Eliezer Ben Yehuda

"Who is your hero?" . A hero is someone who actively makes or has made the world a better place. It can be done by either improving or adding to its components (e.g. women's rights, or the invention of electric lights), or by preventing it from becoming worse (for example, decreasing or ending global warming). The true image of heroes is composed out of 2 emotions: the first being gratitude for his help, and the second being admiration of him or his work. Heroes can be found anywhere and at anytime as anyone who helps others and is creating a positive effect with his actions may be called a hero. Furthermore, heroes may help any amount of people ranging from 1 to the whole world. After giving the question of who my hero is a great deal of thought, I have decided that my hero is Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the man who brought the Jewish people together with language.

Eliezer Ben Yehuda (http://www.zionism-israel.com/bio/E_Ben_Yehuda_biography.htm)

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda was born on January 7th, 1858 in Luzhki which today is Belarus. He began to study the bible at the age of 3 while his family began to develop hopes that he would become a rabbi, and even more so after the death of his father when he was 5. However, upon graduating high-school, Eliezer decided to become a doctor and in 1878, he went to Paris where he studied medicine, Jewish history, and philosophy at the Sorbonne University. In 1881, after getting ill with a lung disease called tuberculosis, Eliezer married his fiancee Devora and immigrated to Israel. They lived in Jerusalem - then ruled by the Ottoman Empire. At the time, Jewish people spoke different languages according to where they had come from and only to people who came from the same origin, and thus a society could not be formed properly. Eliezer began his activity in reviving the Hebrew language: He created his own newspaper written in Hebrew, and wrote articles for others as well. He invented modern Hebrew vocabulary words and created a dictionary in the Hebrew language. In addition, he publicly encouraged both the use of Hebrew in daily life and the idea of a Jewish state in Israel. Meanwhile, Devora passed away from the tuberculosis she caught from Eliezer. Next, 3 out of the 5 children Devora left behind her died. Later on, Eliezer married Devora's younger sister Paula who changed her name to Hemda. Hemda herself became a journalist as well and helped Eliezer with his work. In December 1922, Eliezer Ben Yehuda died from the tuberculosis he had. He was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem with 30 thousand people attending his funeral.

During his life, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda wrote full dictionaries of the Hebrew language and many newspapers in Hebrew for both children and adults. He created a broad variety of words, made Hebrew a daily used language and even made it one of the official languages of Palestine alongside Arabic and English. Eliezer also participated in the establishment of the committee of the Hebrew language which still exists to this day as the "Academy of the Hebrew Language", and he published numerous articles calling Jewish people to come to the Holy State of Israel. As a result of Eliezer's ideology, he and his family were shunned by very religious Jews who thought that the holy language - Hebrew - must never be used for day to day life. Their hatred of him was so intense that they convinced the authorities at the time to arrest him for trying to cause a rebellion and they put him in prison for a year. Ultimately, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda revived the Hebrew language and gave the Jewish people a way to connect, communicate and eventually create a safe state in which they could live, prosper and protect themselves, in spite of the difficulties which included the contempt of the society, his family loss and his disease . He did so through the magic of language which he recreated. Before Ben-Yehuda, we were random people scattered around the world, now we're a bonded nation - we cannot be together if we cannot speak, but now that we can, we cannot be separated. This we owe to Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, and for that I shall forever call him - my hero.

Eliezer's newspaper - Hatzvi

To sum up, my great hero is Eliezer Ben-Yehuda who revived the Hebrew language and provided us the capability to be a group of Jewish people on a common ground. I chose Eliezer Ben-Yehuda as my hero because he is the hero who gave me not one, but two of the most important and valuable gifts I can think of: life, and the tool we all use the most - language and communication. In addition to my gratefulness, I admire Eliezer for what he accomplished despite all his hardships. The combination of the deep gratitude and glorification is what makes Eliezer Ben-Yehuda - the great hero who revived the Hebrew language and people, and the greatest hero of mine.