182-409: Shimon Peres ( / ʃ iː ˌ m oʊ n ˈ p ɛr ɛ s , - ɛ z / shee- MOHN PERR -ess, -ez ; Hebrew : שמעון פרס [ʃiˌmon ˈpeʁes] ; born Szymon Perski , Polish: [ˈʂɨmɔn ˈpɛrskʲi] ; 2 August 1923 – 28 September 2016) was an Israeli politician and statesman who served as the eighth prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and from 1995 to 1996 and as
364-572: A Chanukah campaign to encourage all Jews worldwide to light their own menorah. After all tin menorahs were given out that year, a military manufacturer was commissioned to make tens of thousands of additional menorahs for distribution. In 1974, a public lighting of a Chanukah menorah was held by the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and in years following menorah lightings on public grounds were conducted in cities worldwide. Legal challenges to
546-674: 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
728-459: A break. During the talks, Schneerson demonstrated a unique approach in explaining seemingly different concepts by analysis of the fundamental principle common to the entire tractate, and referenced both classic and esoteric sources from all periods, citing entire sections by heart. In 1951 Schneerson established a Chabad women's and girl's organization and a youth organization in Israel. Their mission
910-429: A campaign for the daily study of Maimonides 's Mishneh Torah . Each year at the completion of the learning cycle there is Siyum celebration marking the end of the cycle and beginning of the new one. These events have been attended by many Jewish leaders. In 1986, Schneerson began a custom where each Sunday he would stand outside his office, greet people briefly, give them a dollar bill and encourage them to donate to
1092-469: A car in convoy with Schneerson's motorcade accidentally struck two Guyanese American children while running a red light. One of the children was killed. The incident triggered the Crown Heights riot . After the death of Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn in 1950, Chabad followers began persuading Schneerson to succeed his father-in-law as Rebbe on the basis of his scholarship, piety, and dynasty. Schneerson
1274-583: 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
1456-619: A child, Peres would later say, "I did not dream of becoming president of Israel. My dream as a boy was to be a shepherd or a poet of stars." He inherited his love of French literature from his maternal grandfather. In 1932, Peres's father immigrated to Mandatory Palestine and settled in Tel Aviv . The family followed him in 1934. He attended Balfour Elementary School and High School, and Geula Gymnasium (High School for Commerce) in Tel Aviv . At 15, he transferred to Ben Shemen agricultural school and lived on Kibbutz Geva for several years. Peres
1638-527: A coalition of the Alignment, small leftist factions and ultra-orthodox parties. Peres' hope had been to create a Labor-led government that would be focused on peace talks with Palestine. Likud had declined proposals by the United States for Israel and Palestine to initiate what would have been the first peace talks between the two sides. Peres' longtime intra-party rival, Yizhak Rabin, had opposed to overthrowing
1820-562: A coalition that excluded the left. When the new Likud-led government was formed on 20 June 1977 Peres' time as the unofficial acting prime minister ended. Once the Likud-led government took power, Labor and the Alignment bloc entered the Knesset opposition for the first time in its history, and Peres assumed the unofficial role of Knesset opposition leader. In 1978, Peres was elected vice president of Socialist International . Through his role within
2002-466: A coordinated act of terrorism when 248 Paris-bound travelers on an Air France plane were taken hostage by pro-Palestinian hijackers and flown to Uganda , Africa, 2,000 miles away. Peres and Rabin were responsible for approving what became known as the "Operation Entebbe", which took place on 4 July 1976. The rescue boosted the Rabin government's approval rating with the public. The only Israeli soldier that
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#17328512524862184-649: 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
2366-503: A day and never took a day of vacation. He rarely left Brooklyn except for visits to his father-in-law's gravesite in Queens, New York. Schneerson was opposed to retirement, seeing it as a waste of precious years. In 1972, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, instead of announcing a retirement plan, Schneerson proposed the establishment of 71 new institutions to mark the beginning of the 71st year of his life. The only other time he left Brooklyn
2548-562: 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
2730-464: A foreign currency scandal involving his wife, he would be stepping down prior to the 1977 Knesset election. Peres made himself a candidate to replace him as the new Labor Party leader. Initially, Foreign Minister Yigal Allon also made himself a candidate. However, Allon and Peres reached an agreement that Peres would appoint Allon to any ministerial position that Allon preferred in exchange from his withdrawal of his candidacy. Following Allon's withdrawal,
