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115-544: The Adass Israel School sex abuse scandal ( Hebrew : פרשת מלכה לייפר , lit.   'the Malka Leifer scandal/affair') is a criminal case and extradition dispute regarding incidents of child sex abuse at a Jewish religious school in Melbourne , Australia. A former principal, Malka Leifer, faced trial on 70 sex offence charges laid by Victoria Police , with accusations from at least eight alleged victims. Leifer,

230-807: A dual Israeli-Australian citizen, fled under suspicious circumstances shortly before a warrant could be issued, and remained in Israeli-controlled territory from 2008 until January 2021, under varying levels of police and court supervision, pending the resolution of her extradition case. Leifer's trial did not address other alleged sex crimes in Israel and the West Bank because they did not occur in Australia. The degree of freedom she enjoyed under Israeli jurisdiction prompted worldwide media coverage and criticism of Israel's judicial system ; activist Manny Waks described

345-674: A Hebrew form. Medieval Hebrew added 6421 words to (Modern) Hebrew. The approximate number of new lexical items in Israeli is 17,000 (cf. 14,762 in Even-Shoshan 1970 [...]). With the inclusion of foreign and technical terms [...], the total number of Israeli words, including words of biblical, rabbinic and medieval descent, is more than 60,000. In Israel, Modern Hebrew is currently taught in institutions called Ulpanim (singular: Ulpan). There are government-owned, as well as private, Ulpanim offering online courses and face-to-face programs. Modern Hebrew

460-583: A century ago, was fluent enough in this idiom to be able to follow the Mishna Berurah without any trouble." Hebrew has been revived several times as a literary language, most significantly by the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement of early and mid-19th-century Germany. In the early 19th century, a form of spoken Hebrew had emerged in the markets of Jerusalem between Jews of different linguistic backgrounds to communicate for commercial purposes. This Hebrew dialect

575-649: A corollary Hebrew ceased to function as a spoken language around the same time. Moshe Zvi Segal , Joseph Klausner and Ben Yehuda are notable exceptions to this view. During the latter half of the 20th century, accumulating archaeological evidence and especially linguistic analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls has disproven that view. The Dead Sea Scrolls, uncovered in 1946–1948 near Qumran revealed ancient Jewish texts overwhelmingly in Hebrew, not Aramaic. The Qumran scrolls indicate that Hebrew texts were readily understandable to

690-562: A distinct style of philosophical Hebrew. This is used in the translations made by the Ibn Tibbon family. (Original Jewish philosophical works were usually written in Arabic. ) Another important influence was Maimonides , who developed a simple style based on Mishnaic Hebrew for use in his law code, the Mishneh Torah . Subsequent rabbinic literature is written in a blend between this style and

805-541: A first language until after 200 CE and as the liturgical language of Judaism (since the Second Temple period ) and Samaritanism . The language was revived as a spoken language in the 19th century, and is the only successful large-scale example of linguistic revival . It is the only Canaanite language, as well as one of only two Northwest Semitic languages, with the other being Aramaic , still spoken today. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date back to

920-454: A former Adass Israel counselor regarding emails from 2011, describing two of the accusers as motivated by financial gain. Leifer was nevertheless ordered to stand trial on 70 charges, including multiple counts each of rape , indecent assault, committing an indecent act with a child, and sexual penetration of a child. The trial, before a jury, began on 7 February 2023, and was planned to last five weeks, before Judge Mark Gamble. The judge imposed

1035-604: A gag order on the trial, restricting the media from reporting some of the details of the case. On 22 March 2023, both the prosecution and the defense finalized their cases in front of the court and the jury was sent to deliberate the case. On 3 April 2023, Leifer was found guilty of the rape and indecent assault of Dassi Erlich and Elly Sapper but not guilty of abusing Nicole Meyer. One of Leifer's accusers, Dassi Erlich, revealed her allegations publicly in March 2017 and began campaigning for Leifer's extradition from Israel and for changes in

1150-579: A gradually accepted movement. It was not, however, until the 1904–1914 Second Aliyah that Hebrew had caught real momentum in Ottoman Palestine with the more highly organized enterprises set forth by the new group of immigrants. When the British Mandate of Palestine recognized Hebrew as one of the country's three official languages (English, Arabic, and Hebrew, in 1922), its new formal status contributed to its diffusion. A constructed modern language with

1265-463: A literary language down through the Byzantine period from the 4th century CE. The exact roles of Aramaic and Hebrew remain hotly debated. A trilingual scenario has been proposed for the land of Israel. Hebrew functioned as the local mother tongue with powerful ties to Israel's history, origins and golden age and as the language of Israel's religion; Aramaic functioned as the international language with

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1380-599: A minor fine. Hebrew language Hebrew ( Hebrew alphabet : עִבְרִית ‎, ʿĪvrīt , pronounced [ ʔivˈʁit ] or [ ʕivˈrit ] ; Samaritan script : ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ ‎ ʿÎbrit ) is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family . A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages , it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as

1495-722: A modern version of the ancient language was led by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda . Modern Hebrew ( Ivrit ) became the main language of the Yishuv in Palestine , and subsequently the official language of the State of Israel . Estimates of worldwide usage include five million speakers in 1998, and over nine million people in 2013. After Israel, the United States has the largest Hebrew-speaking population, with approximately 220,000 fluent speakers (see Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans ). Modern Hebrew

1610-412: A normal life, even though her defense team claimed that she was incapacitated due to her mental illness. Her legal team claimed that the arrest and the reopening of the case had been spurred by political pressure from Australia, and were not a legal matter. A new psychological assessment showed her fit to stand trial in Australia, but her extradition was temporarily delayed, to allow her legal team to review

