117-706: Matzpen ( Hebrew : מצפן , lit. 'Compass') is the name of a revolutionary socialist and anti-Zionist organisation, founded in Israel in 1962 which was active until the 1980s. Its official name was the Socialist Organisation in Israel , but it became better known as Matzpen after its monthly publication. The organisation was founded by former members of the Israeli Communist Party – Maki – who opposed that party's unquestioned support for
234-543: A Trotskyist orientation, led by Menahem Carmi and Sylvain Cypel , and Ma'avak (Revolutionary Communist Alliance), with a Maoist orientation, led by Ilan Albert and Rami Livneh . A further split within the latter organisation saw the formation of the Revolutionary Communist Alliance - Red Front , led by Udi Adiv and Dan Vered . Avangard also underwent splits, which saw the formation of
351-685: 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
468-527: A book titled The 33-Day War: Israel's War on Hezbollah in Lebanon and Its Consequences (Paradigm Publishers, 2007), in which the war is covered with a focus on both Israeli and Lebanese perspectives. Sylvain Cypel wrote a historical and political analysis of Israeli society under the title Walled: Israeli Society at an Impasse (Other Press, 2007; original French in 2006). Moshe Machover has continued to publish theoretical papers analyzing Israel/Palestine within
585-595: 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
702-587: A class struggle. This could be done only "if the Jews will prove to the Arabs, who have been fighting Zionism for dozens of years, that they [the Jews] are on their side, that they are prepared to sacrifice everything they have, to be subjected to the same 'treatment' and to share everything with them. Without this no Arab will have confidence that the sincerest Jewish revolutionary is really revolutionary. No ideology, not even
819-661: 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
936-579: 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
1053-594: 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
1170-468: 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
1287-536: 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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#17327808151071404-548: 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
1521-515: A small group of Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel to penetrate the dense net of illusion and myth that today dominates the thinking and feeling of most Israelis and, at the same time, largely determines the prevailing image of Israel in the Western world. According to the Zionist fairy tale, the state of Israel is an outpost of democracy, social justice and enlightenment, and a homeland and haven for
1638-668: 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
1755-502: A struggle that is not only just but will eventually be victorious. This state of affairs is, moreover, in no sense accidental. It was the inevitable outcome of the success of the Zionist project to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. And to change this reality requires not merely a change of government or a modification of one or another specific policy, but a revolutionary transformation of the very foundations of Israeli society." In
1872-419: A struggle that supersedes nationalism, although both groups have "the same future and would live together in a single homeland under the rule of a single state, a state liberated from all foreign influence and all social exploitation." The same approach was displayed by Adiv. Accepting that "all trends of Matzpen" had "a sound theory", he argued that they lacked "the chapter entitled 'what is to be done' to reach
1989-472: 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
2106-558: 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
2223-676: A well-publicised trial in 1973 five members of the Red Front were sentenced to various periods in prison. Many of the defendants stated that they had been subjected to torture and other forms of physical and mental harassment by the Israeli security services before the trial, to force confessions out of them. It is obvious that none of them had any interest in working with the Syrian or other Arab regimes, and their sole interest consisted in establishing links with other revolutionary organizations in
2340-518: 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
2457-400: Is No Peace – an English translation was completed in 2009; although still unpublished as of August 2016, the translation is available online). Matzpen drew together Jewish and Arab activists with various backgrounds in left-wing organisations and affiliations. Prominent among them was Jabra Nicola , a Palestinian-Israeli intellectual and activist who helped shape the theoretical orientation of
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#17327808151072574-644: 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
2691-514: 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
2808-633: 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. Mosh%C3%A9 Machover Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include
2925-846: Is the most comprehensive account to date of the organization's history, based on interviews with former activists and a study of documents. In his review article "Is Zionism the Problem?", Shaul Magid characterized Lutz Fiedler's book Matzpen. A History of Israeli Dissidence (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) as "the most comprehensive history now available in English of the anti-Zionist left in Israel." An incomplete alphabetical list of activists directly or indirectly associated with Matzpen. Hebrew language Hebrew ( Hebrew alphabet : עִבְרִית , ʿĪvrīt , pronounced [ ʔivˈʁit ] or [ ʕivˈrit ] ; Samaritan script : ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ ʿÎbrit )
3042-573: 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
3159-457: 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