2912-626: A four-month advanced management course at Harvard University . In 1952, Peres was appointed deputy director general of the Ministry of Defense , and the following year, he was promoted to director general . At age 29, he was the youngest person to hold this position. He was involved in arms purchases and establishing strategic alliances that were important for the State of Israel. He was instrumental in establishing close relations with France , securing massive amounts of quality arms that, in turn, helped to tip
3094-472: A full recovery from the heart attack with few if any noticeable lasting effects or changes to his work habits. Fifteen years later Schneerson suffered a serious stroke while praying at the grave of his father-in-law . The stroke left him unable to speak, and paralyzed on the right side of his body. During this time, the hope that Schneerson could be revealed as the Messiah (Moshiach) became more widespread. On
3276-701: A global campaign to promote awareness of the Supreme Being and observance of the Noahide Laws among all people, arguing that this was the basis for human rights for all civilization. Several times each year his addresses were broadcast on national television. On these occasions Schneerson would address the public on general communal affairs and issues relating to world peace such as a moment of silence in U.S. public schools, increased government funding for solar energy research, U.S. foreign aid to developing countries and nuclear disarmament. In 1984, Schneerson initiated
3458-579: 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
3640-521: A guide to his son for the rest of his life. Many years later, when he once reminisced about his youth, Schneerson said "I have the education of the first-born son of the rabbi of Yekaterinoslav. When it comes to saving lives, I speak up whatever others may say." Schneerson went on to receive separate rabbinical ordinations from the Rogatchover Gaon, Joseph Rosen , and Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg , author of Sridei Aish . In 1923, Schneerson visited
3822-463: 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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#17328512524864004-532: 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 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
4186-660: A new party, Rafi . Peres was a co-founder of the Rafi party. The party reconciled with Mapai in 1968, merging to form the Israeli Labor Party . The Labor Party then joined the Alignment (a left-wing alliance). In 1969, Peres was appointed minister of immigrant absorption in the 15th government (led by Prime Minister Golda Meir ), and in 1970 (also in the 15th government), he became minister of transportation and communications . After this, he served as minister of information in
4368-424: A nonstarter, believing it would encourage further terrorism. Rabin initially took steps to begin negotiations with the terrorists, seeing no other option. Peres felt that negotiating with terrorists would, in effect, be a surrender, and thought a rescue operation should be planned. Peres organized a secret Israel Crisis Committee to come up with a rescue plan. When a plan had been made, he met with commander Netanyahu
4550-404: A number of times. During one of their final private meetings, they both examined maps and went over precise details. Peres later said of Netanyahu's explanation, "My impression was one of exactitude and imagination," saying that Netanyahu seemed confident the operation would succeed with almost no losses. Netanyahu left the meeting understanding that Peres would do everything in his power to see that
4732-665: A plan for future Jewish settlement of the area so as to include it in the Jewish state. The group was arrested by a Bedouin camel patrol led by a British officer, taken to Beersheba (then a small Arab town) and incarcerated in the local jail. All of the participants were sentenced to two weeks in prison, and as the leader, Peres was also heavily fined. The expedition came across a nest of bearded vultures , called peres in Hebrew, and from this Peres took his Hebrew name. All of Peres's relatives who remained in Wiszniew in 1941 were murdered during
4914-402: A private education and was tutored by Zalman Vilenkin from 1909 through 1913. When Schneerson was 11 years old, Vilenkin informed his father that he had nothing more to teach his son. At that point, Levi Yitzchak began teaching his son Talmud and rabbinic literature , as well as Kabbalah. Schneerson proved gifted in both Talmudic and Kabbalistic study and also took exams as an external student of
5096-535: 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
