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132-791: The Haggadah ( Hebrew : הַגָּדָה , "telling"; plural: Haggadot ) is a Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder . According to Jewish practice, reading the Haggadah at the Seder table is a fulfillment of the mitzvah to each Jew to tell their children the story from the Book of Exodus about God bringing the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt , with a strong hand and an outstretched arm . According to Jewish tradition,

264-685: 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

396-589: A Talmudic statement, it was completed by the time of Rav Nachman. There is a dispute, however, to which Rav Nachman the Talmud was referring: according to some commentators, this was Rav Nachman bar Yaakov ( c.  280 CE ), while others maintain this was Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak (360 CE). However, the Malbim , along with a minority of commentators, believe that Abba Arika and Samuel were not arguing on its compilation, but rather on its interpretation, and hence it

528-595: 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

660-661: 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

792-522: A cumulative song is the Christmas song " The Twelve Days of Christmas ", which uses a two-line stanza, where the second line is cumulative, as follows: On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent ( or "gave" ) to me A partridge in a pear tree. On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me Two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree. On the third day of Christmas, my true love sent to me Three french hens, two turtle doves and

924-579: 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

1056-594: 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

1188-402: A hole in the bottom of the sea There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea There’s a hole, there’s a hole There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea There’s a log in the hole in the bottom of the sea There’s a log in the hole in the bottom of the sea There’s a hole, there’s a hole There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea There’s a bump on the log in the hole in the bottom of

1320-468: 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

1452-536: 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

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1584-405: A partridge in a pear tree. and so on until On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me Twelve drummers drumming, eleven pipers piping, ten lords a-leaping, nine ladies dancing, eight maids a-milking, seven swans a-swimming, six geese a-laying, five gold(en) rings, four calling birds, three french hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree. The first gift (the partridge)

1716-501: A question or represent Jews who have drifted so far from Jewish life that they do not participate in a Seder. Four verses in Deuteronomy (26:5–8) are then expounded, with an elaborate, traditional commentary. ("5. And thou shalt speak and say before the L ORD thy God: 'A wandering Aramean was my parent, and they went down into Egypt, and sojourned there, few in number; and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous. 6. And

1848-548: 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

1980-668: 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

2112-472: 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

2244-558: 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

2376-407: A wart on the frog, on the bump, on the log, in the hole in the bottom of the sea There’s a wart on the frog, on the bump, on the log, in the hole in the bottom of the sea There’s a hole, there’s a hole There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea There’s a fly on the wart, on the frog, on the bump, on the log, in the hole in the bottom of the sea There’s a fly on the wart, on the frog, on

2508-549: A way that shows freedom and majesty, many Jews have the custom of filling each other's cups at the Seder table. The Kiddush is traditionally said by the father of the house, but all Seder participants participate by reciting the Kiddush and drinking at least a majority of a cup of wine. On Shabbat, it is preceded by a reading from the Book of Genesis recounting God's rest on the seventh day of creation and includes an extended doxology on

2640-518: 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

2772-586: 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

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2904-495: Is alone at the seder he is obligated to ask himself and to answer his own questions. Why is this night different from all other nights? The traditional Haggadah speaks of "four sons—one who is wise, one who is wicked, one who is simple, and one who does not know to ask". The number four derives from the four passages in the Torah where one is commanded to explain the Exodus to one's son. Each of these sons phrases his question about

3036-416: Is always sung to a "coda melody" phrase. For the first four verses, the additional gifts are all sung to a repeated standard melodic phrase. In the fifth verse, a different melody, with a change of tempo, is introduced for the five gold(en) rings; and from this point on the first five gifts are always sung to a set of varied melodic phrases (with the partridge retaining its original coda phrase). Thence forward,

3168-660: Is available on line on the Tobar an Dualchais – Kist o Riches website. Jim Carroll and Pat McKenzie recorded Pat McNamara singing The Bog Down in the Valley in Kilshanny, in 1975. The recording is available online on the Clare County Library website. Yiddish folk music contains many prominent examples of cumulative songs, including "?װאָס װעט זײַן אַז משיח װעט קומען" and "מה אספּרה," or "What Will Happen When

3300-567: 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

3432-481: Is no printer's colophon . The oldest confirmed printed Haggadah was printed in Soncino, Lombardy in 1486 by the Soncino family . Although the Jewish printing community was quick to adopt the printing press as a means of producing texts, the general adoption rate of printed Haggadot was slow. By the end of the sixteenth century, only twenty-five editions had been printed. This number increased to thirty-seven during