3276-556: Is titled "Away from the Tribe's Centre", and was awarded second prize in the students' films competition. In these documentaries as well as most other books by and interviews with members who ended-up in different factions, the doctrinal differences that led to their divergent paths disappear from view. The focus almost invariably is on activities against the occupation, anti-Zionist positions, the sense of dissent, and so on, which they all shared, rather than on what had set them apart. Despite
3393-547: 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
3510-650: 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
3627-727: 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
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3744-547: 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,
3861-572: 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
3978-495: 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
4095-682: 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
4212-536: 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
4329-675: The Spartacist League in 1974 and the Nitzotz group in 1977. The theoretical debates that led to the splits in Matzpen had to do with the conceptualization of the relations between class struggle and nationalism in the struggle for socialism. Avangard regarded Israel as a normal capitalist society in which the working class was the primary revolutionary agent. Hence, it saw its goal as the mobilization of that class to create an Israeli socialist republic. It regarded Matzpen's focus on
4446-462: 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
4563-620: 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
4680-543: 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
4797-607: 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
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4914-580: The 1967 occupation was but one stage in the long history of Zionist settlement, and reversing it would be a necessary but not sufficient condition for overall solution to the problems of the Middle East. For such a solution, political mobilization of Arabs, Jews, and other national minorities in the region would be needed. The political framework for this mobilization became known as the Arab Revolution, which combined national and socialist tasks in
5031-555: 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,
5148-611: 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
5265-604: 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
5382-631: The Americans who are persecuting the Vietnamese people, beside American imperialism which is exploiting the peoples of Latin America and the peoples of Asia and Africa, and setting the Jewish people against the Arab people forever. I think that this attitude amounts to a crime against both the Jewish people and the Arab people." In his view, Jews should support the Arab struggle for liberation rather than
5499-766: 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,
5616-687: 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
5733-526: 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
5850-432: 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
5967-437: 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
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#17327808151076084-454: 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
6201-490: The Israeli-Palestinian national conflict and on the colonial origins of Israeli society as a distraction from the class struggle. Ma'avak, in contrast, saw Matzpen as not emphasizing enough the colonial character of Israeli society. It saw its goal as that of facilitating the Palestinian national liberation struggle as a necessary step towards socialism. In response to both groups, Matzpen re-asserted its combination of support for national and social struggles. A major split within
6318-417: 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
6435-416: The Red Front, had a brief history of just over a year. At the end of 1972 many of its members were arrested and charged with espionage and collaboration with the enemy ( Syrian military intelligence ), based on a secret trip some of them took to Damascus. None of the activists detained and charged were members of Matzpen at the time, or at the time they committed their alleged offences against state security. In
6552-449: 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
6669-406: 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
6786-422: 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
6903-411: 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
7020-526: The absence of organizational activity, some of the original Matzpen members continue to write and be active politically. Haim Hanegbi and Michel Warschawski played a key role in writing the 2004 Olga Document, which is a statement of the anti-Zionist position and a radical critique of Israeli policies and practices, and Warschawski published his political memoir in English, On the Border (South End Press, 2004; original French in 2002). He further published, together with Lebanese academic and activist Gilbert Achcar,
7137-455: 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
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#17327808151077254-428: 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,
7371-446: The broader Middle Eastern framework, and in 2009, together with Ehud Ein-Gil, he published an article in the UK journal Race & Class , titled "Zionism and Oriental Jews: a dialectic of exploitation and co-optation", in which they analyze the question of ethnic divisions within Israel society. A new book on Matzpen was published in Israel in September 2010, under the title Matzpen: Conscience and Fantasy (Tel Aviv: Resling, 2010). It
7488-541: 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
7605-410: 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
7722-525: The continued occupation of the territories conquered in June '67". Faced with a situation in which "Israel controls the whole of the Palestine Mandate territory as well as vast tracts of Egyptian territory and a region in the south of Syria", Matzpen asserted in "General Declaration by the ISO" in March 1968, that "It is both the right and duty of every conquered and subjugated people to resist and to struggle for its freedom. The ways, means and methods necessary and appropriate for such struggle must be determined by
