ISRAEL: The revival of Hebrew (and decline of Yiddish)

A quick overview of the revival of Hebrew and the establishment of it as the language of Israel. Hebrew is the only successful example of a revival of a dead language. It went from a language that only had written, liturgical use and no native speakers to thousands of native speakers and official national usage. However, the rise of Hebrew led was paired with a rejection of another important Jewish language, Yiddish. Yiddish has been characterized in Israel as the language of the Jewish Diaspora, while Israel has pushed hard instead to make Hebrew the language of Zionism and the lingua franca of all the waves of immigrants that have come to Israel over the last half-century.

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