1725-535: A set of dialects evolving out of Late Biblical Hebrew and into Mishnaic Hebrew, thus including elements from both but remaining distinct from either. By the start of the Byzantine Period in the 4th century CE, Classical Hebrew ceased as a regularly spoken language, roughly a century after the publication of the Mishnah, apparently declining since the aftermath of the catastrophic Bar Kokhba revolt around 135 CE. In

1840-652: A spoken language, it continued to be used as a lingua franca among scholars and Jews traveling in foreign countries. After the 2nd century CE when the Roman Empire exiled most of the Jewish population of Jerusalem following the Bar Kokhba revolt , they adapted to the societies in which they found themselves, yet letters, contracts, commerce, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry and laws continued to be written mostly in Hebrew, which adapted by borrowing and inventing terms. After

1955-471: A text message to the editor of the Australian Jewish News , accusing the father of being "a lunatic on the fringe, guilty of neglecting his own children". The father's evidence had been that his family had been targeted and ostracised by religious leaders when he had gone public with his allegations. The Victorian minister of education said he understood the concern and asked for an explanation from

2070-468: A truly Semitic vocabulary and written appearance, although often European in phonology , was to take its place among the current languages of the nations. While many saw his work as fanciful or even blasphemous (because Hebrew was the holy language of the Torah and therefore some thought that it should not be used to discuss everyday matters), many soon understood the need for a common language amongst Jews of

2185-549: A vernacular in Judea until it was displaced by Aramaic, probably in the 3rd century CE. Certain Sadducee , Pharisee , Scribe , Hermit, Zealot and Priest classes maintained an insistence on Hebrew, and all Jews maintained their identity with Hebrew songs and simple quotations from Hebrew texts. While there is no doubt that at a certain point, Hebrew was displaced as the everyday spoken language of most Jews, and that its chief successor in

2300-413: Is " ultra-Orthodox ". Children are raised without television, Internet access, or radio, but have access to Jewish newspapers and magazines that cover worldly matters. After the age of eight, boys and girls are kept entirely separate outside family homes, and the stories they are told never involve friendships between boys and girls. There is no sex education in schools of the community, but before marriage

2415-511: Is 8198, of which some 2000 are hapax legomena (the number of Biblical Hebrew roots, on which many of these words are based, is 2099). The number of attested Rabbinic Hebrew words is less than 20,000, of which (i) 7879 are Rabbinic par excellence, i.e. they did not appear in the Old Testament (the number of new Rabbinic Hebrew roots is 805); (ii) around 6000 are a subset of Biblical Hebrew; and (iii) several thousand are Aramaic words which can have

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2530-642: Is a neighborhood in southeastern Bnei Brak that serves as the world center of the Nadvorna Chassidus and the quarters of some of its Hasidim. The Nadvorna Chassidic Center is the official name of the Beit Midrash and the central synagogue and the institutions of Nadvorna Chassidut in Kiryat Nadvorna in Bnei Brak. One of the largest synagogues in Bnei Brak. The Beit Midrash is visible from many places in

2645-477: Is believed to be based on the Semitic root ʕ-b-r ( ע־ב־ר ‎), meaning "beyond", "other side", "across"; interpretations of the term "Hebrew" generally render its meaning as roughly "from the other side [of the river/desert]"—i.e., an exonym for the inhabitants of the land of Israel and Judah , perhaps from the perspective of Mesopotamia , Phoenicia or Transjordan (with the river referred to being perhaps

2760-578: Is derived from Old French Ebrau , via Latin from the Ancient Greek Ἑβραῖος ( hebraîos ) and Aramaic 'ibrāy , all ultimately derived from Biblical Hebrew Ivri ( עברי ), one of several names for the Israelite ( Jewish and Samaritan ) people ( Hebrews ). It is traditionally understood to be an adjective based on the name of Abraham 's ancestor, Eber , mentioned in Genesis 10:21 . The name

2875-830: Is eligible for parole in June 2029. In 2015, the Supreme Court of Victoria awarded a judgement of over AU$ 1 million against the school, as well as $ 150,000 of exemplary damages personally against Leifer. A further investigation, into the actions of some members of the Adass Israel community for helping Leifer leave Australia, continued after the Supreme Court judgement. Israeli police investigated and indicted former Minister of Health Yaakov Litzman , following an investigation into official interference with Leifer's extradition case. Litzman eventually pleaded guilty to breach of trust in

2990-514: Is fighting to stop businesses from using only English signs to market their services. In 2012, a Knesset bill for the preservation of the Hebrew language was proposed, which includes the stipulation that all signage in Israel must first and foremost be in Hebrew, as with all speeches by Israeli officials abroad. The bill's author, MK Akram Hasson , stated that the bill was proposed as a response to Hebrew "losing its prestige" and children incorporating more English words into their vocabulary. Hebrew

3105-411: Is no text on this object. In July 2008, Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa that he claimed may be the earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating from around 3,000 years ago. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said that the inscription was "proto-Canaanite" but cautioned that "[t]he differentiation between the scripts, and between

3220-605: Is one of several languages for which the constitution of South Africa calls to be respected in their use for religious purposes. Also, Hebrew is an official national minority language in Poland , since 6 January 2005. Hamas has made Hebrew a compulsory language taught in schools in the Gaza Strip. Nadvorna (Hasidic dynasty) The most famous rebbe of the dynasty was Mordechai Leifer of Nadvorna (the son of Rabbi Yissachar Dov Ber (Bertche) Leifer of Nadvorna), whose writings form

