1970s–1980s: Center-right to right-wing
121-504: The National Religious Party ( Hebrew : מִפְלָגָה דָּתִית לְאֻומִּית , Miflaga Datit Leumit ), commonly known in Israel by its Hebrew acronym Mafdal ( מפד"ל ), was a political party in Israel representing the religious Zionist movement. Formed in 1956, at the time of its dissolution in 2008, it was the second-oldest surviving party in the country after Agudat Yisrael , and
242-685: 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
363-469: A bridge between the different parts of Israeli society. Religious and secular, Sephardim and Askenazim, right and left, old-timers and new immigrants - we are all one people. The NRP works toward national unity, absorption of immigration, and bringing people together from all sectors of the population. Without hatred and coercion. Gently, pleasantly, and with a smile. They called this principle Ahavat Israel (אהבת ישראל, "Love of Israel"). The party
484-595: 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
605-661: 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
726-579: 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
847-592: A divine scheme that would result in a resettling of the Jewish people in its homeland, Israel, and, ultimately, the coming of the Messiah . The National Religious Party (NRP) was created by the merger of two parties - Mizrachi and Hapoel HaMizrachi - in 1956. The two parties had run for the 1955 election on a joint list under the name of the National Religious Front . Even after the formation of
968-594: 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
1089-468: 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
1210-536: 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
1331-595: A minority coalition of 56 Knesset members out of 120. On 14 February 2005, Eitam was suspended from the party chairmanship by the NRP's internal court, after he left the government against the center decision. Angered at the suspension, Eitam and Itzhak Levi announced that they had officially split from the NRP to form a new party, the Renewed Religious National Zionist Party (now renamed Ahi , on 23 February. The new party became part of
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#17327650223541452-523: A newspaper ( HaTzofe ), and a youth movement ( Bnei Akiva ). Only the youth movement still exists today. The seeds of change were sown in 1967, when Israel's victory in the Six-Day War spawned messianic trends among religious Israeli Jews that resulted in many members of the NRP moving further right. After Israel gained control of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, Haim Moshe Shapira , the leader of
1573-548: 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
1694-615: 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
1815-472: 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
1936-558: 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
2057-578: A wife and four children. He was buried in the Mount of Olives Jewish Cemetery . The "MishkeNot Zebulon" neighborhood in eastern Netanya is named after him as well as a neighborhood in the Ma'ale Michamsh settlement Several streets are named after him in Israel - in the neighborhood where he lives in Bnei Brak ("Zevulon Hamer Boulevard"), Givat Shmuel , Gedera , Petah Tikva and Kiryat Motzkin . In 2013,
2178-518: 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
2299-644: 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
2420-514: 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
2541-556: Is no advantage whatsoever to current Knesset members." On 18 November, NRP members voted to disband the party to join the new right-wing party created by a merger of the NRP and most of the National Union factions. Defunct Defunct The NRP was a Zionist party and stated that Israel was a "Jewish democratic state". The party's stated main goals were to contribute as much as it could to the state of Israel, and to influence its character to be more Jewish, as well as fighting for
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#17327650223542662-525: 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. Zevulun Hammer Zevulun Hammer ( Hebrew : זבולון המר , 31 May 1936 – 20 January 1998)
2783-584: Is sometimes referred to as the Historic League (הברית ההיסטורית). The NRP was a member of the 2003 government led by Ariel Sharon , and had two ministers in the cabinet. Effi Eitam was the Minister of Housing, and Zevulun Orlev was the Minister of Labor and Welfare. Yitzhak Levy was a deputy minister responsible for the Ministry of Religious Affairs until it was dismantled. The party helped form
2904-573: 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
3025-457: 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
3146-464: Is typically five years. The NRP actively promotes Torah in Israel and strengthens national religious institutions: Zionist rabbinical training institutes, Zionist Kollels, Yeshivot gevohot, Hesder Yeshivot, Yeshiva high schools, and more. The NRP encourages Zionist rabbis to take on active roles as teachers in Yeshivot, and as spiritual leaders in cities and neighborhoods. The party believes that
3267-547: 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
3388-650: 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
3509-727: 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
3630-547: 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,
3751-572: 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
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3872-495: 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
3993-458: The Law of Return can only be accepted if their conversions were conducted according to strict Orthodox standards. This was a controversial position, as some secular claim that it would undermine Israel's connections with worldwide, and especially American, Jews. (See Who is a Jew? for more information.) Regarding conversions to Judaism performed within Israel, the NRP found itself on the same side of
4114-682: 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
4235-598: The National Union , an alliance of Moledet and Tkuma - itself a former right-wing faction of the NRP. At the time, the National Union also included the Russian-secular Yisrael Beiteinu party, though they chose to run alone in the 2006 elections . Due to their weakening, the NRP eventually decided to run on a joint list with the National Union for the 2006 election, which included Eitam and Levy on its list. The joint list went under
