
18360-423: The earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating from around 3,000 years ago. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said that the inscription was "proto-Canaanite" but cautioned that "[t]he differentiation between the scripts, and between the languages themselves in that period, remains unclear", and suggested that calling the text Hebrew might be going too far. The Gezer calendar also dates back to
18540-513: The earliest speakers of Modern Hebrew had Yiddish as their native language and often introduced calques from Yiddish and phono-semantic matchings of international words. Despite using Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation as its primary basis, modern Israeli Hebrew has adapted to Ashkenazi Hebrew phonology in some respects, mainly the following: The vocabulary of Israeli Hebrew is much larger than that of earlier periods. According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann : The number of attested Biblical Hebrew words
18720-584: The early 6th century BCE, the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered the ancient Kingdom of Judah , destroying much of Jerusalem and exiling its population far to the east in Babylon . During the Babylonian captivity , many Israelites learned Aramaic, the closely related Semitic language of their captors. Thus, for a significant period, the Jewish elite became influenced by Aramaic. After Cyrus
18900-479: The early years of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth created in 1569 , Poland was the most tolerant country in Europe. Historians have used the label paradisus iudaeorum ( Latin for " Paradise of the Jews"). Poland became a shelter for Jews persecuted and expelled from various European countries and the home to the world's largest Jewish community of the time. According to some sources, about three-quarters of
19080-424: The eastern and southern areas of Polish-occupied Ukraine. The precise number of dead is not known, but the decrease of the Jewish population during this period is estimated at 100,000 to 200,000, which also includes emigration, deaths from diseases and jasyr (captivity in the Ottoman Empire ). The Jewish community suffered greatly during the 1648 Ukrainian Cossack uprising which had been directed primarily against
19260-507: The ethical problems of antisemitism and persecution, one form of which was the Musar movement . Polish Jews generally were less influenced by Haskalah , rather focusing on a strong continuation of their religious lives based on Halakha ("rabbis's law") following primarily Orthodox Judaism , Hasidic Judaism , and also adapting to the new Religious Zionism of the Mizrachi movement later in
19440-711: The first Middle East printing press, in Safed (modern Israel), produced a small number of books in Hebrew in 1577, which were then sold to the nearby Jewish world. This meant not only that well-educated Jews in all parts of the world could correspond in a mutually intelligible language, and that books and legal documents published or written in any part of the world could be read by Jews in all other parts, but that an educated Jew could travel and converse with Jews in distant places, just as priests and other educated Christians could converse in Latin. For example, Rabbi Avraham Danzig wrote
19620-497: The first half of the 19th century some semblance of a vastly smaller Polish state was preserved, especially in the form of the Congress Poland (1815–1831). Under foreign rule many Jews inhabiting formerly Polish lands were indifferent to Polish aspirations for independence. However, most Polonized Jews supported the revolutionary activities of Polish patriots and participated in national uprisings. Polish Jews took part in
19800-536: The following century. Shachna's son Israel became rabbi of Lublin on the death of his father, and Shachna's pupil Moses Isserles (known as the ReMA ) (1520–1572) achieved an international reputation among the Jews as the co-author of the Shulkhan Arukh , (the "Code of Jewish Law"). His contemporary and correspondent Solomon Luria (1510–1573) of Lublin also enjoyed a wide reputation among his co-religionists; and
19980-623: The former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth ; it covered much of present-day Lithuania , Belarus , Poland , Moldova , Ukraine , and parts of western Russia . From 1791 to 1835, and until 1917, there were differing reconfigurations of the boundaries of the Pale, such that certain areas were variously open or shut to Jewish residency, such as the Caucasus . At times, Jews were forbidden to live in agricultural communities, or certain cities, as in Kyiv , Sevastopol and Yalta , excluded from residency at
20160-491: The free world. He transferred information and requests for help to the Agudath Israel offices in London , New York City , and Istanbul , and facilitated the transfer of money, passport photographs, and requests to locate family members into Europe. He received hundreds of letters from Nazi-occupied countries and was one of the first to obtain a clear picture of the atrocities that were being carried out there . Interrogated by