3564-535: 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. Cumulative song Typically, the lyrics take the form of a stanza of at least two lines . In each verse,

3696-423: Is rebuked by the explanation that " It is because God acted for my sake when I left Egypt. " (This implies that the Seder is not for the wicked son because the wicked son would not have deserved to be freed from Egyptian slavery.) Where the four sons are illustrated in the Haggadah, this son has frequently been depicted as carrying weapons or wearing stylish contemporary fashions. The simple son, who asks, " What

3828-565: Is recited at this point in the Seder, unlike the blessing recited over the washing of the hands before eating bread. However, followers of Rambam or the Gaon of Vilna do recite a blessing. Each participant dips a sprig of parsley or similar leafy green into either salt water (Ashkenazi custom said to serve as a reminder of the tears shed by their enslaved ancestors), vinegar (Sephardi custom) or charoset (older Sephardi custom; still common among Yemenite Jews ). Three matzot are stacked on

3960-582: Is taken from the Jerusalem Talmud and from a parallel passage in the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael ; it is slightly altered in the present ritual. Other rabbinic quotes from the aggadah literature are added, as the story of Eliezer ben Hurcanus , who discussed the Exodus all night with four other rabbis, which tale is found in an altogether different form in the Tosefta . While the main portions of

4092-573: 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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4224-457: 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

4356-518: Is this? " is answered with " With a strong hand the Almighty led us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage. " And the one who does not know to ask is told, " It is because of what the Almighty did for me when I left Egypt. " Some modern Haggadot mention "children" instead of "sons", and some have added a fifth child. The fifth child can represent the children of the Shoah who did not survive to ask

4488-657: Is told. At this point in the Seder, Sefardic Jews (North African) have a custom of raising the Seder plate over the heads of all those present while chanting: Moroccan Jews sing "Bivhilu yatzanu mimitzrayim, halahma anya b'nei horin" (In haste we went out of Egypt [with our] bread of affliction, [now we are] free people), Algerian Jews sing "Ethmol 'ayinu abadim, hayom benei 'horin, hayom kan, leshana habaa bear'a deYisrael bene 'horin" (Yesterday we were slaves, today we are free, today we are here -in exile-, next year we will be in Israel free". The matzot are uncovered, and referred to as

4620-547: 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

4752-650: 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

4884-727: 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

5016-547: 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,

5148-572: 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

5280-495: 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

5412-682: 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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5544-587: The Samaritans developed their own Haggadot which they use to the present day. During the era of the Enlightenment the European Jewish community developed into groups that reacted in different ways to modifications of the Haggadah. The oldest surviving complete manuscript of the Haggadah dates to the 10th century. It is part of a prayer book compiled by Saadia Gaon . It is now believed that

5676-536: 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

5808-462: 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

5940-620: 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

6072-543: 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

6204-457: The "bread of affliction". Participants declare in Aramaic an invitation to all who are hungry or needy to join in the Seder. Halakha requires that this invitation be repeated in the native language of the country. The Mishnah details questions one is obligated to ask on the night of the Seder. It is customary for the youngest child present to recite the four questions. Some customs hold that

6336-607: 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

6468-740: The 13th and 14th centuries, such as the Golden Haggadah (probably Barcelona c.  1320 , now British Library ) and the Sarajevo Haggadah (late fourteenth century). Other significant medieval illustrated haggadot are the Birds' Head Haggadah and the Washington Haggadah . It is believed that the first printed Haggadot were produced in 1482, in Guadalajara, Spain ; however, this is mostly conjecture, as there

6600-585: The 14th century and is an example of the cross-fertilisation between Jewish and non-Jewish artists within the medium of manuscript illumination. In spring and summer 2012 it was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York, in the exhibition 'The Rylands Haggadah: Medieval Jewish Art in Context'. The British Library's 14th century Barcelona Haggadah (BL Add. MS 14761) is one of the most richly pictorial of all Jewish texts. Meant to accompany

6732-555: 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,

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6864-611: 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

6996-604: 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

7128-579: 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,

7260-503: 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

7392-412: The Egyptians dealt ill with us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage. 7. And we cried unto the L ORD , the God of our parents, and the L ORD heard our voice, and saw our affliction, and our toil, and our oppression. 8 And the L ORD brought us forth out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm , and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders .") The Haggadah explores

7524-416: 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

7656-420: The Haggadah first became produced as an independent book in codex form around 1000 CE. Maimonides (1135–1204) included the Haggadah in his code of Jewish law, the Mishneh Torah . Existing manuscripts do not go back beyond the thirteenth century. When such a volume was compiled, it became customary to add poetical pieces. The earliest surviving Haggadot produced as works in their own right are manuscripts from

