Introduction Elizer Ben-Yehudah ( )was one of the most famous Jews in modern history. Before him, Hebrew was only spoken in the Torah. However, Ben-Yehuda would change that. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda is famous because he invented the modern Hebrew language. He was also one of the earliest Zionist supporters.

Childhood Eliezer Ben-Yehudah was born in the Lithuanian village of Luzhky on January 7, 1858 as Eliezer Perelman. By the age of three, he was already studying Torah. When he was five, his father died leaving his mother with five children to take care of. Seven years later, Ben- Yehudah’s uncle sent him to a Yeshiva. A few years later he was sent to study in Glubokoye. Once there, he met Samuel Naftaili Hertz Jonas. Later, Samuel’s daughter Debora, would become Ben-Yehuda’s first wife. Eight years later he left the school and went to Paris to study medicine.

Moving to Jerusalem After three years of studying medicine in Paris, Ben-Yehuda moved to Jerusalem in 1881 with his wife Deborah. Their son, Ben Zion, was the first child in modern times to be raised with Hebrew as his native language. Eliezer required his family to speak only Hebrew. When Ben-Yehuda moved to Jerusalem he started working on a Hebrew periodical and at the same time worked at a Jerusalem Alliance School.

Revising an ancient language In 1885, four years after Ben-Yehuda moved to Jerusalem, he started revising Hebrew, an ancient language. By the time he died in 1922, Ben-Yehuda had revised the whole Hebrew language. Ben- Yehuda also created words for things like bagels and buses.

The state of Israel is born! 26 years after Eliezer Ben-Yehuda died, the state of Israel was created and Hebrew became its official language. Each new word that Ben- Yehuda had created became part of the Hebrew language.

Interesting facts Debora Ben-Yehuda died in Ben-Yehuda married her younger sister who quickly learned Hebrew and became his biggest supporter for the research of Hebrew words that the renewed language needed. In 1904, Ben-Yehuda founded the Hebrew Language Academy. He worked 18 hours a day on his famous six volume Hebrew dictionary that was published in He died in His wife Hemda, and son Ehud, continued to publish his work until all 17 volumes had been published by This was a successful one-man campaign to make Hebrew the spoken language of the Jewish people.