3335-728: Is the official language of the State of Israel, while pre-revival forms of Hebrew are used for prayer or study in Jewish and Samaritan communities around the world today; the latter group utilizes the Samaritan dialect as their liturgical tongue. As a non- first language , it is studied mostly by non-Israeli Jews and students in Israel, by archaeologists and linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilizations , and by theologians in Christian seminaries . The modern English word "Hebrew"

3450-826: Is the famous Moabite Stone , written in the Moabite dialect; the Siloam inscription , found near Jerusalem , is an early example of Hebrew. Less ancient samples of Archaic Hebrew include the ostraca found near Lachish , which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BCE. In its widest sense, Biblical Hebrew refers to the spoken language of ancient Israel flourishing between c.  1000 BCE and c.  400 CE . It comprises several evolving and overlapping dialects. The phases of Classical Hebrew are often named after important literary works associated with them. Sometimes

3565-405: Is the primary official language of the State of Israel. As of 2013 , there are about 9 million Hebrew speakers worldwide, of whom 7 million speak it fluently. Currently, 90% of Israeli Jews are proficient in Hebrew, and 70% are highly proficient. Some 60% of Israeli Arabs are also proficient in Hebrew, and 30% report having a higher proficiency in Hebrew than in Arabic. In total, about 53% of

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3680-442: Is unique in that they typically wear a white gartel over a colorful bekishe , and a white crocheted Jerusalem -style kippah under their shtreimel . Rebbes are known as " Admorim " (Hebrew אדמו"ר, which is the acronym for "אדוננו מורינו ורבינו", " Adoneinu Moreinu V'Rabeinu ", "Our master, our teacher, and our rabbi"). Grand Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov , founder of Hasidism Descendants of Rabbi Meir Kiryat Nadvorna

3795-536: Is used to pronounce the Hebrew Bible; however, properly it should be distinguished from the historical Biblical Hebrew of the 6th century BCE, whose original pronunciation must be reconstructed. Tiberian Hebrew incorporates the scholarship of the Masoretes (from masoret meaning "tradition"), who added vowel points and grammar points to the Hebrew letters to preserve much earlier features of Hebrew, for use in chanting

3910-630: The Chayei Adam in Hebrew, as opposed to Yiddish , as a guide to Halacha for the " average 17-year-old" (Ibid. Introduction 1). Similarly, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan 's purpose in writing the Mishnah Berurah was to "produce a work that could be studied daily so that Jews might know the proper procedures to follow minute by minute". The work was nevertheless written in Talmudic Hebrew and Aramaic, since, "the ordinary Jew [of Eastern Europe] of

4025-629: The COVID-19 pandemic . In January 2021, after more than 13 years as a fugitive, Leifer was extradited to Australia; she appeared before a Melbourne judge via video link in April 2021, her first appearance in Australian court. On 3 April 2023 Leifer was found guilty of 18 charges, including rape and child sexual abuse. Leifer was sentenced in August 2023 to 15 years' prison for sexually abusing two students in her care and

4140-503: The Euphrates , Jordan or Litani ; or maybe the northern Arabian Desert between Babylonia and Canaan ). Compare the word Habiru or cognate Assyrian ebru , of identical meaning. One of the earliest references to the language's name as " Ivrit " is found in the prologue to the Book of Sirach , from the 2nd century BCE. The Hebrew Bible does not use the term "Hebrew" in reference to

4255-557: The Gospel of Matthew . (See the Hebrew Gospel hypothesis or Language of Jesus for more details on Hebrew and Aramaic in the gospels.) The term "Mishnaic Hebrew" generally refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud , excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible. The dialects organize into Mishnaic Hebrew (also called Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew I), which

4370-655: The Maccabean Revolt (167–160 BCE) and the emergence of the Hasmonean kingdom , the Great Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE), and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE). The nationalist significance of Hebrew manifested in various ways throughout this period. Michael Owen Wise notes that "Beginning with the time of the Hasmonean revolt [...] Hebrew came to the fore in an expression akin to modern nationalism. A form of classical Hebrew

4485-521: The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet . Hebrew ceased to be a regular spoken language sometime between 200 and 400 CE, as it declined in the aftermath of the unsuccessful Bar Kokhba revolt , which was carried out against the Roman Empire by the Jews of Judaea . Aramaic and, to a lesser extent, Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among societal elites and immigrants. Hebrew survived into

4600-525: The Second Aliyah , it replaced a score of languages spoken by Jews at that time. Those languages were Jewish dialects of local languages, including Judaeo-Spanish (also called "Judezmo" and "Ladino"), Yiddish , Judeo-Arabic and Bukhori (Tajiki), or local languages spoken in the Jewish diaspora such as Russian , Persian and Arabic . The major result of the literary work of the Hebrew intellectuals along

4715-455: The literary and liturgical language into everyday spoken language . However, his brand of Hebrew followed norms that had been replaced in Eastern Europe by different grammar and style, in the writings of people like Ahad Ha'am and others. His organizational efforts and involvement with the establishment of schools and the writing of textbooks pushed the vernacularization activity into

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4830-456: The medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy , rabbinic literature , intra-Jewish commerce, and Jewish poetic literature . The first dated book printed in Hebrew was published by Abraham Garton in Reggio ( Calabria , Italy) in 1475. With the rise of Zionism in the 19th century, the Hebrew language experienced a full-scale revival as a spoken and literary language. The creation of

4945-619: The 10th century BCE. Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew , with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, during the time of the Babylonian captivity . For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Lashon Hakodesh ( לְשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶש , lit.   ' the holy tongue ' or ' the tongue [of] holiness ' ) since ancient times. The language