7839-460: The core group of mainstream Matzpen took place in 1972, and both factions kept the name Matzpen for their respective journals, an issue that gave rise to sharp dispute between them. The obvious value of the 'Matzpen' label as a marker of radical left-wing politics was behind that decision. Most of the original leadership remained in what became known as Matzpen Tel Aviv, while the other faction became known as Matzpen Jerusalem. That latter group adopted
7956-514: 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;
8073-440: The different factions of Matzpen lost much of their raison d'etre. The space for overall left-wing organizations, with comprehensive political agendas, shrank with the growing focus on the occupation and its consequences. Many activists sought new organizational forms in order to enhance their ability to make an effective contribution to the political struggle, without carrying cumbersome ideological and organizational baggage. Much of
8190-423: 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
8307-513: 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
8424-532: 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
8541-678: The energy of the Revolutionary Communist League, for example, went into creating and maintaining the Alternative Information Center, which effectively depleted the League of its own organizational capacity. As a result, most of the Matzpen factions ceased to have a distinct organizational existence by the late 1980s, if not before that. Many of their former members though, continue to participate as dedicated individuals in various activities against
8658-711: 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
8775-406: 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
8892-640: The international policies of the Soviet Union . They offered a more radical analysis of and opposition to Zionism . An early analysis of the Arab–Israeli conflict , written before they left the Communist Party, by Moshe Machover and Akiva Orr (using a pseudonym, N. Israeli), appeared in Hebrew in 1961 under the title of Shalom, Shalom ve'ein Shalom (שלום, שלום, ואין שלום; Peace, Peace When There
9009-462: 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
9126-465: 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
9243-471: 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
9360-520: The late 1960s and early 1970s, supporters of Matzpen abroad published Israca (Israeli Revolutionary Action Committee Abroad). The magazine included many articles published in Matzpen . Some of Matzpen was censored and that material was republished in Israca . Moshé Machover , Eli Lobel , Haim Hanegbi , and Akiva Orr were all part of the editorial board. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, supporters of
9477-485: The most equitable and progressive, can convince the Arabs unless it is accompanied by action on the part of those who adhere to it." With the rise of new, vibrant and less ideologically rigid protest movements in the 1980s, in opposition to the continued occupation and to the war in Lebanon (Committee for Solidarity with Birzeit University , committees against torture and house demolitions , Yesh Gvul , Alternative Information Center , Workers Advice Center, and so on),
9594-472: The multi-national socialist Middle East they talk of, and in their political activity they restrict their talk to the Jewish state of Israel. That is to say they are preoccupied with convincing the Jews, and completely disregard the Arab struggle, and in particular the Palestinian Arab struggle against Zionism and the state of Israel." A change of focus was needed to convert the national conflict into
9711-597: The name Matzpen Marxist, to distinguish itself from its rivals. In 1975 it changed its name to Revolutionary Communist League, section of the Fourth International , while retaining the title Matzpen Marxist for its regular publication. The Tel Aviv group also changed its name subsequently (in 1978) to the Socialist Organization in Israel and dropped the adjective 'Israeli' in order to avoid possible association with Zionism. Both groups retained
9828-486: The nascent organisation. It published a magazine of the same name in Hebrew and Arabic. The organisation grew in the period after the 1967 Six-Day War and Israel's occupation of Palestinian and Arab territories. In a statement titled "Down with the Occupation", from 1 January 1969, Matzpen distinguished itself – together with the Communist Party (Rakah) – as the only forces conducting "a consistent struggle against
9945-727: 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
10062-532: The occupation and for workers and human rights. In 1995 former members of Derech ha-Nitzotz established the Da'am Workers Party , which remains active to this day. A documentary about the group, entitled "Matzpen", was made by Eran Torbiner in 2003. Another documentary about Avangard was produced in 2009 by Tom Carmi (son of two former leaders of the group) and presented at the Tel Aviv Docaviv festival . It
10179-545: The organisation and other radical left academics and activists formed another journal in the UK, Khamsin , in which they published their analyses of current events. A selection of material from Khamsin was published under the title Forbidden Agenda: Intolerance and Defiance in the Middle East (Saqi Books, 2000). In 1970 the organisation started going through a process of ideological and organisational fragmentation, with some members leaving to form new groups, such as Avangard with
10296-467: The organization on a footing of equality with me, in establishing a new government and a new regime which will allow both the Jewish people and the Arab people to play an effective part in the struggle of the Arab people for liberation". Turki went on to criticise Zionism, which "instead of adopting, as it should, a neutral attitude, or one of support for the Arab struggle for national and socialist liberation, it has stood beside this movement's enemies, beside