5278-457: A special occasion, such as a bride and groom for their wedding or a boy and his family on the occasion of a bar mitzvah. During his four decades as Rebbe, Schneerson would deliver regular addresses, centered on the weekly Torah portion and on various tractates of the Talmud. These talks, delivered without text or notes, would last for several hours, and sometimes went for eight or nine hours without
5460-603: 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
5642-455: A stroke, Peres died in 2016 near Tel Aviv . Shimon Peres was born Szymon Perski, on 2 August 1923, in Wiszniew, Poland (now Vishnyeva , Belarus), to Yitzhak (1896–1962) and Sara (1905–1969, née Meltzer) Perski. The family spoke Hebrew , Yiddish and Russian at home, and Peres learned Polish at school. He then learned to speak English and French. His father was a wealthy timber merchant, later branching out into other commodities; his mother
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5824-400: A system of "mitzvah campaigns" to encourage the observance of ten basic Jewish practices, such as tefillin for men, Shabbat candles for women, and loving your fellow for all people. Schneersohn's campaign brought the concept of tefillin to Jewish men everywhere, and he has been referred to as "the great modern popularizer of tefillin". Until his campaign, tefillin was largely the domain of
6006-468: 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
6188-549: 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
6370-511: 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
6552-620: 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 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
6734-437: Is a plan that I support not one hundred percent but one hundred and fifty percent! There has to be a military operation." Peres later got the approval from Gur, who became fully supportive. Peres then took the plan to Rabin, who had been lukewarm and still didn't like the risks, but he reluctantly approved the plan after Peres answered a number of key questions and Rabin learned that the cabinet had also endorsed it. Shortly after
6916-514: 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
7098-549: Is often referred to as "Sunday Dollars". Schneerson's wife, Chaya Mushka Schneerson died in 1988. During the week of shiva Schneerson wrote a will in which he bequeathed his entire estate to Agudas Chasidei Chabad , the Chabad umbrella organization. During a talk in 1991, Schneerson spoke passionately about Moshiach (the Messiah ) and told his followers that he had done all that he could to bring world peace and redemption, but that it
7280-578: 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. Menachem Mendel Schneerson Menachem Mendel Schneerson (April 5, 1902 OS – June 12, 1994; AM 11 Nissan 5662 – 3 Tammuz 5754), known to adherents of
7462-454: Is recognized as the pioneer of Jewish outreach . During his lifetime, many of his adherents believed that he was the Messiah . His own attitude to the subject, and whether he openly encouraged this, is hotly debated among academics. During Schneerson's lifetime, the messianic controversy and other issues elicited fierce criticism from many quarters in the Orthodox world, especially earning him
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7644-560: 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 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
7826-405: 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
8008-536: 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
8190-630: 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
8372-452: The 1981 elections . In the 1984 elections (Peres' third election as Labor Party leader), the Alignment coalition won more seats than any other party, but the left-wing failed to win the majority of 61 seats needed to form a coalition on their own. Alignment and Likud agreed to an unusual “ rotation " arrangement to form a grand coalition unity government during which, for the first twenty-five months, Peres would serve as prime minister and
8554-705: 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 is believed to be based on the Semitic root ʕ-b-r ( ע־ב־ר ), meaning "beyond", "other side", "across"; interpretations of
8736-534: 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 the widely accepted view that the earlier layers of biblical literature reflect the language used in these kingdoms. Furthermore,
8918-710: The Chabad-Lubavitch movement as the Lubavitcher Rebbe or simply the Rebbe , was a Russian-American Orthodox rabbi and the most recent Rebbe of the Lubavitch Hasidic dynasty . He is considered one of the most influential Jewish leaders of the 20th century. As leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, he took an insular Hasidic group that almost came to an end with the Holocaust and transformed it into one of
9100-557: 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
9282-602: The Holocaust , many of them (including Rabbi Meltzer) burned alive in the town's synagogue. In 1945, Peres married Sonya Gelman , who preferred to remain outside the public eye. They had three children. In 1946, Peres and Moshe Dayan were chosen as the two youth delegates in the Mapai delegation to the Zionist Congress in Basel . In 1947, Peres joined the Haganah , the predecessor of
