134-516: Rezső Kasztner ( Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈkastnɛr ˈrɛʒøː] ; 1906 – 15 March 1957), also known as Rudolf Israel Kastner ( Hebrew : ישראל רודולף קסטנר ), was a Hungarian-Israeli journalist and lawyer who became known for having helped a group of Jews escape from occupied Europe during the Holocaust on the Kastner train . After World War II , he was accused of having failed to inform
268-695: A kibbutz , but Kasztner was still in high school and so unable to go with him. He played his part in the Zionist movement by writing articles on British policies in Palestine for the local Jewish newspaper Új Kelet . When Kasztner was 22, his father died reading the Torah in the synagogue on the seventh day of Passover . He had to put off any ideas about emigrating, as his mother now needed him at home. He attended law school, as she wished, then worked full-time for Új Kelet after graduating, at first working as
402-685: 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
536-407: A Jewish one, as the curriculum was broader and included languages. By the time Kasztner graduated, he spoke eight languages: Hungarian, Romanian, French, German, and Latin, along with Yiddish, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Anna Porter writes that he became known for his good looks, sharp mind, quick wit, and his intense focus, as a result of which his mother decided that he should study law, though his heart
670-543: A Swiss Orthodox Jew and Recha Sternbuch 's husband. Alfréd Wetzler (aka Jozef Lánik) and Rudolf Vrba (born as Walter Rosenberg) escaped from Auschwitz after learning that construction and preparations were being made for the mass arrival of "Hungarian Salami", as those Jews were jokingly called by the camp guards, and wrote the Vrba-Wetzler report , also known as the Auschwitz Protocol , with help from
804-595: 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
938-483: A collaborator. At the conclusion of the war, Becher was arrested and investigated at Nuremberg as a war criminal. Kasztner intervened on his behalf and sent an affidavit to his de-Nazification hearing, stating that "[Becher is] cut from a different wood than the professional mass murderers of the political SS". It is likely that he did so with the knowledge of the Jewish Agency (Zionist leadership in Palestine,
1072-661: 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
1206-579: 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
1340-594: 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
1474-604: A job, leaving his wife behind in Kolozsvár. Kasztner rented a small, two-room apartment in a pension in Váci Street . He wanted to continue his work helping Jewish refugees in Kolozsvár, and with that in mind, had obtained a letter of introduction from József Fischer to Ottó Komoly , an engineer and president of the Budapest Zionist Association. Komoly directed Kasztner to Miklós (Moshe) Krausz,
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#17327838292951608-468: 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
1742-536: 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
1876-466: A political fixer, knowing whom to bribe, how much to pay, whom to flatter. He interviewed leading politicians for Új Kelet , and even antisemitic members of the Iron Guard . He worked hard as a lawyer for his clients, reportedly knowing when to pay off the police so that charges would be dropped. He married József Fischer's daughter, Elizabeth, in 1934, which further cemented his position locally. As
2010-416: A price of $ 1,000 per head. Most of the passengers could not raise the funds themselves, so Kasztner auctioned off 150 places to wealthy Jews in order to pay for the others. In addition, SS officer Kurt Becher , Heinrich Himmler 's envoy, insisted that 50 seats be reserved for the families of individuals who had personally paid him for favors, at the sum of approximately $ 25,000 per person. Becher wanted to get
2144-548: 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
2278-668: 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
2412-581: A sports reporter, though he continued to write about politics. He also became an assistant to Dr. József Fischer , a lawyer, member of Parliament, president of the Jewish Community of Kolozsvár, and leading member of the National Jewish Party. Fischer admired Kasztner's writing, and encouraged him to continue working for Új Kelet too. Porter writes that Fischer may have been the only person whose intelligence Kasztner respected. He
2546-469: A train. According to some sources, many of the Jews who were saved were Kasztner's relatives, rich Hungarian Jews who subsidized those on the train who could not pay, friends of Kasztner, as well as "community and Zionist leaders". The passengers included orphans, students, workmen, teachers and nurses. In early 1945, Kasztner traveled to Germany with Becher, who had received the money and valuables paid to save
2680-591: A trial that lasted 18 months, and a ruling in 1955 that Kasztner had, in the words of Judge Benjamin Halevy , "sold his soul to the devil". By saving the Jews on the "Kasztner train", while failing to warn others that their "resettlement" was in fact deportation to the gas chambers, Kasztner had sacrificed the mass of Jewry for a chosen few, the judge said. The verdict triggered the fall of the Israeli Cabinet. Kasztner resigned his government position and became