20340-406: The generic term for these passages is Baraitot . The dialect of all these works is very similar to Mishnaic Hebrew. About a century after the publication of the Mishnah, Mishnaic Hebrew fell into disuse as a spoken language. By the third century CE, sages could no longer identify the Hebrew names of many plants mentioned in the Mishnah. Only a few sages, primarily in the southern regions, retained
20520-515: The home of many Jews, as, in 1772, Catherine II , the Tzarina of Russia, instituted the Pale of Settlement , restricting Jews to the western parts of the empire, which would eventually include much of Poland, although it excluded some areas in which Jews had previously lived. By the late 19th century, over four million Jews would live in the Pale. Tsarist policy towards the Jews of Poland alternated between harsh rules, and inducements meant to break
20700-686: The hostility of the Communist Party to both religion and private enterprise, but also because in 1946–1947 Poland was the only Eastern Bloc country to allow free Jewish aliyah to Israel, without visas or exit permits. Most of the remaining Jews left Poland in late 1968 as the result of the "anti-Zionist" campaign . After the fall of the Communist regime in 1989, the situation of Polish Jews became normalized and those who were Polish citizens before World War II were allowed to renew Polish citizenship . The contemporary Polish Jewish community
20880-460: The inviolability of their persons and property should be guaranteed and that religious toleration should be to a certain extent granted them; but he insisted that Jews living in the cities should be separated from the Christians, that those of them having no definite occupation should be banished from the kingdom, and that even those engaged in agriculture should not be allowed to possess land. On
21060-669: The king to grant them that privilege. After the Union of Brest in 1595–1596, the Orthodox church was outlawed in Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth and that caused massive religious, social and political tensions in Ruthenia . In part it was also caused due to mass migration of the Jews to Ruthenia and their role perceived by local population and in turn led to multiple Cossack uprisings. The largest one of them started in 1648 and
21240-462: The language as Ivrit , meaning Hebrew; however, Mishnah Megillah refers to the language as Ashurit , meaning Assyrian , which is derived from the name of the alphabet used , in contrast to Ivrit , meaning the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet . Hebrew ceased to be a regular spoken language sometime between 200 and 400 CE, as it declined in the aftermath of the unsuccessful Bar Kokhba revolt , which
21420-465: The language spoken by Jews in scenes from the New Testament) is often referred to as "Hebrew" in the text, although this term is often re-interpreted as referring to Aramaic instead and is rendered accordingly in recent translations. Nonetheless, these glosses can be interpreted as Hebrew as well. It has been argued that Hebrew, rather than Aramaic or Koine Greek, lay behind the composition of
21600-408: The language. The revival of the Hebrew language as a mother tongue was initiated in the late 19th century by the efforts of Ben-Yehuda. He joined the Jewish national movement and in 1881 immigrated to Palestine , then a part of the Ottoman Empire . Motivated by the surrounding ideals of renovation and rejection of the diaspora " shtetl " lifestyle, Ben-Yehuda set out to develop tools for making
21780-652: The last king of the Jagiellon dynasty , nobles ( szlachta ) gathered at Warsaw in 1573 and signed a document in which representatives of all major religions pledged mutual support and tolerance. The following eight or nine decades of material prosperity and relative security experienced by Polish Jews – wrote Professor Gershon Hundert – witnessed the appearance of "a virtual galaxy of sparkling intellectual figures." Jewish academies were established in Lublin, Kraków, Brześć (Brisk), Lwów, Ostróg and other towns. Poland-Lithuania
21960-526: The laws of the partitioning powers, including the increasingly antisemitic Russian Empire , as well as Austria-Hungary and Kingdom of Prussia (later a part of the German Empire ). When Poland regained independence in the aftermath of World War I , it was still the center of the European Jewish world, with one of the world's largest Jewish communities of over 3 million. Antisemitism was
22140-560: The mints of other contemporary Polish princes, including Casimir the Just , Bolesław I the Tall and Władysław III Spindleshanks . Jews enjoyed undisturbed peace and prosperity in the many principalities into which the country was then divided; they formed the middle class in a country where the general population consisted of landlords (developing into szlachta , the unique Polish nobility) and peasants, and they were instrumental in promoting