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#17328512524869464-540: The Israel Defense Forces . David Ben-Gurion made him responsible for personnel and arms purchases; he was appointed to head the naval service when Israel received independence in 1948. Peres was director of the Defense Ministry's delegation in the United States in the early 1950s. While in the U.S. he studied English , economics , and philosophy at The New School and New York University , and completed
9646-491: 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 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
9828-655: 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
10010-525: 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
10192-516: The Tripartite Declaration , and supply more weapons to Israel. During the same visit, Peres informed the French that Israel had decided upon war with Egypt in 1956. Throughout the 1950s, an extraordinarily close relationship existed between France and Israel, characterised by unprecedented cooperation in the fields of defense and diplomacy. For his work as the architect of this relationship, Peres
10374-689: The Tzemach Tzedek , from whom he was a direct patrilineal descendant. In 1907, when Schneerson was five years old, the family moved to Yekatrinoslav (today, Dnipro ), where Rabbi Levi Yitzchak was appointed Chief Rabbi of the city. He served until 1939, when he was exiled by the Soviets to Kazakhstan . Schneerson had two younger brothers: Dov Ber "Berel" Schneerson, who was murdered in 1944 by Nazi collaborators , and Yisroel Aryeh Leib "Leibel" Schneerson, who died in 1952 while completing doctoral studies at Liverpool University . During his youth, he received
10556-576: The University of Berlin . He would later recall that he enjoyed Erwin Schrödinger 's lectures. His father-in-law took great pride in his erudite son-in-law's scholarly attainments and paid for all the tuition expenses and helped facilitate his studies throughout. During his stay in Berlin, his father-in-law encouraged him to become more of a public figure, but Schneerson described himself as an introvert, and
10738-455: 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
10920-507: The ninth president of Israel from 2007 to 2014. He was a member of twelve cabinets and represented five political parties in a political career spanning 70 years. Peres was elected to the Knesset in November 1959 and except for three months out of office in early 2006, served as a member of the Knesset continuously until he was elected president in 2007. Serving in the Knesset for 48 years (with
11102-609: 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 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
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#173285125248611284-537: 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
11466-552: The "highest form of statesmanship". In 1963, he held negotiations with U.S. President John F. Kennedy , which resulted in the sale of Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Israel, the first sale of U.S. military equipment to Israel. Peres represented Mapai , Rafi , the Alignment , Labor and Kadima in the Knesset, and led Alignment and Labor. Peres first succeeded Yitzhak Rabin as acting prime minister briefly during 1977, before becoming prime minister from 1984 to 1986. As foreign minister under Prime Minister Rabin, Peres engineered
11648-441: 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 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
11830-428: The 1940s, Schneerson became a naturalized US citizen and seeking to contribute to the war effort, he volunteered at the Brooklyn Navy Yard , using his electrical engineering background to draw wiring diagrams for the battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) , and other classified military work. In 1942 Schneerson launched the Merkos Shlichus program where he would send pairs of yeshiva students to remote locations across
12012-541: The 1956 Suez Crisis . Peres continued as a primary intermediary in the close French-Israeli alliance from the mid-1950s, although from 1958, he was often involved in tense negotiations with Charles de Gaulle over the Dimona project. Peres is considered to have been the architect of Israel's secret nuclear weapons program in the 1960s, and he stated that, in the 1960s, he recruited Arnon Milchan , an Israeli-American Hollywood film producer, billionaire businessman, and secret arms dealer and intelligence operative, to work for
12194-454: 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,
12376-427: The 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty , and won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize together with Rabin and Yasser Arafat for the Oslo Accords peace talks with the Palestinian leadership . In 1996, he founded the Peres Center for Peace , which has the aim of "promot[ing] lasting peace and advancement in the Middle East by fostering tolerance, economic and technological development, cooperation and well-being." After suffering