7788-423: The Haggadah itself, but have either past or future redemptive associations". Other illuminated Haggadot include the Sarajevo Haggadah , Washington Haggadah , and the 20th-century Szyk Haggadah . Kadeish is the Hebrew imperative form of Kiddush . This Kiddush is a blessing similar to that which is recited on all of the pilgrimage festivals , but also refers to matzot and the exodus from Egypt. Acting in

7920-415: The Haggadah was compiled during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods, although the exact date is unknown. It could not have been written earlier than the time of Judah bar Ilai ( c.  170 CE ), who is the latest tanna to be quoted therein. Abba Arika and Samuel of Nehardea ( c.  230 CE ) argued on the compilation of the Haggadah, and hence it had not been completed as of then. Based on

8052-420: The Haggadah. The text of the Haggadah was never fixed in one, final form, as no rabbinic body existed which had authority over such matters. Instead, each local community developed its own text. A variety of traditional texts took on a standardized form by the end of the medieval era on the Ashkenazi (Eastern European) and Sephardi (Spanish, North African, and Middle Eastern) communities. The Karaites and also

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8184-432: 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

8316-437: 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

8448-454: 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

8580-400: The Messiah Comes?" and "Who Can Recall" (a Yiddish version of the Passover song " Echad Mi Yodea "). The Passover seder contains two Hebrew cumulative songs: Echad Mi Yodea and Chad Gadya . "There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea" This is a traditional folk song that has been altered in many ways by various musicians and artists. Below are the 'traditional' lyrics. There’s

8712-417: 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

8844-433: The Passover eve service and festive meal, it was also a status symbol for its owner in 14th-century Spain. Nearly all its folios are filled with miniatures depicting Passover rituals, Biblical and Midrashic episodes, and symbolic foods. A facsimile edition was published by Facsimile Editions of London in 1992. Published in 1526, the Prague Haggadah is known for its attention to detail in lettering and for introducing many of

8976-457: The Seder, is traditionally the last morsel of food eaten by participants in the Seder. Each participant receives an at least olive-sized portion of matzo to be eaten as afikoman . After the consumption of the afikoman , traditionally, no other food may be eaten for the rest of the night. Additionally, no intoxicating beverages may be consumed, with the exception of the remaining two cups of wine. The recital of Birkat Hamazon . The drinking of

9108-449: 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

9240-406: 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

9372-644: The Third Cup of Wine. Note: The Third Cup is customarily poured before the Grace after Meals is recited because the Third Cup also serves as a Cup of Blessing associated with the Grace after Meals on special occasions. In many traditions, the front door of the house is opened at this point. Psalms 79:6–7 is recited in both Ashkenazi and Sephardi traditions, plus Lamentations 3:66 among Ashkenazim. Hebrew language Hebrew ( Hebrew alphabet : עִבְרִית ‎, ʿĪvrīt , pronounced [ ʔivˈʁit ] or [ ʕivˈrit ] ; Samaritan script : ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ ‎ ʿÎbrit )

9504-422: 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

9636-478: 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

9768-561: 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

9900-547: 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,

10032-594: The blessings of Shabbat. Partakers wash their hands in preparation for eating wet fruit and vegetables, which happens in the next stage. Technically, according to Jewish law , whenever one partakes of fruit or vegetables dipped in liquid, one must wash one's hands, if the fruit or vegetable remains wet. However, this situation does not often arise at other times of the year because either one will dry fruits and vegetables before eating them, or one has already washed one's hands, because one must also wash one's hands before eating bread. According to most traditions, no blessing

10164-630: The celebration of Passover, but also as marketing tools and ways of showing that certain foods are kosher. The earliest Ashkenazi illuminated Haggada is known as the Birds' Head Haggadah , made in Germany around the 1320s and now in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The Rylands Haggadah (Rylands Hebrew MS. 6) is one of the finest Haggadot in the world. It was written and illuminated in Spain in

10296-602: 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

10428-410: 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

10560-510: The contents of a sandwich are placed between two slices of bread, and eaten. This follows the tradition of Hillel , who did the same at his Seder table 2,000 years ago (except that in Hillel's day the Paschal sacrifice, matzo, and maror were eaten together.) The festive meal is eaten. Traditionally it begins with the charred egg on the Seder plate. The afikoman , which was hidden earlier in

10692-514: 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;