22320-490: The more hospitable cities in Poland. As a result of the marriage of Władysław II Jagiełło to Jadwiga , daughter of Louis I of Hungary , Lithuania was united with the kingdom of Poland . In 1388–1389 , broad privileges were extended to Lithuanian Jews including freedom of religion and commerce on equal terms with the Christians. Under the rule of Władysław II, Polish Jews had increased in numbers and attained prosperity. However, religious persecution gradually increased, as
22500-541: The names of his acquaintances as the senders so as to make sure that his own name was not revealed to the censorship authorities. ‘All the addressees were religious Jewish persons living in Warsaw and Będzin’, he declared. The bearers of the Paraguayan passports would be placed in the internment camps in occupied France and Germany rather than sent to the extermination camps . Thus, hundreds of them managed to survive
22680-727: The newly declared State of Israel . Hebrew is the most widely spoken language in Israel today. In the Modern Period, from the 19th century onward, the literary Hebrew tradition revived as the spoken language of modern Israel, called variously Israeli Hebrew , Modern Israeli Hebrew , Modern Hebrew , New Hebrew , Israeli Standard Hebrew , Standard Hebrew and so on. Israeli Hebrew exhibits some features of Sephardic Hebrew from its local Jerusalemite tradition but adapts it with numerous neologisms, borrowed terms (often technical) from European languages and adopted terms (often colloquial) from Arabic. The literary and narrative use of Hebrew
22860-491: The next hundred years, the Church pushed for the persecution of Jews while the rulers of Poland usually protected them. The Councils of Wrocław (1267), Buda (1279), and Łęczyca (1285) each segregated Jews, ordered them to wear a special emblem, banned them from holding offices where Christians would be subordinated to them, and forbade them from building more than one prayer house in each town. However, those church decrees required
23040-559: The nobility). Sigismund II Augustus (1548–1572), mainly followed his father's tolerant policy and also granted communal-administration autonomy to the Jews and laid the foundation for the power of the Qahal , or autonomous Jewish community. According to some sources, about three-quarters of all Jews lived in Poland by the middle of the 16th century. In the 16h and 17th centuries, Poland welcomed Jewish immigrants from Italy , as well as Sephardi Jews and Romaniote Jews migrating there from
23220-670: The nobles, purgatory for the townspeople, hell for the peasants, and paradise for the Jews". Despite the Warsaw Confederation agreement, it did not last for long due to beginning of Counter-Reformation in the Commonwealth and growing influence of the Jesuits. By 1590s there were anti-Semitic outbreaks in Poznań , Lublin , Kraków , Vilnius and Kyiv . In Lwów alone mass attacks of Jews started in 1572 and then repeated in 1592, 1613, 1618, and from 1638 every year with Jesuit students being responsible for many of them. At
23400-526: The only people he helped. Thousands of Jews trapped in occupied Europe were given hope by his activities. Eiss died in November 1943 survived by his wife and eight out of ten children. Eiss Archive created in 2019 is named after him. Eiss was critical of the Mizrachi movement . He wrote that Mizrachi did not teach its children the Torah but instead had a new religion, that of labor . According to Eiss,
23580-733: The only reason that Mizrachi affiliated itself to the Zionists was in order to receive monetary gain . Eiss was also critical of the secular educational system. He wrote that "Forty thousand of the children of our people are being educated in schools which are such that the children will not turn out to be apikorsim (heretics), because they will not know enough Torah to be able to rebel against it, but will turn out to be ignoramuses." Hebrew language Hebrew ( Hebrew alphabet : עִבְרִית , ʿĪvrīt , pronounced [ ʔivˈʁit ] or [ ʕivˈrit ] ; Samaritan script : ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ ʿÎbrit )
23760-515: The original, whereas the passports are to be photocopied and the copies notarised ’, . Eiss would then obtain the copies of the passports, presumably through the Polish-Jewish diplomat Juliusz Kühl , right-hand of the envoy of Poland Aleksander Ładoś and have them smuggled into the German occupation zone . The letters contained certificates showing that the person concerned had been granted Paraguayan citizenship. In many cases, Eiss provided
23940-497: The other hand, some szlachta and intellectuals proposed a national system of government, of the civil and political equality of the Jews. This was the only example in modern Europe before the French Revolution of tolerance and broadmindedness in dealing with the Jewish question. But all these reforms were too late: a Russian army soon invaded Poland, and soon after a Prussian one followed. A second partition of Poland
24120-534: The phonetic values are instead inspired by the acrophonic principle. The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called Canaanite , and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from that of Egyptian. One ancient document is the famous Moabite Stone , written in the Moabite dialect; the Siloam inscription , found near Jerusalem , is an early example of Hebrew. Less ancient samples of Archaic Hebrew include