12558-535: 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
12740-495: 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 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
12922-579: 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,
13104-668: 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
13286-600: The French government. Peres was instrumental in negotiating the Franco-Israeli agreement for a military offensive. In November 1954, Peres visited Paris, where he was received by the French Defense Minister Marie-Pierre Kœnig , who told him that France would sell Israel any weapons it wanted to buy. By early 1955, France was shipping large amounts of weapons to Israel. In April 1956, following another visit to Paris by Peres, France agreed to disregard
13468-516: 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
13650-432: 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 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
13832-588: 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
14014-510: The Israeli Bureau of Scientific Relations (LEKEM or LAKAM), a secret intelligence organization tasked with obtaining military technology and science espionage. From 1954, as director general of the Ministry of Defense, Peres was involved in the planning of the 1956 Suez War , in partnership with France and Britain. Peres was sent by David Ben-Gurion to Paris, where he held secret meetings with
14196-529: The Israeli economy. By the end of the year, inflation immensely decreased. Additionally, the shekel stabilized and the government balanced its budget. While Israel would subsequently slide into a recession , the stabilization has been regarded as an important and greatly successful model for addressing economies in crisis, and has been credited with saving the nation's economy. As per the rotation arrangement, after Peres' two years as prime minister he and Shamir traded places in 1986. Shamir became prime minister of
14378-454: 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
14560-463: The Labor Party leadership announced on 10 April 1977 that he had chosen to endorse Peres as the party's new leader. On 11 April 1977 , the 815-member Central Committee of the party elected Peres by acclamation as the party's new leader. Rabin ended his active service as prime minister on 22 April 1977, and Peres became Israel's unofficial acting prime minister. The reason why Peres was not officially
14742-539: The Labor Party was successful in the 1992 Knesset election and Rabin became prime minister again, Peres became foreign minister in the Rabin-led twenty-fifth government of Israel . Peres had previously served as foreign minister from 1986 through 1988. Hebrew language Hebrew ( Hebrew alphabet : עִבְרִית , ʿĪvrīt , pronounced [ ʔivˈʁit ] or [ ʕivˈrit ] ; Samaritan script : ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ ʿÎbrit )
14924-469: The Likud leader Yitzhak Shamir would be foreign minister, with the two swapping positions thereafter for the second half of the term. Peres was regarded to be a popular prime minister in his two years as premier under the rotation arrangement. During a portion of his premiership, he also held the position of minister of religious affairs . Among the most noteworthy moments of his first tenure as prime minister
15106-419: The Likud-led coalition government. Peres succeeded in ending the government twenty-third government with a vote of no confidence . However, Peres was subsequently unable to assemble enough Knesset partners to form a pro-peace talk government. After two months, Shamir managed to form a Likud-led government with right-wing religious parties, establishing what was seen as the most conservative government coalition in
15288-655: The Meir-led 16th government . Peres was appointed minister of defense in the Yitzhak Rabin -led 17th government , after having been Rabin's chief rival for the post of Labor Party leader (and, in effect, the Israeli premiership) in the 1974 Israeli Labor Party leadership election that was held after Golda Meir resigned in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War . On 27 June 1976, Peres, as minister of defense, in collaboration with Prime Minister Rabin, handled Israel's response to
15470-471: 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
15652-636: The Nazis , the Schneersons fled to Vichy , and later to Nice , where they stayed until their final escape from Europe in 1941. In 1941, Schneerson escaped from Europe via Lisbon , Portugal. On the eve of his departure, Schneerson penned a treatise where he revealed his vision for the future of world Jewry and humanity. He and his wife Chaya Mushka arrived in New York on June 23, 1941. Shortly after his arrival, his father-in-law appointed him director and chairman of