10824-423: 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

10956-513: 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

11088-532: 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

11220-711: 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

11352-406: 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

11484-610: The half-gallon, the quart pot, pint pot, half a pint, gill pot, half a gill, quarter gill, nipperkin, and a round bowl Here's good luck, good luck, good luck to the barley mow Alan Lomax recorded Jack French singing The Barley Mow at the Blaxhall Ship, a famous singing pub in Suffolk, in 1953. This recording is available online at the Cultural Equity website. A chorus (often with its own refrain) may be added to

11616-462: 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

11748-465: 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

11880-471: 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

12012-610: The meaning of those verses, and embellishes the story. This telling describes the slavery of the Jewish people and their miraculous salvation by God. This culminates in an enumeration of the Ten Plagues : With the recital of the Ten Plagues, each participant removes a drop of wine from his or her cup using a fingertip. Although this night is one of salvation, the sages explain that one cannot be completely joyous when some of God's creatures had to suffer. A mnemonic acronym for

12144-727: 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

12276-606: The oldest ritual, as is recorded in the Mishnah, is the conclusion of the "Hallel" (up to Psalms 118), and the closing benediction of the hymn "Birkat ha-Shir", which latter the Amoraim explain differently, but which evidently was similar to the benediction thanking God, "who loves the songs of praise," used in the present ritual. These blessings, and the narrations of Israel's history in Egypt, based on Deuteronomy 26:5–9 and on Joshua 24:2–4, with some introductory remarks, were added in

12408-405: The other participants recite them quietly to themselves as well. In some families, this means that the requirement remains on an adult "child" until a grandchild of the family receives sufficient Jewish education to take on the responsibility. If a person has no children capable of asking, the responsibility falls to the spouse, or another participant. The need to ask is so great that even if a person

12540-534: 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

12672-414: The pint pot, half a pint, gill pot, half a gill, quarter gill, nipperkin, and a round bowl Here's good luck, good luck, good luck to the barley mow The second verse substitutes a larger drink measure in the first line. In the second line the new measure heads the list and is sung to the same musical phrase as pint pot. Here's good luck to the quart pot, Good luck to the barley mow Jolly good luck to

12804-419: The plagues is also introduced: "D'tzach Adash B'achav", while similarly spilling a drop of wine for each word. At this part in the Seder, songs of praise are sung, including the song Dayenu , which proclaims that had God performed any single one of the many deeds performed for the Jewish people, it would have been enough to obligate us to give thanks. After this is a declaration (mandated by Rabban Gamliel) of

12936-591: 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

13068-635: 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

13200-400: The quart pot, Good luck to the barley mow Oh the quart pot, pint pot, half a pint, gill pot, half a gill, quarter gill, nipperkin, and a round bowl Here's good luck, good luck, good luck to the barley mow One version of the final line and refrain is: Oh the company, the brewer, the drayer, the slavey, the daughter, the landlady, the landlord, the barrel, the half-barrel, the gallon,

13332-489: The reasons of the commandments concerning the Paschal lamb , matzah , and maror , with scriptural sources. Then follows a short prayer, and the recital of the first two psalms of Hallel (which will be concluded after the meal). A long blessing is recited, and the second cup of wine is drunk. The ritual hand-washing is repeated, this time with all customs including a blessing. Two blessings are recited. First one recites

13464-734: 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

13596-406: The sea There’s a bump on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea There’s a hole, there’s a hole There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea There’s a Frog on the bump, on the log, in the hole in the bottom of the sea There’s a Frog on the bump, on the log, in the hole in the bottom of the sea There’s a hole, there’s a hole There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea There’s

13728-425: The seder in a different way. The Haggadah recommends answering each son according to his question, using one of the three verses in the Torah that refer to this exchange. The wise son asks " What are the statutes, the testimonies, and the laws that God has commanded you to do? " One explanation for why this very detailed-oriented question is categorized as wise, is that the wise son is trying to learn how to carry out

13860-481: The seder table; at this stage, the middle matzah of the three is broken in half. According to the custom of the Vilna Gaon and others, only two matzot are used, and the top one is broken. The larger piece is hidden, to be used later as the afikoman , the "dessert" after the meal. The smaller piece is returned to its place between the other two matzot. The story of Passover, and the change from slavery to freedom

13992-447: The seder, rather than asking for someone else's understanding of its meaning. He is answered fully: You should reply to him with [all] the laws of pesach: one may not eat any dessert after the paschal sacrifice. The wicked son, who asks, " What is this service to you? ", is characterized by the Haggadah as isolating himself from the Jewish people, standing by objectively and watching their behavior rather than participating. Therefore, he