5060-547: The 1980s in the USSR , Hebrew studies reappeared due to people struggling for permission to go to Israel ( refuseniks ). Several of the teachers were imprisoned, e.g. Yosef Begun , Ephraim Kholmyansky , Yevgeny Korostyshevsky and others responsible for a Hebrew learning network connecting many cities of the USSR. Standard Hebrew, as developed by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, was based on Mishnaic spelling and Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation. However,

5175-601: The 19th century was a lexical modernization of Hebrew. New words and expressions were adapted as neologisms from the large corpus of Hebrew writings since the Hebrew Bible, or borrowed from Arabic (mainly by Ben-Yehuda) and older Aramaic and Latin. Many new words were either borrowed from or coined after European languages, especially English, Russian, German, and French. Modern Hebrew became an official language in British-ruled Palestine in 1921 (along with English and Arabic), and then in 1948 became an official language of

5290-517: The Adass Israel community. Before revealing her name, she had sued the school in a civil case. In September 2015, after the school had refused to settle out of court, the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne awarded Erlich A$ 1.27 million in damages from the Adass Israel School and the alleged perpetrator. As part of her evidence, Erlich described the extreme sexual naivety of the children in

5405-746: The Aramaized Rabbinic Hebrew of the Talmud. Hebrew persevered through the ages as the main language for written purposes by all Jewish communities around the world for a large range of uses—not only liturgy, but also poetry, philosophy, science and medicine, commerce, daily correspondence and contracts. There have been many deviations from this generalization such as Bar Kokhba 's letters to his lieutenants, which were mostly in Aramaic, and Maimonides' writings, which were mostly in Arabic; but overall, Hebrew did not cease to be used for such purposes. For example,

5520-668: The British Mandate who at the turn of the 20th century were arriving in large numbers from diverse countries and speaking different languages. A Committee of the Hebrew Language was established. After the establishment of Israel, it became the Academy of the Hebrew Language . The results of Ben-Yehuda's lexicographical work were published in a dictionary ( The Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew , Ben-Yehuda Dictionary ). The seeds of Ben-Yehuda's work fell on fertile ground, and by

5635-516: The Great conquered Babylon, he allowed the Jewish people to return from captivity. In time, a local version of Aramaic came to be spoken in Israel alongside Hebrew. By the beginning of the Common Era , Aramaic was the primary colloquial language of Samarian , Babylonian and Galileean Jews, and western and intellectual Jews spoke Greek , but a form of so-called Rabbinic Hebrew continued to be used as

5750-588: The Hebrew Bible. The Masoretes inherited a biblical text whose letters were considered too sacred to be altered, so their markings were in the form of pointing in and around the letters. The Syriac alphabet , precursor to the Arabic alphabet , also developed vowel pointing systems around this time. The Aleppo Codex , a Hebrew Bible with the Masoretic pointing, was written in the 10th century, likely in Tiberias, and survives into

5865-454: The Israeli population speaks Hebrew as a native language, while most of the rest speak it fluently. In 2013 Hebrew was the native language of 49% of Israelis over the age of 20, with Russian , Arabic , French , English , Yiddish and Ladino being the native tongues of most of the rest. Some 26% of immigrants from the former Soviet Union and 12% of Arabs reported speaking Hebrew poorly or not at all. Steps have been taken to keep Hebrew

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5980-444: The Khust Hasidic, Grand Rabbi Baruch Pinchas Leifer, was arrested, in January 2022, and charged with historical sexual abuse of a minor to whom he is related, and a then 18-year-old male; he denies the charges, which are before Jerusalem Magistrate Courts . As a result of an investigation by Victoria Police, a warrant was issued against Leifer in 2014 for 74 child sex offences concerning at least eight pupils, and an extradition request

6095-417: The Middle East was the closely related Aramaic language, then Greek , scholarly opinions on the exact dating of that shift have changed very much. In the first half of the 20th century, most scholars followed Abraham Geiger and Gustaf Dalman in thinking that Aramaic became a spoken language in the land of Israel as early as the beginning of Israel's Hellenistic period in the 4th century BCE, and that as

6210-421: The Minister of Justice, the senior prosecutor in the department of international affairs and members of the Knesset . The following month Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull met his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu , and raised the matter of the delayed extradition with him. Two premiers of Victoria supported the efforts to extradite Leifer. Ted Baillieu supported the family, and helped set up

6325-449: The Talmud, the Gemara , generally comments on the Mishnah and Baraitot in two forms of Aramaic. Nevertheless, Hebrew survived as a liturgical and literary language in the form of later Amoraic Hebrew, which occasionally appears in the text of the Gemara, particularly in the Jerusalem Talmud and the classical aggadah midrashes . Hebrew was always regarded as the language of Israel's religion, history and national pride, and after it faded as

6440-406: The Talmud, various regional literary dialects of Medieval Hebrew evolved. The most important is Tiberian Hebrew or Masoretic Hebrew, a local dialect of Tiberias in Galilee that became the standard for vocalizing the Hebrew Bible and thus still influences all other regional dialects of Hebrew. This Tiberian Hebrew from the 7th to 10th century CE is sometimes called "Biblical Hebrew" because it

6555-422: The ability to speak the language and attempted to promote its use. According to the Jerusalem Talmud , Megillah 1:9: "Rebbi Jonathan from Bet Guvrrin said, four languages are appropriate that the world should use them, and they are these: The Foreign Language (Greek) for song, Latin for war, Syriac for elegies, Hebrew for speech. Some are saying, also Assyrian (Hebrew script) for writing." The later section of