4356-590: The Palestinian Authority and the deportation of the PLO back to Tunisia . The party believed that Israel could stop Palestinian violence through the use of military force. The NRP used mostly religious discourse to justify these positions. They stressed that the West Bank were parts of the ancient kingdom of Israel and kingdom of Judah , and hence, rightfully belong to modern Israel. Furthermore,
4477-536: 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
4598-411: The cabinet After the 1977 elections he was appointed Minister of Education , a role he retained until September 1984. For a brief period during the 10th Knesset , Hammer and Yehuda Ben-Meir broke away from the NRP and formed a new faction, Gesher – Zionist Religious Centre ; however, they returned to the NRP after two weeks. In October 1986 he became Minister of Religious Affairs , and in 1990
4719-462: 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
4840-620: 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
4961-543: 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
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5082-607: 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
5203-555: 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,
5324-611: 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
5445-604: 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
5566-766: 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,
5687-687: 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
5808-526: 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
5929-432: 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
6050-602: 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
6171-454: 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
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#17327650223546292-640: The Jewish character of Israel; in one example, the party displayed little, if any, resistance or dismay, against former Internal Minister Avraham Poraz 's decision not to enforce the prohibition of selling bread during Passover (when eating bread is a prohibition of Chametz according to Orthodox Judaism). NRP supporters were mainly Zionists, who are Orthodox Jews, in some ways Modern Orthodox . Hebrew language Hebrew ( Hebrew alphabet : עִבְרִית , ʿĪvrīt , pronounced [ ʔivˈʁit ] or [ ʕivˈrit ] ; Samaritan script : ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ ʿÎbrit )
6413-477: The Middle East was the closely related Aramaic language, then Greek , scholarly opinions on the exact dating of that shift have changed very much. In the first half of the 20th century, most scholars followed Abraham Geiger and Gustaf Dalman in thinking that Aramaic became a spoken language in the land of Israel as early as the beginning of Israel's Hellenistic period in the 4th century BCE, and that as
6534-491: The NRP and member of the Israel cabinet, believed that Israel should aggressively pursue peace talks with Arab states and supported immediate negotiations with Jordan over the status of holy sites in Jerusalem. However, the party became internally divided around the annexation of the occupied territories. Some factions favored withdrawing from the occupied territories in the event of a peace agreement, while others argued that it
6655-497: The NRP as a single party, its lists used the National Religious Front name up to the 1992 election , with the NRP's own name only debuting on the ballot in 1988. The founders of the party were Yosef Burg and Haim-Moshe Shapira (both from Hapoel HaMizrachi), who focused their activity mainly on the status of Judaism within the framework of Israeli society. Throughout the NRP's existence, it attempted to preserve
6776-521: The NRP did not promote the notion of Medinat Halacha ( Halachic state ), a theocracy run according to Jewish law . This idea was promoted by Meir Kahane . The party wanted to retain Israel's democratic chaos while improving the Israeli people. It aspired to encourage Jews to become better by acting as role models and teaching Judaism to other Israelis by example. The NRP demands that most Haredi men complete three years of mandatory military service. The NRP emphasised national unity, and vowed to work as
6897-404: The NRP. Both were prominent members of the party, with Hammer serving as Minister of Education, Culture and Sport and Ben-Meir being Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs . The faction took the Gesher part of its name from the youth faction within the NRP. The faction did not last long, as the two returned to the NRP on 12 June. Ben-Meir later left the NRP again to be one of the founding members of
7018-400: The Student Union and was a member of the Presidium of the Israeli Students Association and the World Union of Jewish Students . Hammer was first elected to the Knesset in 1969 as a member of the National Religious Party . He became Deputy Minister of Education and Culture in January 1973. In November 1975 he was appointed Minister of Welfare, but in December 1976 his party resigned from
7139-449: 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
7260-406: 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
7381-492: The Zionist movement combining a belief in the importance of establishing a Jewish state in the Land of Israel following a religious way of life, in contrast to both secular Zionism and Haredi Orthodox movements. The spiritual and ideological founder of the Religious Zionist movement was Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook , who urged young religious Jews to settle in Israel and called upon the secular Labor Zionists to pay more attention to Judaism . Rabbi Kook saw Zionism as part of
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#17327650223547502-422: 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
7623-411: 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
7744-524: The authority of Israel's rabbis (or other religious clerics for non-Jews). The NRP claimed that the Jewish state shows respect for the Jewish religion by observing the Sabbath and serving Kosher food in its institutions and organizations (as it applies to the IDF , public transportation, the Israeli police , and governmental companies.) The party, along with the other Orthodox political parties in Israel, wanted entrenchment into Israeli law so that converts to Judaism who wish to immigrate to Israel under