24300-461: The pogrom and instead sheltered Jewish families. The Jewish Enlightenment, Haskalah , began to take hold in Poland during the 19th century, stressing secular ideas and values. Champions of Haskalah , the Maskilim , pushed for assimilation and integration into Russian culture. At the same time, there was another school of Jewish thought that emphasized traditional study and a Jewish response to
24480-591: The present day. It is perhaps the most important Hebrew manuscript in existence. During the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain , important work was done by grammarians in explaining the grammar and vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew; much of this was based on the work of the grammarians of Classical Arabic . Important Hebrew grammarians were Judah ben David Hayyuj , Jonah ibn Janah , Abraham ibn Ezra and later (in Provence ), David Kimhi . A great deal of poetry
24660-503: The primary language of use, and to prevent large-scale incorporation of English words into the Hebrew vocabulary. The Academy of the Hebrew Language of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem currently invents about 2,000 new Hebrew words each year for modern words by finding an original Hebrew word that captures the meaning, as an alternative to incorporating more English words into Hebrew vocabulary. The Haifa municipality has banned officials from using English words in official documents, and
24840-439: The principal activity of Jews in medieval Poland was commerce and trade, including the export and import of goods such as cloth, linen, furs, hides, wax, metal objects, and slaves. The first extensive Jewish migration from Western Europe to Poland occurred at the time of the First Crusade in 1098. Under Bolesław III (1102–1139), Jews, encouraged by the tolerant regime of this ruler, settled throughout Poland, including over
25020-413: The recurring invasions of the Russians, Crimean Tatars and Ottomans , became the scene of even more atrocities. Charles X of Sweden , at the head of his victorious army, overran the cities of Kraków and Warsaw. The amount of destruction, pillage and methodical plunder during the Siege of Kraków (1657) was so enormous that parts the city never again recovered. Which was later followed by the massacres of
25200-474: The reign of Sigismund I the Old (1506–1548), who protected the Jews in his realm. During his reign, in 1538, the Polish Sejm passed a law making illegal the leasing of royal perogatives, such as salt mines, the mint, and customs to Jews. While these so-called "great arenda " became one of the protected privileges of the szlachta , in the 16th and 17th centuries, Jews were the primary administrators of agricultural arenda (administrating landed estates leased from
25380-454: The required funds . Eiss was entrusted by the leading Rabbis of the time with the directorship of all Switzerland-based Agudath Israel funds. These included the Orphan Aid Fund , the Land of Israel Yeshiva Fund and the Polish and Lithuanian Yeshiva Fund [1] . He received contributions from all over the world and transferred the money to the recipients. Eiss was a writer and published the Agudath Israel publication Haderech . He wrote all
25560-417: The resistance to large-scale conversion. In 1804, Alexander I of Russia issued a "Statute Concerning Jews", meant to accelerate the process of assimilation of the Empire's new Jewish population. The Polish Jews were allowed to establish schools with Russian, German or Polish curricula. However, they were also restricted from leasing property, teaching in Yiddish, and from entering Russia. They were banned from
25740-498: The rest of the Middle East; and eventually Greek functioned as another international language with the eastern areas of the Roman Empire. William Schniedewind argues that after waning in the Persian period, the religious importance of Hebrew grew in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and cites epigraphical evidence that Hebrew survived as a vernacular language – though both its grammar and its writing system had been substantially influenced by Aramaic. According to another summary, Greek
25920-405: The same time Privilegium de non tolerandis Judaeis and Privilegium de non tolerandis Christianis were introduced to limit Jews living in the Christian cities, which intensified their migration to the Eastern parts of the country where they were invited by the magnates to their private towns . By the end of the 18th century two-thirds of the royal towns and cities in the Commonwealth had pressed
26100-471: The same year, Alexander, when he was the Grand Duke of Lithuania , followed the 1492 example of Spanish rulers and banished Jews from Lithuania. For several years they took shelter in Poland until he reversed his decision eight years later in 1503 after becoming King of Poland and allowed them back to Lithuania. The next year he issued a proclamation in which he stated that a policy of tolerance befitted "kings and rulers". Poland became more tolerant just as
