Itamar Ben-Avi (; []; 31 July 1882 – 8 April 1943) was the first native speaker of modern Hebrew, Hebrew in modern times. He was a journalist and Zionism, Zionist activist.
Biography
![Itamar Ben-Avi](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Itamar_Ben-Avi.jpg)
Itamar Ben-Avi was born as Ben-Zion Ben-Yehuda in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
on 31 July 1882, the son of Devora () and
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda
Eliezer Ben‑Yehuda ( he, אֱלִיעֶזֶר בֵּן־יְהוּדָה}; ; born Eliezer Yitzhak Perlman, 7 January 1858 – 16 December 1922) was a Russian–Jewish linguist, grammarian, and journalist, renowned as the lexicographer of ...
.
[First Boy to Be Raised Speaking Modern Hebrew Dies]
/ref> Eliezer is credited with reviving the Hebrew language
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
; Itamar was brought up to be the first native speaker of Hebrew in the modern era. At his father's insistence, Itamar was not permitted to hear any language other than Hebrew at home. When he was very young, Itamar always wanted someone to play with, but his parents did not want him to speak with the other children who spoke different languages. He made friends with a dog which he called ''Ma'her'' (), meaning "fast" in Hebrew. His three siblings died in a diphtheria
Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild clinical course, but in some outbreaks more than 10% of those diagnosed with the disease may die. Signs and s ...
epidemic and his mother died of tuberculosis in 1891. He and his family were ostracized from the ultra-orthodox
Haredi Judaism ( he, ', ; also spelled ''Charedi'' in English; plural ''Haredim'' or ''Charedim'') consists of groups within Orthodox Judaism that are characterized by their strict adherence to ''halakha'' (Jewish law) and traditions, in oppos ...
community, due to their usage of Hebrew as a day-to-day language. The religious community saw this as sacrilege
Sacrilege is the violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object, site or person. This can take the form of irreverence to sacred persons, places, and things. When the sacrilegious offence is verbal, it is called blasphemy, and when physica ...
because they viewed it as the language of the Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...
and prayers, and not for use in "idle chatter."
After his mother's death in 1891, his father married her younger sister, the writer Hemda Ben-Yehuda
Hemda Ben‑Yehuda () (April 7, 1873 – August 25, 1951) was a Jewish journalist and author, and the second wife of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda.
Biography Early years; name changes
Hemdah Ben‑Yehuda was born Beila Jonas in Drissa (Verkhnyadzvinsk) ...
(née Beila Jonas), so Itamar's aunt became his stepmother. After his mother's death, he changed his name to Itamar, as that was the name his parents originally intended to give him (named after the priest Ithamar
In the Torah, Ithamar () was the fourth (and the youngest) son of Aaron the High Priest."Ithamar", '' Encyclopaedia Biblica'' Following the construction of the Tabernacle, he was responsible for recording an inventory to ensure that the constructed ...
). The name ''Itamar'' means "Island of Date
Date or dates may refer to:
*Date (fruit), the fruit of the date palm (''Phoenix dactylifera'')
Social activity
*Dating, a form of courtship involving social activity, with the aim of assessing a potential partner
** Group dating
*Play date, a ...
s" and derives from the Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
word ''tamar'' (, date
Date or dates may refer to:
*Date (fruit), the fruit of the date palm (''Phoenix dactylifera'')
Social activity
*Dating, a form of courtship involving social activity, with the aim of assessing a potential partner
** Group dating
*Play date, a ...
or palm tree), which is a symbol of Zionism. As his last name, he used Ben-Avi. ''Avi'' () is an acronym
An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
(as indicated by the use of the character ) for Eliezer Ben Yehuda (as written in Hebrew) and also means "my father", so Ben-Avi means "my father's son".
At the age of 19, Ben-Avi sailed to Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and studied at universities in Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
and Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
. He returned to Palestine in 1908 as a journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...
, joining his father in editing and writing Hebrew newspapers.[
Ben-Avi married Leah Abushedid (1889–1982), born in Jerusalem to a wealthy Moroccan-Jewish family. Ben-Avi met her when he was 23 and she was 16. Due to his poor financial situation, his ]Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
background, and their age difference, Abushedid's parents did not approve of their marriage. Hoping to convince her parents, he published poems proclaiming his love for her in ''HaOr
A ( bn, হাওর) is a wetland ecosystem in the north eastern part of Bangladesh which physically is a bowl or saucer shaped shallow depression, also known as a backswamp.MK Alam; ''Wave attack in Haor areas of Bangladesh and cement conc ...