7865-455: 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
7986-428: 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,
8107-541: 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
8228-410: 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
8349-472: The debate as the secular, and opposed to the views of the Haredi parties, particularly Shas. The party advocated that the Israeli Chief Rabbinate must act to ease the procedures for anyone who wants to convert, following the Neeman Committee (ועדת נאמן) recommendations. It also called for the restoration of the nationality (לאום "Leom") clause on the Israeli identification card. Both issues are connected to public debates about Russian immigrants who are within
8470-514: 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;
8591-423: 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
8712-513: 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
8833-532: 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
8954-711: 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
9075-406: 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
9196-497: The inside. The party's Knesset faction split into two: On 13 September 2004, the party's "center" (a forum of all party members with voting rights) voted on a choice between Effi Eitam's proposal of immediately resigning from the government and Zevulon Orlev's proposal to leave the government only when it approved an actual removal of settlements. Eitam and Orlev agreed that the center's decision would be binding. The center supported Orlev's proposal by 65%–35%. The proposal stated that
9317-662: The land of Israel is holy and belongs to the Jews based on God's promise to Abraham , and later to Isaac and Jacob . They believe it is God's will to settle all the land of Israel and nurture it. This principle has great impact on NRP policy toward the West Bank and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict . The NRP's policy was that Israel ought to retain its special Jewish character and retain a vague commitment to Judaism. The party argued that affairs of personal status, (such as marriage , divorces , and burial ), should be kept under
9438-462: 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
9559-465: 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
9680-471: 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
9801-474: The left-wing religious party Meimad , whilst Hammer went on to become leader of the NRP. The party was unique in that it participated in all the governments of Israel until 1992. During this period, it was a centrist party, interested mainly in religious matters and impervious to the left–right divisions of the Israeli public. The long-time cooperation between the Israeli Labor Party and the NRP
9922-727: 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
10043-455: The number of such students rose sharply leading to allegations that many were not really students. In the 2000s, the NRP explicitly stated that participation in the Israeli army was a Mitzvah and a moral obligation, and stressed that its "finest youth... serve in the elite commando and combat units in the IDF". The NRP's views on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict can be summarized as: However,
10164-536: The party did agree to giving the Palestinian Arabs self-governing autonomy, subject to Israel's authority only in matters of security and foreign affairs (such as in borders and diplomacy), without the dismantling of the Jewish settlements. The NRP reacted to the Second Intifada by demanding a harsh military response by Israel to "root out the terror infrastructure". It also called for disbanding
10285-411: The party slump to just three seats, the worst electoral performance in its history. In November 2008, party members voted to disband the party in order to join the new Jewish Home party created by a merger of the NRP and most of the National Union factions. However, most of the National Union left the merger shortly after its implementation. The Religious Zionist movement is an Orthodox faction within
10406-509: The party viewed the Jewish settlements as an upholding of the mitzvah of settling the land of Israel. Many of its supporters and parliament members were settlers. The NRP did not adhere to an economic ideology (such as Marxism or Capitalism ). However, the party believed that Israeli society and the state of Israel should support the poor and the needy, derived from the 613 mitzvot of the Torah . The party's most notable figure in this respect
10527-448: The party would resign from the government. It was decided that the NRP would resign from the government if: On 9 November 2004, after Ariel Sharon declined the NRP's demand to hold a national referendum regarding the disengagement, Zevulun Orlev and the party resigned from the coalition and the government, vowing to pursue general elections in an effort to replace Sharon with a right-wing prime minister. After their resignation, Sharon had
10648-511: The party would stay in the government on condition that the government would hold a general referendum (משאל עם, Meshal Am ) regarding the removal of the Israeli settlements , which would require a special majority, before the issue could be brought to a decision in the Knesset. If such a referendum would not be held, or if the government would approve a de facto removal of Israeli settlements,
10769-472: The party's stubbornness about keeping the settlements was an "obstacle to peace", while right-wing critics said the NRP did not pressure the Israeli government enough to use more military force against Palestinian terrorism . Critics from religious parties such as Shas and Agudat Israel scorned the NRP for having been in the governing coalition with an ultra-secular party like Shinui (which was often described as "anti-religious"), and for not doing enough to keep
10890-534: 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
11011-467: The political moderation of many Orthodox Jews; its turn towards the right-wing; the growing importance of the right-left schism in Israeli politics; and the rise of Orthodox Sephardic parties such as Tami and later Shas . The Gesher – Zionist Religious Centre ( Hebrew : גשר – מרכז ציוני דתי , Gesher – Merkaz Tzioni Dati ) faction was formed on 29 May 1984, during the 10th Knesset , when two MKs, Yehuda Ben-Meir and Zevulun Hammer , broke away from
11132-591: 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