26280-403: The seeds of Talmudic learning had been transplanted to Poland from Bohemia , particularly from the school of Jacob Pollak , the creator of Pilpul ("sharp reasoning"). Shalom Shachna (c. 1500–1558), a pupil of Pollak, is counted among the pioneers of Talmudic learning in Poland. He lived and died in Lublin , where he was the head of the yeshivah which produced the rabbinical celebrities of
26460-426: The southern villages of Judea." In other words, "in terms of dialect geography, at the time of the tannaim Palestine could be divided into the Aramaic-speaking regions of Galilee and Samaria and a smaller area, Judaea, in which Rabbinic Hebrew was used among the descendants of returning exiles." In addition, it has been surmised that Koine Greek was the primary vehicle of communication in coastal cities and among
26640-413: The spoken language of the Russian Jews, should be treated as their only national language, while Hebrew was to be treated as a foreign language. Hebrew books and periodicals ceased to be published and were seized from the libraries, although liturgical texts were still published until the 1930s. Despite numerous protests, a policy of suppression of the teaching of Hebrew operated from the 1930s on. Later in
26820-403: The start of World War II, Poland was partitioned between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (see Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact ). One-fifth of the Polish population perished during World War II; the 3,000,000 Polish Jews murdered in the Holocaust, who constituted 90% of Polish Jewry, made up half of all Poles killed during the war. While the Holocaust occurred largely in German-occupied Poland , it
27000-433: The status of the Jews was briefly checked by Casimir IV Jagiellon (1447–1492), but soon the nobility forced him to issue the Statute of Nieszawa , which, among other things, abolished the ancient privileges of the Jews "as contrary to divine right and the law of the land." Nevertheless, the king continued to offer his protection to the Jews. Two years later Casimir issued another document announcing that he could not deprive
27180-414: The term "Hebrew" generally render its meaning as roughly "from the other side [of the river/desert]"—i.e., an exonym for the inhabitants of the land of Israel and Judah , perhaps from the perspective of Mesopotamia , Phoenicia or Transjordan (with the river referred to being perhaps the Euphrates , Jordan or Litani ; or maybe the northern Arabian Desert between Babylonia and Canaan ). Compare
27360-580: The upper class of Jerusalem , while Aramaic was prevalent in the lower class of Jerusalem, but not in the surrounding countryside. After the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in the 2nd century CE, Judaeans were forced to disperse. Many relocated to Galilee, so most remaining native speakers of Hebrew at that last stage would have been found in the north. Many scholars have pointed out that Hebrew continued to be used alongside Aramaic during Second Temple times, not only for religious purposes but also for nationalistic reasons, especially during revolts such as
27540-430: The war. In 1944, Poland forced Paraguay to temporarily recognize the validity of the passports. The communications system that Eiss set up to have the documents smuggled was complex and not without danger. The unofficial postal service was conducted by non-Jewish residents of the occupied countries, people he referred to in his letters as pure Aryans , and the phraseology that was used was designed to pass muster with
27720-426: The wealthy nobility and landlords. The Jews, perceived as allies of the Poles, were also victims of the revolt, during which about 20% of them were killed. Ruled by the elected kings of the House of Vasa since 1587, the embattled Commonwealth was invaded by the Swedish Empire in 1655 in what became known as the Deluge . Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which had already suffered from the Khmelnytsky Uprising and from
27900-455: The word Habiru or cognate Assyrian ebru , of identical meaning. One of the earliest references to the language's name as " Ivrit " is found in the prologue to the Book of Sirach , from the 2nd century BCE. The Hebrew Bible does not use the term "Hebrew" in reference to the language of the Hebrew people; its later historiography, in the Book of Kings , refers to it as יְהוּדִית Yehudit " Judahite (language)". Hebrew belongs to
28080-424: The world today; the latter group utilizes the Samaritan dialect as their liturgical tongue. As a non- first language , it is studied mostly by non-Israeli Jews and students in Israel, by archaeologists and linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilizations , and by theologians in Christian seminaries . The modern English word "Hebrew" is derived from Old French Ebrau , via Latin from
28260-409: The world's Jews lived in Poland by the middle of the 16th century. With the weakening of the Commonwealth and growing religious strife (due to the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation ), Poland's traditional tolerance began to wane from the 17th century. After the Partitions of Poland in 1795 and the destruction of Poland as a sovereign state , Polish Jews became subject to
