124-572: The Black Panthers ( Hebrew : הפנתרים השחורים , translit. HaPanterim HaShchorim ) were an Israeli protest movement of second-generation Jewish immigrants from North Africa and Middle Eastern countries. It was one of the first organizations in Israel with the mission of working for social justice for Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews , drawing inspiration and borrowing the name from the African-American organization Black Panther Party . It
248-409: A kosher rooftop restaurant with a 360-degree panoramic view. Hamashbir Lazarchan , a seven-story, 5,000 square metres (54,000 sq ft) department store that opened on the east side of Zion Square in 2011, is the largest department store in Israel and the flagship store of the 38-store chain. The store was originally established in 1947 on the opposite side of Jaffa Road, and moved to
372-629: A 1971 protest by the Israeli Black Panthers in which Prime Minister Golda Meir was burned in effigy , and a 1995 protest against Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the signing of the Taba Agreement (Oslo II), after which thousands of protesters continued on to the Knesset , destroying property en route. The largest demonstrations in the square included a May 2000 protest decrying the handover of Arab settlements adjacent to
496-685: 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
620-595: 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
744-484: A contest was held to redesign the square and on September 13, 2016, the Jerusalem Municipality announced that its panel had chosen a design by Maya Atidia and Tamir Manzur-Carmel called "Urban Forest Clearing" as the winner. Redevelopment work began in 2018, with the installation of a stage, public seating, and trees of the plane , carob , Mediterranean hackberry , and pear varieties. Zion Square
868-661: 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
992-686: A different future. All of the initial ten members were children of Moroccan immigrants, around ages 18–20, and most had dropped out of elementary school and spent some time in juvenile delinquent institutions. They were influenced by the Community Work Division of the Jerusalem municipality , who introduced them to the mass media as an outlet for expressing their demands for change. Other forces of influence were anti-Zionist high-school and university students. The Black Panthers felt that discrimination against Mizrahi Jews could be seen in
1116-579: 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
1240-594: 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
1364-483: A leaflet before the first organized demonstration and along with three other members of Matzpen , hung them around Musrara. While distributing the leaflet, they were arrested by the police. Vigodar pointed out the difference in treatment towards the newly formed Black Panthers and Matzpen: "When we were in Matzpen, there was no scenario in which we would be thrown in jail for no reason before a protest. I don't remember in
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#17327717999781488-468: 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
1612-536: 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
1736-727: A location near King George and Ben Yehuda Streets from 1970 to 2010. On the north side of Zion Square stands the Jerusalem Hostel . This lodging opened as the Tel Aviv Hotel in 1926 and later became known as the Ron Hotel. Menachem Begin stood on one of the hotel's balconies on August 3, 1948, to announce the dissolution of the Irgun and the sign-up of his soldiers with the Israel Defense Forces . On
1860-404: A mobile unit to Zion Square on weeknights to engage street youth in art projects. Zion Cinema was the central landmark of Zion Square from the 1920s until its closure in 1972. Located on the south side of Zion Square, it was originally a 400-seat silent-movie hut and, after snowfall destroyed the structure, was rebuilt into a 600-seat theatre that staged plays, concerts, lectures, and films. In
1984-660: A neighborhood group prior to becoming the Black Panthers, with Marciano as leader of the group. The Panthers made connections with a large network of people in the establishment and outside of it, such as members of Knesset , Histadrut , and the Jewish Agency . The large-scale response to the Black Panthers, especially from the State, declined after several months, as the Panthers were unable to mobilize large parts of
2108-548: 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
2232-668: 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
2356-472: 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
2480-558: 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
2604-518: 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
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#17327717999782728-644: 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
2852-487: Is a hangout for drug users. An estimated 70 percent of teenagers who hang out in the square take drugs. The open, street-level basement of the Kikar Zion Hotel is a well-known haunt for both drug dealers and prostitutes. School dropouts, disaffected religious immigrant teens, and homeless youth are also fixtures in the square. Street workers have identified large groups of Russian immigrant youth hanging out in
2976-588: Is a public square in Jerusalem , located at the intersection of Jaffa Road , Ben Yehuda Street , Herbert Samuel Street, and Yoel Moshe Salomon Street. The square is one of the vertices of the Downtown Triangle commercial district. Since the British Mandate era , Zion Square has been the focal point of the cultural life of downtown Jerusalem. The square is busy day and night with tourists, elderly immigrants, overseas students, local youth, street performers , and religious activists. In recent decades,