2814-472: 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
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#17327838292952948-558: 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
3082-505: A virtual recluse, telling reporters he was living with a loneliness "blacker than night, darker than hell". His wife fell into a depression that left her bedridden, while his daughter's schoolmates threw stones at her in the street. Kasztner was shot on March 3, 1957, by Zeev Eckstein , part of a three-man squad from a group of veterans from the pre-state militia Lehi led by Yosef Menkes and Yaakov Heruti , and died of his injuries 12 days later. The Supreme Court of Israel overturned two of
3216-518: 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
3350-644: 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
3484-567: 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
3618-625: 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. Anna Porter Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include
3752-407: Is plenty of evidence that Hungarian Jews could have known. The consequences of the meetings between Kasztner and Eichmann had long-lasting repercussions in the Israeli and Hungarian Jewish communities that are still felt. Part of these repercussions revolve around the fact that Kasztner helped to draw up the list of who was going to be among the Jews who were chosen to be saved and allowed to leave on
3886-573: 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
4020-457: 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
4154-547: 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
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4288-650: 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
4422-727: 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
4556-737: The BBC Polish Service had been broadcasting about the exterminations but the BBC Hungarian Service had not mentioned Jews. After the German invasion in March 1944, the Hungarian Service did broadcast warnings, but by then it was too late. According to David Cesarani and Götz Aly , although Jews who survived the deportations claimed that they had not been informed by their leaders, that no one had told them, there
4690-601: The Bratislava Working Group . It was distributed to many Jewish and other organizations, including the Jewish Agency , in order to warn the Hungarian Jews. The recipients did not publicize the report. Vrba claimed that Kasztner deliberately buried the report, because it would ruin his Blood for Goods plan. Kasztner's detractors allege that Kasztner and other members of the Aid and Rescue Committee helped
4824-547: 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,
4958-827: The General Zionists , a member of his coalition, refused to abstain from voting on a no-confidence motion filed by Herut and Maki . Kasztner became a hated figure in Israel, and compared the verdict against him to the Dreyfus affair . He resigned his government position and started working for the Israeli Hungarian-language newspaper Új Kelet . He was assassinated in 1957 (see below). Hebrew language Hebrew ( Hebrew alphabet : עִבְרִית , ʿĪvrīt , pronounced [ ʔivˈʁit ] or [ ʕivˈrit ] ; Samaritan script : ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ ʿÎbrit )
5092-572: 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
5226-650: The Jewish Agency 's leadership in Tel Aviv , though there was a limit to what they could do because the British had imposed strict quotas on the number of Jewish refugees allowed into Palestine, causing Kasztner to attack " Perfidious Albion " in Új Kelet . On August 30, 1940, the Second Vienna Award returned Cluj to Hungarian control, becoming once again Kolozsvár. The city's Jews were glad at first, reasoning that Hungary's Jews had not been subjected to
5360-495: 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
5494-682: 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
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5628-536: 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
5762-720: The Vrba-Wetzler report and other evidence that Hungary's Jews would be murdered. The report was later released to the leaders of Jewish organizations in Budapest and elsewhere in the hope that Hungarian Jews would be warned that they were being deported to a death camp and were not being resettled, as they had been led to believe. However, the report was not made public by Kasztner, the Jewish Council ( Judenrat ) in Hungary or other Jewish organizations. George Mantello (Mandel), an Orthodox Jew from Hungary and first secretary of
5896-486: The Yishuv ), from which he received a refund for exprenses related to his trip to Nurenberg. It is theorized that this was done in the hope of obtaining help to recover stolen Jewish assets for Israel, receiving hidden weapons and capturing Eichmann in return. Kasztner later lied in court about having testified on Becher's behalf at Nuremberg trials, while he was asked about the affidavit. This defense of an SS officer angered
6030-462: 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