28440-421: Was a spoken language , and Amoraic Hebrew (also called Late Rabbinic Hebrew or Mishnaic Hebrew II), which was a literary language . The earlier section of the Talmud is the Mishnah that was published around 200 CE, although many of the stories take place much earlier, and were written in the earlier Mishnaic dialect. The dialect is also found in certain Dead Sea Scrolls. Mishnaic Hebrew is considered to be one of
28620-481: Was a member of the Ładoś Group also called as Ładoś Group. Chaim Yisroel Eiss was born in Galicia , Austria-Hungary , in the town of Ustrzyki Dolne , now Poland ; as one of 11 children of Rebbe Moshe Nissan Eiss and his wife Myria née Kessler. He was the only one of the children to survive an epidemic of diphtheria , an illness for which there was no treatment at the time. After the death of his other children, his father Rebbe Moshe Nissan Eiss took young Yisroel to
28800-409: Was became overly formalized, some rabbis busied themselves with quibbles concerning religious laws; others wrote commentaries on different parts of the Talmud in which hair-splitting arguments were raised and discussed; and at times these arguments dealt with matters which were of no practical importance. At the same time, many miracle-workers made their appearance among the Jews of Poland, culminating in
28980-487: Was bought by Catherine the Great for 2.5 million rubles, with the Russian army stationing only 5 kilometres (3 mi) away from Warsaw. Eight years later, triggered by the Confederation of Bar against Russian influence and the pro-Russian king, the outlying provinces of Poland were overrun from all sides by different military forces and divided for the first time by the three neighboring empires, Russia, Austria , and Prussia . The Commonwealth lost 30% of its land during
29160-406: Was carried out against the Roman Empire by the Jews of Judaea . Aramaic and, to a lesser extent, Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among societal elites and immigrants. Hebrew survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy , rabbinic literature , intra-Jewish commerce, and Jewish poetic literature . The first dated book printed in Hebrew
29340-507: Was concerned. Prominent among such rulers was Bolesław the Pious of Kalisz , Prince of Great Poland . With the consent of the class representatives and higher officials, in 1264 he issued a General Charter of Jewish Liberties (commonly called the Statute of Kalisz ), which granted all Jews the freedom to worship, trade, and travel. Similar privileges were granted to the Silesian Jews by the local princes, Henryk IV Probus of Wrocław in 1273–90, Henryk III of Głogów in 1274 and 1299, Henryk V
29520-432: Was destroyed. The new czar, Alexander III , blamed the Jews for the riots and issued a series of harsh restrictions on Jewish movements. Pogroms continued until 1884, with at least tacit government approval. They proved a turning point in the history of the Jews in partitioned Poland and throughout the world. In 1884, 36 Jewish Zionist delegates met in Katowice , forming the Hovevei Zion movement. The pogroms prompted
29700-413: Was followed by several conflicts, in which the country lost over a third of its population (over three million people). The Jewish losses were counted in the hundreds of thousands. The first of these large-scale atrocities was the Khmelnytsky Uprising , in which the Cossacks of the Zaporozhian Host under Bohdan Khmelnytsky massacred tens of thousands of Jews as well as Catholic and Uniate population in
29880-467: Was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture , because of the long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy which ended after the Partitions of Poland in the 18th century. During World War II there was a nearly complete genocidal destruction of the Polish Jewish community by Nazi Germany and its collaborators of various nationalities, during
30060-456: Was made on 17 July 1793. Jews, in a Jewish regiment led by Berek Joselewicz , took part in the Kościuszko Uprising the following year, when the Poles tried to again achieve independence, but were brutally put down. Following the revolt, the third and final partition of Poland took place in 1795. The territories which included the great bulk of the Jewish population was transferred to Russia, and thus they became subjects of that empire, although in
30240-438: Was now a more significant written language than Aramaic within Judaea." This nationalist aspect was further emphasized during periods of conflict, as Hannah Cotton observing in her analysis of legal documents during the Jewish revolts against Rome that "Hebrew became the symbol of Jewish nationalism, of the independent Jewish State." The nationalist use of Hebrew is evidenced in several historical documents and artefacts, including
30420-465: Was orchestrated and perpetrated by the Nazis. Polish attitudes to the Holocaust varied widely, from actively risking death in order to save Jewish lives , and passive refusal to inform on them, to indifference, blackmail, and in extreme cases, committing premeditated murders such as in the Jedwabne pogrom . Collaboration by non-Jewish Polish citizens in the Holocaust was sporadic, but incidents of hostility against Jews are well documented and have been