10413-582: The original Matzpen dual focus on class and national liberation. Machover, Orr and Haim Hanegbi remained with the Tel Aviv based group, while the Jerusalem-based group was led by Arieh Bober and Michel Warschawski (Mikado). A youth movement known as Hafarperet (mole) was affiliated with the latter group, and was active in the mid-1970s, mostly in Haifa. One of the organizations to emerge from Matzpen,
10530-430: The people itself and it would be hypocritical for strangers - especially if they belong to the oppressing nation – to preach to it, saying, 'Thus shalt thou do, and thus shalt thou not do.'" It added, that despite its recognition of "the unconditional right of the conquered to resist occupation", as an organization it could support politically "only such organizations which, in addition to resisting occupation, also recognize
10647-457: The persecuted Jews of the world. This outpost, so the story goes, though earnestly seeking peace with its neighbors finds itself in a state of perpetual siege because of the greed of Arab rulers, the inherent "unreasonableness" of the Oriental mind and the innate Gentile proclivity toward hatred of the Jews. "The reality, this book demonstrates, is utterly different. The Zionist state was born in
10764-534: 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
10881-591: 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
10998-570: 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
11115-598: The process of struggle against Zionism, imperialism and Arab reaction. To advance these aims, Matzpen established links with New Left organisations in Europe and other parts of the world, and also with progressive Palestinian organisations, such as the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine . Many of the original analyses and statements of the organisation were included in a published collection under
11232-429: The region, primarily Palestinian ones. Statements before the trial, submitted by the leading defendants – Daud Turki and Ehud Adiv – allow us to get a clear idea of their perspective. Turki, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, defined their goal as socialism: "the common goal of all workers, peasants and those who are persecuted in Israeli society. The Jews have a share, and they must have a share, because they are members of
11349-674: 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
11466-497: The right of the Israeli people for self-determination" in order to enable "a joint struggle of Arabs and Jews in the region for a common future." In this context, Matzpen's aim was to create a broad front of people opposed to the occupation and in favour of a de-Zionized Israel, which would form part of a socialist federation of the entire Middle East. In contrast to the Communist Party and the Zionist Left, Matzpen insisted that
11583-493: 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
11700-474: 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
11817-422: The sting of racist discrimination, as economic inequality increases and social conditions deteriorate. Far from offering a haven to the persecuted Jews of the world, the Zionist state is leading new immigrants and old settlers alike toward a new holocaust by mobilizing them in a colonial enterprise and a counterrevolutionary army against the struggle of the Arab masses for national liberation and social emancipation –
11934-470: 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
12051-447: The territories occupied since 1967, the Zionist state employs a system of direct military repression to expel Palestinian Arabs from their lands and secure Jewish colonization of them, and to crush every expression of Palestinian resistance. Within its own borders, the Zionist state engages in systematic national oppression of its minority of Arab citizens. The dark-skinned majority of the privileged Jewish community itself increasingly feels
12168-505: The title The Other Israel: The Radical Case Against Zionism , edited by Arie Bober (Doubleday, 1972). Bober's book provided an overview of the positions held by Matzpen at the time on a range of issues, and thus is an essential resource on the organisation's analysis of Israeli society and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the introduction to the book he says: "This book is the result of five years' collective effort by
12285-580: 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
12402-544: The violent expropriation and expulsion from their country of the Palestinian Arabs, and that process continues today. In open alliance with Western, especially United States, imperialism, and in scarcely hidden collusion with the most reactionary forces in the Arab world, the Zionist state actively sets itself against every step, no matter how faltering, taken by the Arab masses to alleviate the centuries' old misery imposed on them by colonialism and imperialism. Within
12519-505: 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
12636-595: 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
12753-421: 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
12870-406: Was carried out against the Roman Empire by the Jews of Judaea . Aramaic and, to a lesser extent, Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among societal elites and immigrants. Hebrew survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy , rabbinic literature , intra-Jewish commerce, and Jewish poetic literature . The first dated book printed in Hebrew
12987-491: 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
13104-566: 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
13221-629: 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
13338-531: 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
13455-551: 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
13572-408: 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
13689-570: 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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