15834-522: The Rebbe to do it for them, saying: "Now listen, Jews. Generally, in Chabad it has been demanded that each individual work on themselves, and not rely on the Rebbes. One must, on their own , transform the folly of materialism and the passion of the 'animal soul' to holiness. I do not, God Forbid, recuse myself from assisting as much as possible, however; if one does not work on themselves , what good will submitting notes, singing songs, and saying lechayim do?" At
16016-813: The Schneersons left Berlin and moved to Paris, where Menachem Mendel (known as "RaMash" before accepting the leadership of Chabad ) continued his religious and communal activities on behalf of his father-in-law, Yosef Yitzchak. While in Paris he took a two-year course in engineering at a vocational college, where he was a mediocre student; this was his only formal secular education. During that time, Yosef Yitzchak recommended that Professor Alexander Vasilyevitch Barchenko consult with Schneerson regarding various religious and mystical matters, and prominent rabbis, such as Yerachmiel Binyaminson and Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler turned to Schneerson with their rabbinic and kabbalistic queries. On June 11, 1940, three days before Paris fell to
16198-468: The Sinai. Britain and France would then intervene, purportedly to separate the warring Israeli and Egyptian forces, instructing both to withdraw to a distance of 16 kilometres from either side of the canal. The British and French would then argue, according to the plan, that Egypt's control of such an important route was too tenuous, and that it needed be placed under Anglo-French management. The agreement at Sèvres
16380-525: The Suez Canal. Peres was first elected to the Knesset in the 1959 elections as a member of the Mapai party. He was given the role of deputy minister of defense, which he filled until 1965 (holding this position in the 9th , 10th , 11th , and 12th governments of Israel under Prime Ministers David Ben-Gurion and Levi Eshkol ). In this position, he held negotiations with John F. Kennedy , which concluded with
16562-605: 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
16744-455: 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
16926-555: The Talmudic genius known as the Rogachover Gaon . In 1933 he also met with Chaim Elazar Shapiro , as well as with Talmudist Shimon Shkop . During this time he kept a diary in which he would carefully document his private conversations with his father-in-law, as well as his kabbalistic correspondence with his father, Levi Yitzchak Schneerson. In 1933, after the Nazis took over Germany ,
17108-544: The United States and Canada, Schneerson delivered a Hasidic discourse (Ma'amar) , the equivalent to a President-elect taking the oath of office, and formally became the Rebbe. On the night of his acceptance, members of the Israeli Cabinet and Israel's Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Herzog sent him congratulatory messages. Reiterating a longstanding core Chabad principle at his inaugural talk, he demanded that each individual exert themselves in advancing spiritually, and not rely on
17290-442: The United States. The Iranian government's hostility towards the United States was seen by Schneerson as behavior that could threaten the country's status as an "untouchable" superpower, and that would cause it to try to appease Arab countries, thus "endanger[ing] the security of Israel". As a result of Schneerson's efforts, several thousand Iranian children were flown from Iran to the safety of New York. In 1983 Schneerson launched
17472-480: 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
17654-470: 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
17836-447: The assistance of the government of the United States, Peres assembled a board of American economist to advise him on the situation. Conditional on him implementing reforms, Peres secured emergency economic assistance from the United States of $ 750 million (equivalent to 3.5% of the nation's GDP at the time) annually over a two-year period. Peres was initially hesitant to take the drastic measures that he ultimately would pursue, as they had
18018-552: 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
18200-565: The balance of power in the region. In 1955, he testified against Minister of Defense Pinhas Lavon in what became known as the Lavon Affair . Owing to Peres's mediation, Israel acquired the advanced Dassault Mirage III French jet fighter, established the Dimona nuclear reactor and entered into a tri-national agreement with France and the United Kingdom, positioning Israel in what would become
18382-535: 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,
18564-544: The central Lubavitch synagogue on Eastern Parkway. After his wedding to Chaya Mushka in 1928, Schneerson and his wife moved to Berlin in the Weimar Republic (now part of Germany ) where he was assigned specific communal tasks by his father-in-law Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, who also requested that he write scholarly annotations to the responsa and various hasidic discourses of the earlier Rebbes of Chabad-Lubavitch. Schneerson studied mathematics, physics, and philosophy at