30600-406: Was published by Abraham Garton in Reggio ( Calabria , Italy) in 1475. With the rise of Zionism in the 19th century, the Hebrew language experienced a full-scale revival as a spoken and literary language. The creation of a modern version of the ancient language was led by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda . Modern Hebrew ( Ivrit ) became the main language of the Yishuv in Palestine , and subsequently
30780-470: Was revived beginning with the Haskalah movement. The first secular periodical in Hebrew, Ha-Me'assef (The Gatherer), was published by maskilim in Königsberg (today's Kaliningrad ) from 1783 onwards. In the mid-19th century, publications of several Eastern European Hebrew-language newspapers (e.g. Hamagid , founded in Ełk in 1856) multiplied. Prominent poets were Hayim Nahman Bialik and Shaul Tchernichovsky ; there were also novels written in
30960-444: Was shared with local councils. The Polish government permitted the Rabbinate to grow in power, to use it for tax collection purposes. Only 30% of the money raised by the Rabbinate served Jewish causes, the rest went to the Crown for protection. In this period Poland-Lithuania became the main center for Ashkenazi Jewry and its yeshivot achieved fame from the early 16th century. Moses Isserles (1520–1572), an eminent Talmudist of
31140-479: Was suppressed. Soviet authorities considered the use of Hebrew "reactionary" since it was associated with Zionism, and the teaching of Hebrew at primary and secondary schools was officially banned by the People's Commissariat for Education as early as 1919, as part of an overall agenda aiming to secularize education (the language itself did not cease to be studied at universities for historical and linguistic purposes ). The official ordinance stated that Yiddish, being
31320-411: Was that Poland was meant to be a good place for the Jews. During the time from the rule of Sigismund I the Old until the Holocaust , Poland would be at the center of Jewish religious life. Many agreed with Rabbi David HaLevi Segal that Poland was a place where "most of the time the gentiles do no harm; on the contrary they do right by Israel" ( Divre David; 1689). Yeshivot were established, under
31500-437: Was the language of government, Hebrew the language of prayer, study and religious texts, and Aramaic was the language of legal contracts and trade. There was also a geographic pattern: according to Bernard Spolsky , by the beginning of the Common Era, " Judeo-Aramaic was mainly used in Galilee in the north, Greek was concentrated in the former colonies and around governmental centers, and Hebrew monolingualism continued mainly in
31680-426: Was the only country in Europe where the Jews cultivated their own farmer's fields. The central autonomous body that regulated Jewish life in Poland from the middle of the 16th to mid-18th century was known as the Council of Four Lands . It was during this period that a rueful pasquinade claiming that Poland was a "paradise for the Jews" gave birth to a proverb, which after subsequent extrapolations became "heaven for
31860-417: Was the owner of several villages in the Ruthenian voivodship and the soltys (administrator) of the village of Werbiz. Also, Jews from Grodno were in this period owners of villages, manors, meadows, fish ponds and mills. However, until the end of the 15th century, agriculture as a source of income played only a minor role among Jewish families. More important were crafts for the needs of both their fellow Jews and
32040-426: Was the term given to a region of Imperial Russia in which permanent residency by Jews was allowed and beyond which Jewish permanent residency was generally prohibited. It extended from the eastern pale , or demarcation line, to the western Russian border with the Kingdom of Prussia (later the German Empire ) and with Austria-Hungary . The archaic English term pale is derived from the Latin word palus ,
32220-408: Was to a certain extent a pidgin . Near the end of that century the Jewish activist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda , owing to the ideology of the national revival ( שיבת ציון , Shivat Tziyon , later Zionism ), began reviving Hebrew as a modern spoken language. Eventually, as a result of the local movement he created, but more significantly as a result of the new groups of immigrants known under the name of
32400-570: Was written, by poets such as Dunash ben Labrat , Solomon ibn Gabirol , Judah ha-Levi , Moses ibn Ezra and Abraham ibn Ezra , in a "purified" Hebrew based on the work of these grammarians, and in Arabic quantitative or strophic meters. This literary Hebrew was later used by Italian Jewish poets. The need to express scientific and philosophical concepts from Classical Greek and Medieval Arabic motivated Medieval Hebrew to borrow terminology and grammar from these other languages, or to coin equivalent terms from existing Hebrew roots, giving rise to
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