6670-411: The above phases of spoken Classical Hebrew are simplified into "Biblical Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 10th century BCE to 2nd century BCE and extant in certain Dead Sea Scrolls) and "Mishnaic Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE and extant in certain other Dead Sea Scrolls). However, today most Hebrew linguists classify Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew as

6785-498: The abuse monstrous. The evidence discloses the sole motivation of the suspect in her dealings with the plaintiff was her own sexual gratification." He described the breach of trust as evil, and ordered the perpetrator to personally pay $ 150,000 exemplary damages to Erlich. Justice Rush said that, at the time Leifer had fled Australia for Israel, the president of the school board knew of eight additional allegations of sexual abuse of other girls. The school had had an obligation to report

6900-427: The allegations to the police prior to arranging her departure. He rejected the school's argument that it had been a "legal obligation" to pay her air fares. The school argued that it was not liable because it was the congregation, not the school, that was the employer, but the judge also rejected this. Two of Erlich's sisters, Ellie Sapper and Nicole Meyer, who had also been abused, received out-of-court settlements from

7015-455: The average Jew, and that the language had evolved since Biblical times as spoken languages do. Recent scholarship recognizes that reports of Jews speaking in Aramaic indicate a multilingual society, not necessarily the primary language spoken. Alongside Aramaic, Hebrew co-existed within Israel as a spoken language. Most scholars now date the demise of Hebrew as a spoken language to the end of the Roman period , or about 200 CE. It continued on as

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7130-428: The beginning of the 20th century, Hebrew was well on its way to becoming the main language of the Jewish population of both Ottoman and British Palestine. At the time, members of the Old Yishuv and a very few Hasidic sects, most notably those under the auspices of Satmar , refused to speak Hebrew and spoke only Yiddish. In the Soviet Union, the use of Hebrew, along with other Jewish cultural and religious activities,

7245-409: The bride and groom attend educational classes to discuss sex and other topics about marriage. The rabbi of the community acts as the ultimate authority for members. In 2007, a woman in Israel, Dassi Erlich, sought counseling when she started to have recurrent nightmares and anxiety about events that had taken place at Adass Israel School when she was in high school. These incidents allegedly happened at

7360-434: The case as "a farce" and "an embarrassment". Leifer lived an apparently normal life for some time in the Israeli settlement of Emmanuel in the West Bank , despite a court ruling that she was mentally unfit for proceedings. She was eventually rearrested after media and police scrutiny of her behavior, but continued to evade extradition, with more than 70 court hearings and appeals requested by her legal team, and delays due to

7475-577: The case could potentially be delayed up to a decade. In June 2016 an Israeli court suspended Leifer's extradition hearings and home detention altogether, requiring only biennial psychiatric reviews to determine whether she was capable of attending court in Israel. In February 2018, Leifer was rearrested by Israeli police after an investigation into whether she had been systematically feigning mental illness to avoid extradition. The police investigation followed revelations by private investigators, who captured over 200 hours of video of Leifer, showing her leading

7590-474: The case in early 2022. The Adass Israel Congregation is a Jewish group in Melbourne that traces its origins to a split in the Elwood Shule in the early 1940s; some of its early members were boys and men who had been sent to Australia by the British on the infamous Dunera in 1941. The community's synagogue is in Ripponlea , and its school and chevra kadisha (Jewish funeral society) are located in nearby East St Kilda and Elsternwick . The community

7705-415: The city in whose proximity it was found) is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that, through the Greeks and Etruscans , later became the Latin alphabet of ancient Rome . The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels , and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places in which later Hebrew spelling requires them. Numerous older tablets have been found in

7820-439: The city. The Rebbe's house was built next to the Beit Midrash building. The synagogue is located between the Admor of Nadvorna, Chiddushei HaRim and Chazon Ish streets. Zutshka is a Hasidic court from the house of Nadvorna. The first Rebbe was Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Rosenbaum. Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Rosenbaum (18 January 1896 - July 20, 2000) was the Admor of Zutshka. Rabbi Natan David Rosenbaum (May 15, 1945 - February 2, 2019). He

7935-426: The community, and how that was used against her, even being unaware of the most basic elements of relationships and any sexual activity. This continued through high school and after, when Erlich was given a job at the school, where the abuse continued. The judge, Jack Rush, said "that the sexual abuse occurred under the guise of Jewish education by the headmistress of the school makes the breach of trust associated with

8050-541: The composition of 1 Maccabees in archaizing Hebrew, Hasmonean coinage under John Hyrcanus (134-104 BCE), and coins from both the Great Revolt and Bar Kokhba Revolt featuring exclusively Hebrew and Palaeo-Hebrew script inscriptions. This deliberate use of Hebrew and Paleo-Hebrew script in official contexts, despite limited literacy, served as a symbol of Jewish nationalism and political independence. The Christian New Testament contains some Semitic place names and quotes. The language of such Semitic glosses (and in general

8165-519: The corpus of the group's Hasidic thought. He was raised by his great-uncle, Rebbe Meir II of Premishlan . Yissachar Dov Ber (Bertche) Leifer of Nadvorna was a son of Rabbi Yitzchak of Kalish. Since many of the rebbes of the Nadvorna Dynasty (as in other rabbinic dynasties) married relatives, many of the rebbes in this list are sons-in-law of other rebbes on the list. There are Nadvorna congregations in Israel , Brooklyn , London , and Bloomingburg , among others. The mode of dress of Nadvorna rebbes