3100-576: Is also sometimes referred to as the Israeli Black Panthers to distinguish them from the original American group. The movement was founded early in 1971 by young people in the Musrara neighborhood of Jerusalem , in reaction to discrimination against Mizrahi Jews , which existed since the establishment of the state. The movement's founders protested "ignorance from the establishment for the hard social problems", and wanted to fight for
3224-514: 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
3348-693: Is likely that the police had a number of informants in the Party besides Elbaz. This introduced distrust to the Party, contributing to tension and discord. The Israeli Black Panthers adopted the name of the United States Black Panther Party along with groups in the United Kingdom , West Indies, West Africa, and South Asia. The groups were united by migrant identities and adopted grassroots strategies and interethnic solidarity in order to resist racist social structures. The name
3472-518: 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. Zion Square Zion Square ( Hebrew : כיכר ציון , romanized : Kikar Tziyon )
3596-548: Is packed at all hours with a broad cross-section of Jerusalem life: bearded mystics, heavily armed police, declaiming self-styled holy men, jubilant Hassidim, sullen teenagers, bright-eyed tour groups and street musicians. Go Jerusalem.com Zion Square is busy day and night as a meeting place and hangout for people from all walks of life, including tourists, elderly immigrants, seminary students, street performers, and Chabad and Breslov activists. Zion Square has been described as "always crowded, always crazy". The square
3720-573: 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
3844-405: 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
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3968-547: 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
4092-650: 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
4216-727: 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
4340-547: 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,
4464-572: 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
4588-481: The Israel State Archives released documents revealing that Ya'akov Elbaz, one of the Black Panthers who had met with Golda Meir, was a police informant. He was older than the Party members at about forty and was known for being involved in organized crime. The police recruited him to work undercover in the Black Panthers. The police paid him and ignored his pimp activities. "The police were worried that
4712-495: 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
4836-682: 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
4960-738: The Mount of Olives , a November 2000 protest against Ehud Barak 's "policy of restraint" at the beginning of the Second Intifada , and a 2006 protest against the policies of acting prime minister Ehud Olmert , each of which drew around an estimated 100,000 people. With the opening of the Jerusalem Light Rail on Jaffa Road in August 2011, Jerusalem police stopped issuing permits for demonstrations in Zion Square to avoid
5084-536: 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
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5208-462: 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
5332-620: 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
5456-543: 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
5580-564: The "Oriental question", which subsequently played a role in Israeli political debate in the 1970s and 1980s, contributing to Likud success in that period. Although inequalities remain, many Mizrahi Jews have over the years entered the mainstream of Israeli political, military, cultural and economic life, including Moroccan -born Amir Peretz and David Levy , Iraqi-born Shlomo Hillel , Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and Yitzhak Mordechai and Iranian-born Shaul Mofaz and Moshe Katzav . In 2007,
5704-607: 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
5828-626: The 1920s and 1930s the Zion Cinema was the cultural center of Jerusalem. After its closure, the building was demolished and a high-rise containing the Kikar Zion Hotel and a branch of Bank HaPoalim was erected in its place. In 2013 the 117-room hotel was purchased by Orchid Hotel Management Ltd., which is renovating the property for reopening as the Herbert Samuel Hotel . The hotel will have 137 rooms and suites, and
5952-555: 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,
6076-611: 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
6200-604: 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
6324-766: 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,
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#17327717999786448-503: 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
6572-431: The British in 1922) and King George Street (constructed by the British in 1924). Zion Square was also designed by the British as a roundabout . The popularity of the films, operas, plays, concerts and lectures presented at the Zion Cinema turned Zion Square into the “center of cultural life in Jerusalem” in the 1920s and 1930s. Movie- and theater-goers gravitated between the cinema and the many cafes and coffee houses in