18746-400: The charity of their choice. Explaining his reason for encouraging charitable giving among all people, Schneerson quoted his father-in-law who said that "when two people meet, it should bring benefit to a third." People in line would often take this opportunity to ask Schneerson for advice or request a blessing. Thousands of people attended this event each week, which lasted up to six hours, and
18928-449: The community. In 1947 Schneerson traveled to Paris, to take his mother, Chana Schneerson , back to New York City with him. Schneerson would visit her every day and twice each Friday and prepare her a tea. In 1964, Chana Schneerson died. On February 10, 1988, Schneerson's wife, Chaya Mushka Schneerson died. A year after the death of his wife, when the traditional year of Jewish mourning had passed, Schneerson moved into his study above
19110-596: 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
19292-462: 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 the region was Old Aramaic . Hebrew was extinct as a colloquial language by late antiquity , but it continued to be used as
19474-592: The country during their summer vacations to teach Jews in isolated communities about their heritage and offer education to their children. As chairman and editor in chief of Kehot , Schneerson published the works of the earlier Rebbes of Chabad. He also published his own works including the Hayom Yom in 1943 and Hagadda in 1946. On a visit to Paris in 1947 he established a school for girls and worked with local organizations to assist with housing for refugees and displaced persons . Schneerson often explained that his goal
19656-551: The defensive. We need to go on the offensive." As Rebbe, Schneerson would receive visitors for private meetings, known as yechidus , on Sunday and Thursday evenings. Those meetings would begin at 8 pm and often continue until five or six in the morning and were open to everyone. Schneerson, who spoke several languages including English, Yiddish, Hebrew, Aramaic, French, Russian, German and Italian, would converse with people on all issues and offer his advice on both spiritual and mundane matters. Politicians and leaders from across
19838-563: 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;
20020-423: 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 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
20202-513: 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
20384-518: 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
20566-610: The enmity of Rabbi Elazar Shach . In 1978, the U.S. Congress asked President Jimmy Carter to designate Schneerson's birthday as the national Education Day in the U.S. It has been since commemorated as Education and Sharing Day. In 1994, Schneerson was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his "outstanding and lasting contributions toward improvements in world education, morality, and acts of charity". Schneerson's resting place attracts both Jews and non-Jews for prayer. Menachem Mendel Schneerson
20748-703: 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
20930-462: The first uninterrupted stretch lasting more than 46 years), Peres is the longest serving member in the Knesset's history. At the time of his retirement from politics in 2014, he was the world's oldest head of state and was considered the last link to Israel's founding generation. From a young age, he was renowned for his oratorical brilliance, and was chosen as a protégé by David Ben-Gurion , Israel's founding father. He began his political career in
21112-406: 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
21294-416: The globe came to meet him, but Schneerson showed no preference to one person over another. His secretary once even declined to admit John F. Kennedy because Schneerson was already meeting 'ordinary' people who had requested appointments months previously. Those meetings were discontinued in 1982 when it became impossible to accommodate the large number of people. Meetings were then held only for those who had
21476-507: The history of Israel up to that point. Peres led the opposition in the Knesset from 1990 until early 1992, when he was defeated by Yitzhak Rabin in the Israeli Labor Party leadership election , the first leadership election held since the party formally merged with the other parties of Alignment, and the first leadership election open to participation by the party's entire membership. Peres remained active in politics, however. After
21658-405: The holder of this office was that Rabin could not, under Israeli law, resign from his position as prime minister because the government was, at the time, a caretaker government . In his first election as party leader, Peres led Labor Party and the Alignment coalition to its first ever electoral defeat, and the result afforded the first-place Likud party (led by Menachem Begin ) the ability to form