8280-563: The dialects of Classical Hebrew that functioned as a living language in the land of Israel. A transitional form of the language occurs in the other works of Tannaitic literature dating from the century beginning with the completion of the Mishnah. These include the halachic Midrashim ( Sifra , Sifre , Mekhilta etc.) and the expanded collection of Mishnah-related material known as the Tosefta . The Talmud contains excerpts from these works, as well as further Tannaitic material not attested elsewhere;

8395-513: The earliest speakers of Modern Hebrew had Yiddish as their native language and often introduced calques from Yiddish and phono-semantic matchings of international words. Despite using Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation as its primary basis, modern Israeli Hebrew has adapted to Ashkenazi Hebrew phonology in some respects, mainly the following: The vocabulary of Israeli Hebrew is much larger than that of earlier periods. According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann : The number of attested Biblical Hebrew words

8510-518: The early 6th century BCE, the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered the ancient Kingdom of Judah , destroying much of Jerusalem and exiling its population far to the east in Babylon . During the Babylonian captivity , many Israelites learned Aramaic, the closely related Semitic language of their captors. Thus, for a significant period, the Jewish elite became influenced by Aramaic. After Cyrus

8625-469: The extradition of Leifer was a bi-partisan issue, with Mark Dreyfus confirming in 2018 that Labor would continue to press for her to face justice in Australia. Members of Australia's Jewish community also called for the extradition. Israeli victim advocates and assault survivors rallied outside the Jerusalem District Court in March 2019, calling for Leifer to be deported. In February 2019, it

8740-436: The finding of what he claims to be the oldest known Hebrew inscription, a curse tablet found at Mount Ebal , dated from around 3200 years ago. The presence of the Hebrew name of god , Yahweh, as three letters, Yod-Heh-Vav (YHV), according to the author and his team meant that the tablet is Hebrew and not Canaanite. However, practically all professional archeologists and epigraphers apart from Stripling's team claim that there

8855-703: The first Middle East printing press, in Safed (modern Israel), produced a small number of books in Hebrew in 1577, which were then sold to the nearby Jewish world. This meant not only that well-educated Jews in all parts of the world could correspond in a mutually intelligible language, and that books and legal documents published or written in any part of the world could be read by Jews in all other parts, but that an educated Jew could travel and converse with Jews in distant places, just as priests and other educated Christians could converse in Latin. For example, Rabbi Avraham Danzig wrote

8970-406: The generic term for these passages is Baraitot . The dialect of all these works is very similar to Mishnaic Hebrew. About a century after the publication of the Mishnah, Mishnaic Hebrew fell into disuse as a spoken language. By the third century CE, sages could no longer identify the Hebrew names of many plants mentioned in the Mishnah. Only a few sages, primarily in the southern regions, retained

9085-419: The hands of Leifer, the principal of the school. After an arranged marriage in 2006, Erlich had moved to Israel with her husband. In February 2008, Erlich's therapist in Israel contacted a psychologist in Melbourne, who, in turn, contacted a senior teacher she knew at the school. The information passed on is that there were substantial allegations of "inappropriate conduct" by Leifer. The teacher phoned Erlich, and

9200-574: The language of the Hebrew people; its later historiography, in the Book of Kings , refers to it as יְהוּדִית Yehudit " Judahite (language)". Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages . Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages. Hebrew was the spoken language in the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the period from about 1200 to 586 BCE. Epigraphic evidence from this period confirms

9315-458: The language spoken by Jews in scenes from the New Testament) is often referred to as "Hebrew" in the text, although this term is often re-interpreted as referring to Aramaic instead and is rendered accordingly in recent translations. Nonetheless, these glosses can be interpreted as Hebrew as well. It has been argued that Hebrew, rather than Aramaic or Koine Greek, lay behind the composition of

9430-464: The language. The revival of the Hebrew language as a mother tongue was initiated in the late 19th century by the efforts of Ben-Yehuda. He joined the Jewish national movement and in 1881 immigrated to Palestine , then a part of the Ottoman Empire . Motivated by the surrounding ideals of renovation and rejection of the diaspora " shtetl " lifestyle, Ben-Yehuda set out to develop tools for making

9545-494: The languages themselves in that period, remains unclear", and suggested that calling the text Hebrew might be going too far. The Gezer calendar also dates back to the 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic period , the traditional time of the reign of David and Solomon . Classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew , the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar (named after

9660-485: The meeting between Malcolm Turnbull and Erlich, Sapper and Meyer. Baillieu also accompanied the sisters to Israel to meet with officials there. Daniel Andrews also raised the case with Netanyahu, who said he would have a fresh look at the situation. David Southwick , representing the electorate of Caulfield , where the school is located, delivered a petition of 17,000 signatures in July 2017 to lawmakers in Israel. Federally,

9775-478: The new information. She was being kept in detention rather than house arrest. Rosenbaum Communications public relations firm owner Ronen Tzur led a strategic smear campaign to block Leifer's extradition. Once the smear campaign was uncovered by the Yedioth Ahronoth , Leifer cut ties with Tzur; her attorney, Yehuda Freid, described the campaign as "inappropriate". On 7 March 2018, the judge ruled that Leifer

9890-720: The newly declared State of Israel . Hebrew is the most widely spoken language in Israel today. In the Modern Period, from the 19th century onward, the literary Hebrew tradition revived as the spoken language of modern Israel, called variously Israeli Hebrew , Modern Israeli Hebrew , Modern Hebrew , New Hebrew , Israeli Standard Hebrew , Standard Hebrew and so on. Israeli Hebrew exhibits some features of Sephardic Hebrew from its local Jerusalemite tradition but adapts it with numerous neologisms, borrowed terms (often technical) from European languages and adopted terms (often colloquial) from Arabic. The literary and narrative use of Hebrew