6164-620: 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
6298-543: 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
6432-499: The "Kastner train" stranded in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp . Kasztner's defenders claim that as a result of his negotiations, an additional 15,000 Hungarian Jews were transferred to labor camps at Strasshof rather than being murdered at Auschwitz. However, Eichmann testified at his trial that this was an act of deceit on his part: "It is possible that I painted a bright picture for Kasztner." While negotiations about
6566-607: 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
6700-555: 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,
6834-611: 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
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#17327838292956968-413: The 20,000 Jews there were guarded by only 20 Hungarian gendarmes and an SS officer, and could have escaped. They also said that he could have telephoned other Jewish communities but did not, and that warnings might have enabled Jews to save their lives through "local uprisings, resistances, escapes, hiding, hiding children with Gentiles, forging documents, paying ransom, bribes" and other means. From 1943,
7102-495: 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
7236-579: 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,
7370-503: 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
7504-459: The British, which meant that every entry visa had to be legitimate and properly processed, which was consuming all his time. Kasztner offered to help, but Krausz was not interested. Porter writes that Krausz took an instant dislike to the "forceful, loud, and insistent Kasztner." Kasztner's wife joined him in Budapest in July 1941. He tried to persuade Dr. Fischer, who had lost his law practice, to join them but Fischer refused, feeling responsible for
7638-439: The El Salvador mission to Switzerland, sent a Romanian diplomat friend, Florian Manoliu , to find out what was happening to his family, who by then had been murdered. Manoliu stopped over in Budapest at risk to himself, and on 19 June 1944 obtained the abridged Auschwitz Protocols reports from Moshe Krausz representing the Jewish Agency in Budapest. Manoliu immediately returned with the reports to Geneva and Mantello publicized
7772-422: The German army moved across Europe, Kasztner set up an information center in Cluj to help refugees arriving from Austria, Poland, and Slovakia. He arranged temporary accommodation for them and collected clothes and food from local charities. His main concern was to provide Jewish refugees with safe passage, using his ability to bribe and charm to obtain exit visas from the Romanian government. He asked for help from
7906-416: 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
8040-452: The Greeks even when they bring gifts). By accepting this present, Kasztner had sold his soul to the devil... The success of the rescue agreement depended until the last minute on the Nazi goodwill, and the last minute didn't arrive until long after the end of the extermination of the Jews in the provincial towns. The Israeli government 's decision to appeal on Kasztner's behalf led to its collapse, as Prime Minister Moshe Sharett resigned when
8174-432: 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
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#17327838292958308-437: 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
8442-454: 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
8576-403: The Jewish Agency's representative in Budapest, who controlled the Palestine entry visas. Porter writes that Kasztner had to wait in line for two hours at the Agency's office on Erzsébet Boulevard, among scores of Jewish refugees desperate to find a way to escape to Palestine. He eventually barged past Krausz's secretaries and into his office. Krausz explained that he was determined not to alienate
8710-417: The Jewish community in Kolozsvár. Komoly continued to introduce Kasztner to key figures in the Budapest Zionist movement, one of whom was Sam Springmann, who was bribing officials – in part with money from the Jewish Agency – to carry messages and food parcels into Łódź and other ghettos in Poland. It was Springmann who introduced Kasztner to Joel Brand , a meeting that was to change both their lives. During
8844-499: The Jewish lives on the train. Himmler had ordered Becher to attempt to stop further exterminations at the concentration camps as the Allies gained further ground in the closing days of World War II. Even though Kasztner was a Hungarian Jew and Becher was head of the Economic Department of the SS, Kasztner and Becher worked well together. This 1945 action is credited by some for saving tens of thousands of Jewish lives [Ref. Anna Porter, "Kastner Train"]. Others consider Kasztner to have been
8978-441: The Jewish public as much as the original negotiations with Eichmann. Kasztner also intervened on behalf of SS officers Hermann Krumey and Dieter Wisliceny , who had negotiated with him before his meetings with Eichmann . In all, "there was a total of seven interventions by Kasztner on behalf of Nazi war criminals. Three testimonies were on behalf of Becher, two were on behalf of Krumey, one was on behalf of Hans Jüttner , and there
