Language in Time of Revolution

by Benjamin Harshav

This book on culture and consciousness in history concerns the worldwide transformations of Jewish culture and society and the revival of the ancient Hebrew language following the waves of pogroms in Russia in 1881, when large numbers of Jews in Eastern and Central Europe redefined their identity as Jews in a new and baffling world. Reviews "With his customary versatility and lucidity Harshav has given us . . . a host of new and provocative insights into modern Jewish history. . . . This book is an outstanding attempt to juxtapose the revolution in Jewish life with that of the Hebrew language in such a way that each informs our understanding of the other." ―Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Columbia University "It is no small component of Harshav's success in this altogether fascinating book to have made clear the family resemblance between what is still regularly called 'the almost miraculous revival of the Hebrew language' and the coterie movements of European high modernism in both politics and the arts." ― Modernism/Modernity "A wise, original, and stimulating book on the shaping of modern Jewish culture. . . . Humane, deeply erudite, and very satisfying." ―Steven Zipperstein, Stanford University "Israeli Hebrew, Angel Sáenz-Badillos has written, 'is not the result of natural evolution but of a process without parallel in the development of any other language.' The precise nature of the process is studied in illuminating detail in Language in Time of Revolution ." ― London Review of Books "The crisscrossing among the discourses of literature, ideology, history, and linguistics makes for a heady intellectual experience. . . . Harshav writes with great authority and verve. . . . His discussions are a model of clarity." ―Alan Mintz, Brandeis University

Genres: Language, Linguistics, Judaica

250 pages, Paperback

First published July 7, 1993

Reviews

[Charlene Mathe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our generation has witnessed the miracle of Israel--the return of the people to the Land, raising the flag of their own sovereign state, and speaking the revived national language of Hebrew. In this 220-page book, the brilliant scholar Benjamin Harshav provides human dimension to this great miracle as it played out in the lives of the New Yishuv. It is the story of how a common Hebrew language emerged in the children that grew up in the Hebrew schools, and the contending social and linguistic traditions that were part of the transformation. Harshav makes a great contribution through his account and analysis of this period. I strongly recommend his book for anyone interested in the history of modern Israel and the emergence of modern Hebrew.

[Ushan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part of this book is an essay about Jews and modernism, which has nothing that Slezkine's later book does not also have. The second part is an essay about the origin of spoken Israeli Hebrew. Hebrew began to be spoken in Ottoman Palestine by members of the Second Aliyah, revolutionaries who wanted to reject their Diaspora Jewish heritage and make themselves into New Hebrews, in the late 1900s through the 1910s. Their children picked it up and made it into their native language, like the children of Caribbean slaves who picked up the broken language their parents spoke with the overseers and made it into creoles. Prior to that and concurrently with it, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda coined many neologisms and started writing a dictionary, several novelists such as Mendele the Book Peddler (who was also the grandfather of Yiddish literature) started writing novels in it, also adapting the language for the purpose, and Hebrew schools were established in Palestine. The language slowly made it into the public sphere in Tel Aviv, and was recognized by the British Mandate authorities as one of the official languages of Palestine. The end result was a language with mostly Semitic vocabulary and morphology, its phonology the lowest common denominator between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Hebrew, Semitic "micro-syntax" but European "macro-syntax"; this is similar to what other languages have gone through in the process of modernization.