''. After three years, when he published a poem about suicide, they relented and permitted the marriage. After two years of negotiating the marriage contract, the couple married in 1914.[ They had three daughters: Dror-Eilat (1917–1921), Drora (1922–1981), and Rina (1925–2016).] Drora and Rina became radio news broadcasters.
In 1919, he founded a Hebrew daily newspaper called ''Doar HaYom'' (The Daily Mail), and ran it until 1929. In addition, he was a Zionist activist and officer with Bnei Binyamin and the Jewish National Fund
Jewish National Fund ( he, קֶרֶן קַיֶּימֶת לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, ''Keren Kayemet LeYisrael'', previously , ''Ha Fund HaLeumi'') was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Syria (later Mandatory Palestine, and subseq ...
.[ He served as a Jewish National Fund emissary to various countries. Together with ]Oved Ben-Ami
Oved Ben-Ami (July 23, 1905 – October 17, 1988; Hebrew: עובד בן עמי) was an Israeli politician and businessman. He was one of the founders of the cities of Netanya and Ashdod and was a longtime mayor of Netanya. He was also among the ke ...
, he helped raise the funds for the founding of Netanya
Netanya (also known as Natanya, he, נְתַנְיָה) is a city in the Northern Central District of Israel, and is the capital of the surrounding Sharon plain. It is north of Tel Aviv, and south of Haifa, between Poleg stream and Wingate I ...
.
In 1939, as his financial situation deteriorated and in need of a steady income, Ben-Avi left his family for the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
to take up a posting as the Jewish National Fund representative in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.[ He died there in 1943 at the age of 60, five years before the establishment of ]Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
. His body was brought back to Palestine for burial in 1947, and was buried on the Mount of Olives
The Mount of Olives or Mount Olivet ( he, הַר הַזֵּיתִים, Har ha-Zeitim; ar, جبل الزيتون, Jabal az-Zaytūn; both lit. 'Mount of Olives'; in Arabic also , , 'the Mountain') is a mountain ridge east of and adjacent to Jeru ...
in Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
.
Journalism and literary career
He was the chief editor and journalist of '' Doar HaYom'', the then Hebrew style-twin of the British ''Daily Mail
The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...
'', from 1920 to 1933. In his numerous opinion and commentary articles in ''Doar HaYom'' he also advocated the widespread use of the International language Esperanto
Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communi ...
.
Ben-Avi was an advocate for the Romanization of Hebrew
The Hebrew language uses the Hebrew alphabet with optional vowel diacritics. The romanization of Hebrew is the use of the Latin alphabet to transliterate Hebrew words.
For example, the Hebrew name spelled ("Israel") in the Hebrew alphabet ca ...
. He favored the Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...
, a full alphabet with vowel letters, rather than the traditional Hebrew alphabet
The Hebrew alphabet ( he, wikt:אלפבית, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew languag ...
, a consonantal orthography of Hebrew (with limited matres lectionis) using "squared Assyrian letters". The Hebrew writing system dates back to the time of Ezra
Ezra (; he, עֶזְרָא, '; fl. 480–440 BCE), also called Ezra the Scribe (, ') and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra, was a Jewish scribe ('' sofer'') and priest (''kohen''). In Greco-Latin Ezra is called Esdras ( grc-gre, Ἔσδρα ...
the scribe, 500 BCE.
He wrote a Hebrew biography of his father. This biography was titled ''Avi'' ("My Father") and was printed in his own made-up version of a Hebrew alphabet using Latin letters and some variations thereof. He pioneered and was chief editor of two short lived Hebrew weeklies in reformed Latin script. The first was ''Hashavua Hapalestini'' (The Palestinian Week, 1928) and the second was ''Dror'' (Liberty, 1934).
References
External links
* The personal papers of Ben-Avi are kept at the
Central Zionist Archives
in Jerusalem. The notation of the record group is A43.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ben-Avi, Itamar
1882 births
1943 deaths
Zionist activists
Hebrew language
Members of the Assembly of Representatives (Mandatory Palestine)
Burials at the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives
Mandatory Palestine people of Belarusian-Jewish descent
Ashkenazi Jews in Ottoman Palestine
Ashkenazi Jews in Mandatory Palestine
Esperanto speaking Jews
Hebrew-language poets
Modern Hebrew writers
Modern Hebrew