9112-403: The Jews, "surrounded by enemies, stripped of their rights and possessions, having neither the arms nor the experience", were unable to organise either resistance or mass escapes. Kasztner's critics replied that he received SS permission to visit Kolozsvár/Cluj on May 3, 1944, but failed to warn the Jews there despite the fact that Cluj was only 3 miles (5 km) from the Romanian border and that
9246-417: 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
9380-466: The Nazis invaded Hungary in March 1944, he helped refugees escape. Between May and July 1944, Hungarian Jews were deported to the gas chambers at Auschwitz at the rate of 12,000 people a day. Kasztner negotiated with Adolf Eichmann , a senior SS officer and mastermind of the Holocaust, to allow 1,684 Jews to leave instead for Switzerland on what became known as the Kastner train , in exchange for money, gold, and diamonds. Kasztner moved to Israel after
9514-423: The Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum , the writer Béla Zsolt , the psychiatrist Leopold Szondi , the opera singer Dezső Ernster , the artist István Irsai , and other intellectuals, scientists, religious leaders, and political activists, but also people who were neither rich nor prominent, not least a group of Polish orphans. The passengers were ultimately released after a large ransom payment arranged by Yitzchak Sternbuch ,
9648-552: The SS encourage Hungarian Jewry to board the trains bound for Auschwitz voluntarily, telling them that they would be brought to Kenyérmező and given jobs in factories and fields; and that as a result of this misinformation from their leaders, Hungarian Jewry was delivered to Auschwitz. Professor Eli Reichenthal wrote that Kasztner at that stage was actually being blackmailed by the Germans, as his parents, friends and close family were all on
9782-474: The Soviet and Romanian armies defeated German and Hungarian forces in the winter of 1944–45. Kasztner was raised with his two brothers in a two-story brick house in the southern part of the city by his father, Yitzhak, a merchant and a devout man who spent most of his day in the synagogue, and his mother, Helen, who ran the family store. Helen decided that her sons should attend a regular high school, rather than
9916-674: 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
10050-460: 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
10184-488: 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
10318-478: 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
10452-405: The agreement over the train was part of a much larger rescue effort, involving negotiations to save all Hungarian Jews, and that he could not have saved Jews by warning them anyway. Löb argued, "With no access to the media and limited opportunities to travel, under constant observation by German and Hungarian secret police, he could hardly have raised the alarm in an effective way" and even if he had,
10586-561: 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
10720-547: 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,
10854-551: The charges against Kasztner in January 1958 in a 4–1 decision, finding that he had tried to negotiate the release of as many people as he could and had acted on the assumption that it would cause more harm than good to tell the Jews bound for Auschwitz of the mass murders taking place there. However, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the charge stemming from Kasztner’s post-war assistance of SS officer Kurt Becher. Kasztner
10988-602: 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
11122-468: 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
11256-488: The court that Kasztner deceived her in such a way as to lead to suspicions that it was he who gave away her daughter's unit in the first place, and had her, the mother, imprisoned. Palgi accused Kasztner of leading them into a trap. Shmuel Tamir, Gruenwald's attorney, claimed that this was one of the main reasons that he felt that Kasztner had been nothing more than a German collaborator, to save his family and perhaps for money. In Kasztner's defense, Eli Reichenthal says that at
11390-720: The details within a day of receiving them. This led to large-scale grassroots demonstrations in Switzerland and a very important Press Campaign with over 400 major articles in the Swiss press deploring Europe's barbarism toward Jews (published in spite of Swiss censorship rules), sermons in Swiss churches, and the publication of the book "Am I my Brother's Keeper?" (in German) by Pastor Paul Vogt , Switzerland's leading theologian. The resulting international outcry, including warnings to Hungary's ruler Miklós Horthy by Roosevelt and Churchill,
11524-568: 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;
11658-423: 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
11792-513: 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
11926-532: 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
12060-711: 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
12194-456: The first train were continuing, three Jewish Special Operations Executive members from Palestine, Hannah Szenes and two men, Yoel Palgi and Peretz Goldstein, were parachuted into Yugoslavia and attempted to penetrate the Hungarian border. They were caught by the Hungarian underground police. Szenes was taken to prison, interrogated in front of her imprisoned mother, and later killed, while