6696-409: The Downtown Triangle; two of the popular cafes were located in Zion Square itself: the Vienna Cafe and the Europa Cafe. Zion Square became a rallying point for political demonstrations and social protests beginning in the 1930s, when young Zionists held rallies here. From the 1950s to the 2000s, primarily right-wing demonstrations were staged here. Several demonstrations turned violent, such as
6820-416: 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
6944-432: 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
7068-437: 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
7192-454: 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
7316-568: The Middle East and North Africa were not given adequate housing by the Israeli government and many settled in Musrara. After the 1967 Six-Day War , Musrara went from being a dangerous neighborhood on the border, to being the center of a united Jerusalem. The government began planning to rebuild the neighborhood with high-rise apartment complexes for Soviet immigrants, meaning that the North African Jewish residents would be displaced. Charlie Biton , Saadia Marciano , Roni Orovitz, Reuven Abergel , Meir Levi and Kochavi Shemesh were prominent members of
7440-417: 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
7564-469: The Panthers had met with Golda Meir on 13 April, who characterized them as "not nice people". She saw the leaders of the movement as lawbreakers and refused to recognize them as a social movement. The violent protest of 18 May brought the government to discuss seriously the Panthers' claims and a public committee was established to find a solution. According to the conclusions of that committee, discrimination did exist at many levels in society. Following this,
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#17327717999787688-410: The Panthers would use violence like the U.S. Black Panthers, so they wanted to be informed on their activities," said detective Avraham Turgiman. Elbaz joined the Party shortly after the first demonstration and had a prominent presence because he supplied large sums of money and strongly advocated for violence. He became one of the leaders of the movement, and at one point was elected as the President of
7812-433: The Party in its early days. They succeeded to make people believe that their movement would improve the lives of the disenfranchised and received media attention. In the beginning of 1971, the establishment of the movement was publicized, and it was distributed that the leaders of the movement had criminal records. The authorities became worried that the events of the Wadi Salid riots would be repeated. Shimshon Vigodar made
7936-449: 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
8060-406: 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
8184-422: 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
8308-411: 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
8432-563: The attack was the deadliest ever against Israeli citizens by a booby-trapped bomb. On March 24, 1979, a bomb exploded in a garbage can in Zion Square, killing one and wounding 13. On November 13, 1975, an explosive charge went off near Cafe Naveh on Jaffa Road, near the pedestrian mall. Six people were killed and 40 injured. 48 On the night of August 16–17, 2012, dozens of Jewish teens chased four Palestinian teens in Zion Square and beat one of them unconscious, in what Israeli police and witnesses described as an attempted lynching . Following
8556-455: 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
8680-428: 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,
8804-755: The budgets of the offices dealing with social issues were enlarged significantly. However, the 1973 Yom Kippur War soon changed the government's list of priorities, and most of these resources were turned, again, towards security needs. Following "The Night of the Panthers" and the Panthers' newfound publicity, the group had hoped to build a nationwide, grassroots movement, but was unable to due to internal conflicts and limited organizational ability. They did organize several demonstrations during March through August 1971. The group had an active periphery of supporters made up of younger boys from Musrara, and some committed helpers, including intellectuals and anti-Zionist student groups. They in many ways maintained their structure as
8928-554: The closure of most of the Triangle's cinemas. The Zion Cinema closed in 1972 and was demolished. In its place, a high-rise building containing the Kikar Zion Hotel (on the upper floors) and a branch of Bank Hapoalim (on the lower floors) was erected. In 1983 Zion Square was converted into a pedestrian promenade along with Ben Yehuda Street and other streets in the Downtown Triangle in a successful effort to revitalize
9052-602: 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
9176-410: 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
9300-506: The demonstration without a permit, gathering in front of Jerusalem's City Hall on March 2, 1971, to protest the distress of poverty, the gap between poor and rich in Israel, and the ethnic tensions within Jewish Israeli society. They passed out a leaflet calling for actions to stop class and ethnic discrimination within Jewish Israeli society and for the release of the arrested organizers. The protest gained more attention in part due to
9424-568: 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;
9548-557: The different attitude of the Ashkenazi establishment towards the immigrants from the Soviet Union . While most other Mizrahi organizations in Israel were religious, such as Shas , the Black Panthers were secular in orientation. After 1949, Musrara went from being a wealthy Arab neighborhood to a neglected area with a dangerous no-man's land full of mines, on the border of Israel and Jordan 's West Bank . Jewish immigrants from