14124-532: The seventeenth century, and 234 during the eighteenth century. It is not until the nineteenth century, when 1,269 separate editions were produced, that a significant shift is seen toward printed Haggadot as opposed to manuscripts . From 1900 to 1960 alone, over 1,100 Haggadot were printed. It is not uncommon, particularly in America, for haggadot to be produced by corporate entities, such as coffee maker Maxwell House – see Maxwell House Haggadah – serving as texts for

14256-493: 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

14388-474: 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

14520-497: The standard blessing before eating bread, which includes the words "who brings forth" (motzi in Hebrew). Then one recites the blessing regarding the commandment to eat Matzah. An olive-size piece (some say two) is then eaten while reclining. The blessing for the eating of the maror (bitter herbs) is recited and then it is dipped into the charoset and eaten. The maror is placed between two small pieces of matzo, similarly to how

14652-408: The stanzas as in " The Rattlin' Bog " (Roud 129): Hi ho, the rattlin' bog, The bog down in the valley-o, Hi ho, the rattlin' bog, The bog down in the valley-o. 1. Now in the bog there was a tree, A rare tree, a rattlin' tree, The tree in the bog, And the bog down in the valley-o. (CHORUS) 2. And on that tree there was a branch, A rare branch, a rattlin' branch, The branch on

14784-470: 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

14916-399: The text of the Haggadah have remained mostly the same since their original compilation, there have been some additions after the last part of the text. Some of these additions, such as the cumulative songs "One little goat" (חד גדיא) and "Who Knows One?" (אחד מי יודע), which were added sometime in the fifteenth century, gained such acceptance that they became a standard to print at the back of

15048-415: The text of the first line introduces a new item, and the other line uses the words to begin a list which includes items from all the preceding verses. The item is typically a new phrase (simultaneously a group of words and a musical phrase ) to a line in a previous stanza. The two lines are often separated by refrains . Many cumulative songs also have a chorus . One of the most well-known examples of

15180-572: The themes still found in modern texts. Although illustrations had often been a part of the Haggadah, it was not until the Prague Haggadah that they were used extensively in printed text. The Haggadah features over sixty woodcut illustrations picturing "scenes and symbols of the Passover ritual; ... biblical and rabbinic elements that actually appear in the Haggadah text; and scenes and figures from biblical or other sources that play no role in

15312-539: The time of the early Amoraim in the third century CE. In post-Talmudic times, during the era of the Geonim , selections from midrashim were added; most likely Rabbi Amram Gaon ( c.  850 ) was the originator of the present collection, as he was the redactor of the daily liturgy in the siddur . Of these midrashim one of the most important is that of the four children, representing four different attitudes towards why Jews should observe Passover . This division

15444-542: The tree, and the tree in the bog, And the bog down in the valley-o. (CHORUS) One version of the final line+refrain is: The feather on the wing, and the wing on the bird, and the bird on the nest, and the nest on the twig, and the twig on the branch, and the branch on the tree, and the tree in the bog, And the bog down in the valley-o. Each phrase is sung to the same two-note melody. Hamish Henderson recorded William Sinclair Mitchell, Agnes Mitchell and Agnes Mitchell singing The Rattling Bog in 1979. The recording

15576-580: 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

15708-455: 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

15840-415: The wording of each new gift is sung to the original standard melodic phrase before returning to the five gold(en) rings. In many songs, an item is introduced in the first line of each stanza and extends the list in another line. An example is The Barley Mow ( Roud 944): Here's good luck to the pint pot, Good luck to the barley mow Jolly good luck to the pint pot, Good luck to the barley mow Oh

15972-595: 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

16104-421: 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

16236-457: 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

16368-474: Was completed before then. According to this explanation, the Haggadah was written during the lifetime of Judah ha-Nasi (who was a student of Judah bar Ilia and the teacher of Abba Arika and Samuel) the compiler of the Mishnah . The Malbim theorized that the Haggadah was written by Judah ha-Nasi himself. One of the most ancient parts is the recital of the "Hallel", which, according to the Mishnah (Pesachim 5:7),

16500-491: 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

16632-566: 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

16764-629: 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

16896-624: Was sung at the sacrifice in the Temple in Jerusalem , and of which, according to the school of Shammai , only the first chapter shall be recited. After the Psalms a blessing for the Redemption is to be said. This blessing, according to Rabbi Tarfon , runs as follows: "Praised art Thou, O Lord, King of the Universe, who hast redeemed us, and hast redeemed our fathers from Egypt." Another part of

17028-531: 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

17160-551: 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

17292-408: 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

17424-570: 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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