12328-406: 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
12462-462: 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
12596-465: 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
12730-471: 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
12864-628: The majority of Hungarian Jews about the reality of what awaited them in Auschwitz. He was assassinated in 1957 after an Israeli court accused him of having "sold his soul to the devil," a charge that was overturned by the Supreme Court of Israel in 1958. Kasztner was one of the leaders of the Budapest Aid and Rescue Committee ( Va'adat Ezrah Vehatzalah , or Vaada ), which smuggled Jewish refugees into Hungary during World War II . When
12998-727: 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
13132-511: The other two were brought to Kasztner, who convinced the two to go to the German Gestapo and inform them that they were Jewish fighters from Palestine who wish to confirm the 'Blood for Goods' deal, but ask that it reach Switzerland instead of Palestine. The two were incarcerated by the Germans, tortured, and sent to Germany, but Palgi jumped the train en route and escaped. During the later Kastner trial , Hannah Szenes 's mother told
13266-534: 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
13400-594: The point when the three paratroopers reached Budapest, what motivated Kasztner's decisions were the jeopardy to the deal (which Kasztner believed was real and therefore could save many more Jews) and Eichmann's blackmail (having Kasztner's family together with the Hungarian Zionist leadership on the train). This was something Kasztner could not reveal at the trial; "I had reasons" was his answer to Szenes's mother. In April 1944 Kasztner received in Bratislava
13534-591: 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
13668-565: The price per head increased to $ 2,000 but Himmler set the price at $ 1,000. The total value of the ransom was estimated by the Jewish community to be 8,600,000 Swiss francs , though Becher himself valued it at only 3,000,000 Swiss francs. Breaking his agreement, Eichmann had the passengers on the train sent to Belsen concentration camp . However, in the end, the passengers were saved by being transported to neutral Switzerland in two contingents, in August and December 1944 respectively. They included
13802-635: 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
13936-734: 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
14070-565: The same random killings experienced by Jews in Romania. Hungarian Jews were patriots, viewing themselves as Hungarians first, Jews second, and Hungary as their homeland, not Eretz Israel . Their jubilation was short-lived. As Germany's influence over Hungarian policies increased, Jews found themselves subjected to antisemitic legislation and violence. In 1941, the Hungarian government closed all Jewish newspapers, including Új Kelet . Kasztner, then 36 years old, decided to move to Budapest to look for
14204-493: 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
14338-474: 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
14472-501: The summer of 1944, Kasztner repeatedly met with Adolf Eichmann , who was in charge of deporting Hungary's 800,000-strong Jewish community to Auschwitz in occupied Poland. He was introduced to Eichmann by two Jews involved in rescue: Joel Brand and possibly his wife Hansi Brand . Soon thereafter Eichmann sent Joel Brand to Turkey to negotiate the Goods for Blood affair. They reached an agreement that some 1,685 Jews would be spared for
14606-470: 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
14740-666: The trial. In his ruling, Judge Benjamin Halevi (later also a Herut member of the Knesset) acquitted Gruenwald of libel on the first, second and fourth counts. He wrote: The temptation was great. Kasztner was given the actual possibility of rescuing, for the time being, 600 souls from the imminent holocaust, with some chance of somewhat increasing their numbers by payment or further negotiations. Not just any 600 souls, but those he considered, for any reason, most prominent and suitable for rescue... But timeo Danaos et dona ferentes (I fear
14874-580: 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
15008-617: The war, becoming a spokesman for the Ministry of Trade and Industry in 1952. In 1953 he was accused of having been a Nazi collaborator in a pamphlet self-published by freelance writer Malchiel Gruenwald . The allegation stemmed from Kasztner's relationship with Eichmann and another SS officer, Kurt Becher , and from his having given positive character references after the war for Becher and two other SS officers, thus allowing Becher to escape prosecution for war crimes. The Israeli government sued Gruenwald for libel on Kasztner's behalf, resulting in
15142-592: The war. Gruenwald was sued for libel by the Israeli government on Kasztner's behalf, resulting in a trial that lasted two years. Gruenwald's attorney, Shmuel Tamir , was a former Irgun member and supporter of the opposition Herut Party led by Menachem Begin . Tamir turned the libel case against his client into a political trial of Kasztner and, by implication, the Labor Party. The mother of wartime heroine Hannah Szenes had also accused Kasztner of betraying her daughter to her death and spoke out against him during