9672-406: The disruption of light-rail operations. The Zion Cinema was the site of two attempted bombings, one in 1951 and the other in 1967. In both cases, an incendiary device was planted under the theater seats and was discovered before it detonated. On July 4, 1975, a refrigerator loaded with 5 kilograms (11 lb) of explosives detonated in Zion Square , killing 15 and wounding 77. At the time,
9796-475: The downtown district. In 2006 the Jerusalem Foundation floated a secret proposal to rename the square Rapaport Plaza, after a Waco, Texas philanthropist who pledged $ 2 million toward the square's renovation. Architect Ron Arad of London was hired and presented a plan to install a towering, red, reflective steel sculpture as a focal point for the square. The plan, which was not reported to
9920-423: 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
10044-513: 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
10168-532: 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
10292-836: The fact that it was illegal. About 200 to 300 people attended, primarily Israeli and foreign students and some intellectuals, rather than young people from Musrara. The movement successfully built a base of supporters, both in the public and in the media. On 18 May 1971, "The Night of the Panthers", the Israeli Black Panthers organized between 5,000 and 7,000 people to gather in a mass demonstration against racial discrimination. The protest started in Davidka Square in Jerusalem and when they started heading to Zion Square , seven hours of clashes between police and demonstrators began. The demonstrators also demanded to change
10416-711: 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
10540-433: The following day. Close to midnight, demonstrators threw three Molotov cocktails ." Prime Minister Golda Meir dismissed the protestors, calling for unity among Jews. Oz continues, "The government then pressured the Panthers to join the establishment-approved Alliance of Moroccan Immigrants. The Panthers relented, temporarily, so that their jailed comrades would be released." Prior to the demonstration, representatives of
10664-406: 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
10788-512: The history of Matzpen that we were ever arrested for incitement." At the beginning of March 1971, the Israel Police denied the Black Panthers a permit for a demonstration, due to some of them having criminal records, and some members of the Party were arrested to prevent the demonstration. The authorities promised the Panthers that funds would be allocated towards Jerusalem neighborhoods. The Panthers ignored this decision and proceeded with
10912-462: 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
11036-465: 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
11160-471: 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
11284-679: The movement's leaders integrated into either the main Israeli parties, specific ethnic parties such as Tami or Shas , and through them promoted the Mizrahi Jews' agenda. Reuven Abergel has since been active in the struggle for social justice and peace in Israel and the Palestinian territories as a member of various groups and movements. He currently serves on the board of the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow . The young Black Panther activists raised public consciousness to
11408-813: The name in order to give it recognition among Ashkenazi Jews inside and outside of Israel, many of whom had American backgrounds and would be familiar with African American history. They thought the name would be provoking, and keep the group from being forgotten like Eastern organizations before them. While the group knew little about the original Black Panthers, they identified with the name broadly, and it inspired them to express protest politics. The group did have knowledge of African American history . They renamed their neighborhood of Musrara, Harlem/Musrara. They identified with African Americans and viewed themselves as being subjected to discrimination and racism, as well. They believed that ethnic and class discrimination divided Israeli society into two, and did not believe assimilation
11532-409: The name of the square to Kikar Yehadut HaMizrah (Eastern Jewry Square). This demonstration was also held without police permission. Historian Oz Frankel describes "A police water cannon sprayed rioters with jets of water dyed green, only increasing the panic on the street. More than 100 people were arrested, many just onlookers, with several instances of police brutality recorded. Arrests continued into
11656-490: The neighborhood told them that they sounded like the Black Panthers from the U.S. Marciano was an organizer against police profiling and in 1970, at a meeting with a group of organizers, he allegedly suggested that they form a Black Panther Party in Israel. He wanted the group to have organization and militancy similar to the original Black Panthers. They also chose the name because they thought it would give them media attention, which proved to be true. The group in part adopted
11780-727: 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