10005-630: The present day. It is perhaps the most important Hebrew manuscript in existence. During the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain , important work was done by grammarians in explaining the grammar and vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew; much of this was based on the work of the grammarians of Classical Arabic . Important Hebrew grammarians were Judah ben David Hayyuj , Jonah ibn Janah , Abraham ibn Ezra and later (in Provence ), David Kimhi . A great deal of poetry

10120-562: The primary language of use, and to prevent large-scale incorporation of English words into the Hebrew vocabulary. The Academy of the Hebrew Language of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem currently invents about 2,000 new Hebrew words each year for modern words by finding an original Hebrew word that captures the meaning, as an alternative to incorporating more English words into Hebrew vocabulary. The Haifa municipality has banned officials from using English words in official documents, and

10235-451: The region was Old Aramaic . Hebrew was extinct as a colloquial language by late antiquity , but it continued to be used as a literary language, especially in Spain, as the language of commerce between Jews of different native languages, and as the liturgical language of Judaism, evolving various dialects of literary Medieval Hebrew , until its revival as a spoken language in the late 19th century. In May 2023, Scott Stripling published

10350-431: The region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example, Proto-Sinaitic . It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to Egyptian hieroglyphs , though the phonetic values are instead inspired by the acrophonic principle. The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called Canaanite , and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from that of Egyptian. One ancient document

10465-711: The rest of the Middle East; and eventually Greek functioned as another international language with the eastern areas of the Roman Empire. William Schniedewind argues that after waning in the Persian period, the religious importance of Hebrew grew in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and cites epigraphical evidence that Hebrew survived as a vernacular language – though both its grammar and its writing system had been substantially influenced by Aramaic. According to another summary, Greek

10580-614: The same night, without having informed the police. The police later investigated the school. Leifer's husband, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef (Jacob) Leifer, fled to Israel with her, where he now heads the small Chust Hassidic community in Immanuel where he and his wife had been living since 2016, and where she was arrested. In June 2018, Immanuel was cited as a "haven for paedophiles" by The Sydney Morning Herald , which exposed further alleged child sexual abuse there by Leifer, committed "without consequence." The father of Rabbi Leifer and former leader of

10695-587: The school, independent of Erlich's case. Erlich remained in the public eye, campaigning for the return of Leifer and for abuse survivors, including meeting with many community leaders and politicians. Her coming forward to secular authorities made her a traitor in the eyes of some in her community, which she subsequently left. Erlich and her siblings stated that they wanted to face Leifer personally in court, as opposed to over video conferencing; many victims in Israel and other countries would have to resort to video conferencing in order to testify. Meir Shlomo Kluwgant

10810-536: The school. The head of Adass Israel, Rabbi Zvi Beck asked for further consultation on the appointment. In August 2017, Kluwgant resigned from the school. In 2018, Kluwgant commenced an action for defamation against a spokesman for the victims at the school who, he claimed, had contacted the school when his pending appointment was announced, to say he was "the scum of the earth" and later to call for him to be dismissed. In October 2017, Erlich and two of her sisters went to Israel to campaign for Leifer's extradition, meeting

10925-485: The southern villages of Judea." In other words, "in terms of dialect geography, at the time of the tannaim Palestine could be divided into the Aramaic-speaking regions of Galilee and Samaria and a smaller area, Judaea, in which Rabbinic Hebrew was used among the descendants of returning exiles." In addition, it has been surmised that Koine Greek was the primary vehicle of communication in coastal cities and among

11040-468: The spoken language of the Russian Jews, should be treated as their only national language, while Hebrew was to be treated as a foreign language. Hebrew books and periodicals ceased to be published and were seized from the libraries, although liturgical texts were still published until the 1930s. Despite numerous protests, a policy of suppression of the teaching of Hebrew operated from the 1930s on. Later in

11155-580: The upper class of Jerusalem , while Aramaic was prevalent in the lower class of Jerusalem, but not in the surrounding countryside. After the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in the 2nd century CE, Judaeans were forced to disperse. Many relocated to Galilee, so most remaining native speakers of Hebrew at that last stage would have been found in the north. Many scholars have pointed out that Hebrew continued to be used alongside Aramaic during Second Temple times, not only for religious purposes but also for nationalistic reasons, especially during revolts such as

11270-413: The widely accepted view that the earlier layers of biblical literature reflect the language used in these kingdoms. Furthermore, the content of Hebrew inscriptions suggests that the written texts closely mirror the spoken language of that time. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a spoken vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile when the predominant international language in

11385-421: Was a spoken language , and Amoraic Hebrew (also called Late Rabbinic Hebrew or Mishnaic Hebrew II), which was a literary language . The earlier section of the Talmud is the Mishnah that was published around 200 CE, although many of the stories take place much earlier, and were written in the earlier Mishnaic dialect. The dialect is also found in certain Dead Sea Scrolls. Mishnaic Hebrew is considered to be one of

11500-515: Was acting "for the good of the public". It was revealed that Leifer had previously held a position at a school run by the ultra-Orthodox group Litzman is associated with. In April 2021, Israeli police recommended prosecution of Litzman for his actions to protect Leifer. In June 2022, Litzman resigned from the Knesset after he signed a plea agreement admitting breach of trust in January that year. He received

11615-523: Was appointed principal of Adass Israel school in June 2017. There was significant anger in the community with the appointment, because of Kluwgant's performance as a witness in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse . In February 2015, he stepped down from the numerous communal posts he held because of his response to the evidence of the father of a sexual abuse victim at another ultra-Orthodox school in Melbourne. He had sent