15276-505: 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
15410-595: 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
15544-421: 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
15678-450: Was allowed to lapse eight years later in Hungary, it affected Kasztner's teenage political orientation, and he decided at the age of 15 to become a Zionist . He joined a Zionist youth group, Barissa, which trained its members to become citizens of the Land of Israel , becoming its leader within a year. His older brother, Gyula, had already emigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1924 to work on
15812-566: Was an appeal that had the potential to deliver Wisliceny from the threat of execution in Slovakia." Wisliceny was hanged in 1948; Jüttner's 10-year prison sentence was changed to 4 years in 1949. He died in 1965; Krumey was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1969. He died in 1981; Becher died a wealthy man in 1995. An American lawyer attached to the Nurenberg Trials wrote that there was a relief when Kaszter returned to Palestine, since he
15946-577: Was an unsuccessful candidate in the first and second elections , and became the spokesman for the Ministry of Trade and Industry in 1952. His role in collaborating with the SS made headlines in 1953, when he was accused in a self-published pamphlet produced by Malchiel Gruenwald of collaborating with the Nazis, enabling the mass murder of Hungarian Jewry, partnership with Nazi officer Kurt Becher in theft of Jewish assets, and saving Becher from punishment after
16080-599: Was born in 1906 in Kolozsvár ( Yiddish : קלויזנבורג , Kloiznborg; German : Klausenburg ) in Austria-Hungary (today Cluj-Napoca , Romania ), into a local community of 15,000 Jews. The governance of the city was unstable, moving back and forth between Hungary and Romania. It became Cluj , Romania in 1920, was returned to Hungary in 1940, then was restored to Romania by the Treaty of Paris in 1947, after
16214-406: 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
16348-634: Was constantly in POW camps looking for more and more Nazis to rescue. Despite the many severe accusations Kasztner is featured in the Yad Vashem museum as a great or perhaps greatest rescuer hero during the Holocaust who saved over 20,000 Hungarian Jews. There is no mention of the many different types of accusations against him. Kasztner moved to Israel after the war, and became active in the Mapai party. He
16482-420: Was in politics. While Kolozsvár was still controlled by Hungary, Jewish entry to universities had been limited by the 1920 Numerus Clausus (closed number) Act, which was the first antisemitic legislation in 20th-century Europe. The law limited Jewish university enrollment to 6%, reflecting Jews' portion of the population, and although Kolozsvár became part of Romania shortly after, and the legislation itself
16616-413: Was known for not suffering fools gladly, dismissing people as stupid or intellectual cowards. "He had no sense of other people's sensitivities, or he didn't care whether he alienated his friends," Dezsö Hermann, one of Kasztner's friends at law school, told Porter. "Back then, in Kolozsvár, Jews kept their heads down. Not Rezső." Ladislaus Löb quotes Kasztner's associate Joel Brand as saying that Kasztner
16750-491: 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
16884-607: Was one of the main reasons that the Hungarian government stopped the deportations. By then, 437,000 Hungarian Jews had been taken to Auschwitz, most murdered on arrival. Kasztner's critics also argued that he promised the SS not to warn Hungarian Jews to avoid jeopardizing negotiations to save the Jews who escaped on the Kastner train. In 1960, an interview with Eichmann, by the Dutch Nazi journalist Willem Sassen in Argentina,
17018-514: 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
17152-495: Was published in Life Magazine . Eichmann said that Kasztner "agreed to help keep the Jews from resisting deportation – and even keep order in the collection camps – if I would close my eyes and let a few hundred or a few thousand young Jews emigrate to Palestine. It was a good bargain." Rudolf Vrba wrote, "Kasztner paid for those 1,684 lives with his silence." Kasztner's supporters argued that
17286-629: 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
17420-531: 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
17554-455: Was the "prototype of the snobbish intellectual" but showed "marvellous courage at critical moments"; the Orthodox leader Fülöp Freudiger called him "dictatorial" but "selfless and always willing to take personal risks". Kasztner's daughter, Zsuzsi, described him as "very arrogant, and rightly so, because he was extremely smart and intelligent and handsome and charismatic". He became known as
17688-551: 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
17822-408: 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
17956-570: 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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