11904-478: The organization. Kochavi Shemesh, another member of the Party, said that Elbaz was one of the leaders who promoted violent struggle, provided Molotov cocktails, and was a provocateur on behalf of the police. Charlie Biton said that he now knows that Elbaz “was planted by the police in the organization to try to make it look more radical.” The State Archives include internal newsletters and conversations revealing daily activities, likely information provided by Elbaz. It
12028-534: 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
12152-506: The population. The Panthers eventually moved into electoral politics, but without success, at least in part because of internal disputes and struggles. In the 1973 Knesset elections the party won 13,332 votes (0.9%), just short of the 1% threshold. For the 1977 elections Charlie Biton ran on the Hadash list. He was re-elected three times, before leaving Hadash to establish the Black Panthers as an independent Knesset faction in 1990. Some of
12276-591: 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
12400-635: 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
12524-497: The public, was spotted on the Jerusalem Foundation website and brought to public attention by Lemallah, a grassroots citizens watch group, which launched a successful public protest against the name change and the sculpture. At the same time, Lemallah produced its own counterproposal for a round, six-sided, steel "peace dome" to span the square and Jaffa Road. That idea, too, did not come to fruition. In early 2016,
12648-734: 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
12772-402: The reunification of Jerusalem in 1967, the city embarked on significant expansion. Large commercial centers were opened in the new, outlying neighborhoods of Talpiot , Givat Shaul , and Malha , weaning customers away from the city center. Government offices began moving out as well, precipitating the economic decline of the Downtown Triangle in the 1970s. The advent of television precipitated
12896-493: 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
13020-474: 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
13144-448: The square and drinking vodka purchased with money panhandled off tourists. The square also attracts sizable numbers of settlement youth uprooted by the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza . To reach out to at-risk and disaffected "square dwellers", several drop-in centers operate in the vicinity of Zion Square, including Crossroads, Hameshulash, Hezroni's Squat, and The Zone. The ELEM – Youth Distress in Israel organization brings
13268-409: The square has become a hangout for disaffected and homeless youth. From the 1930s to 2011, the square was a popular site for mass protests and demonstrations. The square, originally called Zion Circus , was named for the Zion Cinema (also called Zion Hall), a 400-seat silent movie house which occupied a hut on the site from 1912 to 1920. After the hut collapsed under a heavy snowfall, the cinema
13392-470: 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
13516-580: 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
13640-484: The west side of Zion Square stands the Sansur Building , erected in 1929. This three-story office and commercial building sports an "eclectic", neo-Renaissance and classical design. The building was commissioned by and named for a Christian Arab merchant from Bethlehem and originally housed Cafe Europe, a popular coffeehouse patronized by Jews, Arabs, and British in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1947-48 it housed
13764-505: 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
13888-595: 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
14012-421: 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
14136-771: Was an option. During the late 1990s and early 2000s a movement called the Russian Panthers (as a reference to the Black Panthers) was formed after attacks against Russian-speaking immigrants. A group of activists named two routes through Jerusalem's Musrara neighborhood "Black Panthers Way" and "They're Not Nice Alley" in 2011, the latter taken from the comments made about the Panthers by Golda Meir. Hebrew language Hebrew ( Hebrew alphabet : עִבְרִית , ʿĪvrīt , pronounced [ ʔivˈʁit ] or [ ʕivˈrit ] ; Samaritan script : ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ ʿÎbrit )
14260-457: 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
14384-491: 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
14508-566: 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
14632-615: Was reconstructed as a 600-seat theater for film screenings and live opera performances. The land on which Zion Square and the Downtown Triangle lies was purchased by the Jewish Colonization Association from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate , which began selling off some of its holdings in Jerusalem after World War I. Mandate officials developed the field into a triangular district bordered by Jaffa Road, Ben Yehuda Street (constructed by
14756-629: 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
14880-584: Was suggested in Israel by one of the founders of the party, Sa'adia Marciano. There are two theories on how the group came to the name. One is that Marciano or Abergel met with Angela Davis prior to choosing the name. Davis, who was involved with the Black Panther Party of the US, may have been involved in helping the Israeli Party develop its ideology. The other theory is that a social worker in
15004-531: 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
15128-551: 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
15252-408: 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
15376-570: 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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