11730-413: Was convinced of the claims that there had been "clearly sexualised behaviour" by Leifer and that "important boundaries had been crossed". The teacher then confronted Leifer who denied that there was any problem and subsequently reported the matter to two senior rabbis and with other rabbis, a barrister and a psychologist. A meeting was arranged with the president and some members of the school board. Leifer

11845-492: Was fit to stand trial for extradition to Australia, and rejected the claim of mental illness that she had been asserting since extradition proceedings were initiated in 2014. Leifer was extradited to Australia on 25 January 2021. Leifer did not request bail in her first Australian court appearance and was thus remanded and remained jailed pending trial. Her legal team announced an intent to cross-examine accusers Dassi Erlich, Elly Saper and Nicole Meyer, and called testimony from

11960-472: Was not referred to by the name Hebrew in the Bible , but as Yehudit ( transl.  ' Judean ' ) or Səpaṯ Kəna'an ( transl.  "the language of Canaan " ). Mishnah Gittin 9:8 refers to the language as Ivrit , meaning Hebrew; however, Mishnah Megillah refers to the language as Ashurit , meaning Assyrian , which is derived from the name of the alphabet used , in contrast to Ivrit , meaning

12075-487: Was now a more significant written language than Aramaic within Judaea." This nationalist aspect was further emphasized during periods of conflict, as Hannah Cotton observing in her analysis of legal documents during the Jewish revolts against Rome that "Hebrew became the symbol of Jewish nationalism, of the independent Jewish State." The nationalist use of Hebrew is evidenced in several historical documents and artefacts, including

12190-476: Was ordered held in Israel's only women's prison until extradition proceedings were complete. The Jerusalem District Court then remanded Leifer and ordered a second round of psychiatric testing to see whether she was fit to stand trial for extradition. The court's medical committee ruled in July 2019 that the accused had faked mental illness in order to avoid extradition. In May 2020, the Israeli court held that Leifer

12305-502: Was placed with Israel. Leifer was arrested by Israeli police in August 2014, and placed under house arrest in Bnei Brak , where she was required to wear an electronic tag . At her various extradition hearings, Leifer claimed that she suffered extreme anxiety and panic attacks in the lead-up to the hearing; she received a delay. She subsequently deferred the hearings numerous times, claiming mental health issues, with one judge suggesting that

12420-399: Was revealed that Israel's deputy health minister, Yaakov Litzman , was questioned by police on the suspicion that he had been using his position to prevent Leifer's extradition. It was alleged that Litzman pressured doctors to falsify psychiatric evaluations that deemed Leifer unfit to stand trial, thereby preventing her extradition. Litzman claimed that everything he did was legal, and that he

12535-618: Was revived beginning with the Haskalah movement. The first secular periodical in Hebrew, Ha-Me'assef (The Gatherer), was published by maskilim in Königsberg (today's Kaliningrad ) from 1783 onwards. In the mid-19th century, publications of several Eastern European Hebrew-language newspapers (e.g. Hamagid , founded in Ełk in 1856) multiplied. Prominent poets were Hayim Nahman Bialik and Shaul Tchernichovsky ; there were also novels written in

12650-527: Was suppressed. Soviet authorities considered the use of Hebrew "reactionary" since it was associated with Zionism, and the teaching of Hebrew at primary and secondary schools was officially banned by the People's Commissariat for Education as early as 1919, as part of an overall agenda aiming to secularize education (the language itself did not cease to be studied at universities for historical and linguistic purposes ). The official ordinance stated that Yiddish, being

12765-433: Was telephoned at the meeting and denied the allegations, saying: "You have destroyed my reputation. I'm not going to stand for this." On the evening that the allegations came to light, in March 2008, the wife of a school board member rang a travel agent to say a flight to Israel was needed urgently. The school arranged, paid for, and booked tickets for Leifer and four of her eight children on an aircraft that departed at 1:20 am

12880-540: Was the language of government, Hebrew the language of prayer, study and religious texts, and Aramaic was the language of legal contracts and trade. There was also a geographic pattern: according to Bernard Spolsky , by the beginning of the Common Era, " Judeo-Aramaic was mainly used in Galilee in the north, Greek was concentrated in the former colonies and around governmental centers, and Hebrew monolingualism continued mainly in

12995-408: Was to a certain extent a pidgin . Near the end of that century the Jewish activist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda , owing to the ideology of the national revival ( שיבת ציון , Shivat Tziyon , later Zionism ), began reviving Hebrew as a modern spoken language. Eventually, as a result of the local movement he created, but more significantly as a result of the new groups of immigrants known under the name of

13110-566: Was to be released, while further investigation was to take place. She was released into the custody of Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman , who had given testimony in her favor, claiming it was a "humiliation" for her to remain in custody. In 2016, Grossman had also twice appeared before a court in South Africa to negotiate the release from prison of former Shuvu Banim Torah Academy school dean Rabbi Eliezer Berland , who would later confess to rape and assault. Grossman soon withdrew his support, and Leifer

13225-570: Was written, by poets such as Dunash ben Labrat , Solomon ibn Gabirol , Judah ha-Levi , Moses ibn Ezra and Abraham ibn Ezra , in a "purified" Hebrew based on the work of these grammarians, and in Arabic quantitative or strophic meters. This literary Hebrew was later used by Italian Jewish poets. The need to express scientific and philosophical concepts from Classical Greek and Medieval Arabic motivated Medieval Hebrew to borrow terminology and grammar from these other languages, or to coin equivalent terms from existing Hebrew roots, giving rise to

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