11253-493: The previous government's coalition, together with the Likud , Shinui , and the National Union , which was based on the following principles: The party subsequently left the government and went into opposition. Sharon's disengagement plan caused great controversy within the party. Sharon dismissed two cabinet ministers from the National Union to achieve a majority for approving the plan in his government. The NRP declared that it
11374-570: 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
11495-555: The protection of Israel and maintaining Israel's security. The core belief "the Land of Israel for the People of Israel according to the Torah of Israel" commits the NRP to doing everything possible to further the security and integrity of the Land of Israel. The NRP aspires to influence policy from "within the government", and thus continue to safeguard Eretz Israel. Unlike the Kach party,
11616-414: The relevance of Judaism on issues such as Israeli personal status laws, education, culture, and municipal issues such as prohibitions on the selling of non- Kosher food (in prescribed areas, and occasionally, throughout a given municipality), and prohibiting transportation and public activities on Shabbat . The NRP operated a trade union (under the same name as the old workers' party, Hapoel HaMizrachi),
11737-674: 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
11858-404: The rubric not being Jews according to Jewish law. The issue of conscripting yeshiva students was a sensitive issue in the party's rhetoric. Historically, the NRP initiated the regulations allowing yeshiva students to avoid military service, and supported that position over a long time. This came into conflict with the party's ideology and its supporters as the party moved towards the center, and as
11979-493: 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
12100-474: 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
12221-470: 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
12342-471: The title of National Union – NRP (Hebrew: האיחוד הלאומי-מפדל, HaIhud HaLeumi – Mafdal ) and won nine seats, of which the NRP were awarded three. On 3 November 2008, the party announced a merger with the National Union, Tkuma, and Moledet to form a new right-wing party, later named The Jewish Home . Zevulun Orlev said it would be "unity by the Zionist religious camp. Anyone can submit his candidacy. There
12463-580: 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
12584-505: 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
12705-595: 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
12826-414: Was Zevulun Orlev, (who served as Minister of Labor and Social Welfare). However, this issue was not high on the party's agenda or rhetoric. Some critics of the NRP said that it was too focused on the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and that they neglected other issues such as education, social responsibility, and Ahavat Israel ("Love of Israel" i. e., of other Jews). Left-wing critics insisted that
12947-421: 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
13068-588: Was a religious obligation to annex the territories. Around 1969, a new generation arose in the NRP, led by Zevulun Hammer and Yehuda Ben-Meir , called "the youth", demanding that the party pay more attention to socio-economic issues in addition to its concerns about Judaism and the modern state. From its inception, the NRP maintained an almost constant number of 12 members of the Israeli Knesset . In 1981, it shrank to 6 members. The reasons were diverse: an overall reduction in its natural voting population;
13189-710: Was an Israeli politician, minister and Deputy Prime Minister . Hammer was born in Haifa during the Mandate era . He was an active member of the Bnei Akiva youth movement (which he led), and served in the Israeli Armored Corps in a Nahal programme. He graduated from Bar-Ilan University with a BA in Judaism and Bible, as well as a teaching certificate and worked as a teacher. At the university, he headed
13310-406: 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
13431-491: 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
13552-406: Was part of every government coalition until 1992. Originally a pragmatic centrist party in its first two decades of existence, it gradually leaned rightward in the following years, particularly becoming increasingly associated with Israeli settlers . Towards the end of its existence, it became part of a far-right political alliance centered around the National Union . The 2006 elections saw
13673-566: 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
13794-410: Was re-appointed Education Minister. He lost his place in the cabinet after the NRP were left out of Yitzhak Rabin 's government, but regained it following the 1996 elections , when he was appointed Education Minister and Deputy Prime Minister . In August 1997 he was also appointed Minister of Religious Affairs. At age 61, Hammer was diagnosed with cancer and died in office on 20 January 1998, leaving
13915-577: Was resisting the plan and any removal of Jews living in Gush Katif (in the Gaza Strip). The party, together with the Likud right-wing, failed to stop the disengagement plan. Eventually, Effi Eitam and Yitzhak Levi resigned from the government. However, the four other Knesset Members of the NRP supported Orlev's stand that the party should remain in the coalition and thwart the disengagement plan from
14036-629: 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
14157-531: 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
14278-551: 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
14399-673: Was the patron of most of the national religious schools (חינוך ממלכתי-דתי), which teach both Judaism and general mandatory educational subjects such as mathematics , English, literature, physics , biology , etc. It sponsored some pre-military schools that provide higher education to future IDF officers and commanders. Besides funding and patronizing national religious schools, it also supported Yeshiva schools and Beit Midrash schools, places dedicated solely to Torah study . They also ran Yeshivot Hesder , an idea developed by Rav Yehuda Amital in which religious soldiers combine combat military service with learning Torah . The Hesder program
14520-408: 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
14641-570: 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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