21840-614: The increase in Torah study by women as one of the "positive innovations of the later generations". That same year, Schneerson sent his first emissary to Morocco , and established schools and a synagogue for the Moroccan Jewish community . In 1958 Schneerson established schools and synagogues in Detroit, Michigan , in Milan, Italy , and in London, England . Beginning in the 1960s, Schneerson instituted
22022-456: 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 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
22204-458: 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
22386-464: 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
22568-486: The late 1940s, holding several diplomatic and military positions during and directly after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War . His first high-level government position was as deputy director general of defense in 1952 which he attained at the age of 28, and director general from 1953 until 1959. In 1956, he took part in the historic negotiations on the Protocol of Sèvres , which was described by British Prime Minister Anthony Eden as
22750-466: The leadership of this organization, Peres befriended foreign politicians including Willy Brandt , Bruno Kreisky , members of the British Labour Party , and politicians from parts of Africa and Asia. After handily winning reelection as Labor Party leader in 1980 (defeating a challenge from Rabin, who was attempting a comeback to the leadership), Peres led his party to another, narrower, loss in
22932-695: The lightings on public grounds reached the Supreme Court and it was ruled that public lightings did not violate the Constitution. Public lightings continue in thousands of cities today. Chabad established an annual Lag BaOmer parade at '770', one of the largest celebrations of its kind, where thousands of Jews celebrate the holiday. In 1979, during the Iranian Revolution and Iranian hostage crisis , Schneerson directed arrangements to rescue Jewish youth and teenagers from Iran and bring them to safety in
23114-510: The local Soviet school. He was considered an illui and genius, and by the time he was 17, he had mastered the entire Talmud , some 5,422 pages, as well as all its early commentaries . Throughout his childhood, Schneerson was involved in the affairs of his father's office. He was also said to have acted as an interpreter between the Jewish community and the Russian authorities on a number of occasions. Levi Yitzchak's courage and principles were
23296-400: The meticulously observant. Following the death of his mother Chana Schneerson in 1964, Schneerson began to offer an additional weekly sermon in her memory. These sermons consisted of original insights and unprecedented analysis of Rashi's Torah commentary, which were delivered at the regular public gatherings. Schneerson gave these sermons each week until 1992. In 1973, Schneerson started
23478-406: The mission ended, Rabin recounted, "we called into my office seven of our top commanders...I told our friends in uniform that the honor of the Jewish people, their destinies, are challenged and what we are considering is not just a calculated risk in the military sense, but a comparative risk, which exists between surrender to terror and daring rescue stemming from independence." After the success of
23660-619: The morning of June 12, 1994 ( 3 Tammuz 5754), Schneerson died at the Beth Israel Medical Center and was buried at the Ohel next to his father-in-law, Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, at Montefiore Cemetery in Queens, New York. Shortly after Schneerson's death, the executors of his will discovered several notebooks in a drawer in his office, in which Schneerson had written his scholarly thoughts and religious musings from his earliest years. The majority of entries in these journals date between
23842-497: The most influential movements in religious Jewry, with an international network of over 5,000 educational and social centers. The institutions he established include kindergartens, schools, drug-rehabilitation centers, care-homes for the disabled, and synagogues. Schneerson's published teachings fill more than 400 volumes, and he is noted for his contributions to Jewish continuity and religious thought, as well as his wide-ranging contributions to traditional Torah scholarship. He
24024-537: The movement and won a majority. The head of Mapai, David Ben-Gurion , and Berl Katznelson began to take an interest in him, and appointed him to Mapai's secretariat. In 1944, Peres led an illicit expedition into the Negev , then a closed military zone requiring a permit to enter. The expedition, consisting of a group of teenagers, along with a Palmach scout, a zoologist, and an archaeologist, had been funded by Ben-Gurion and planned by Palmach head Yitzhak Sadeh , as part of
24206-400: The new twenty-second government of Israel and Peres became foreign minister as well as the designated acting prime minister of Israel . In 1988 the Alignment, led by Peres, suffered another narrow defeat . This came despite the fact that polling in 1988 showed Peres to be the most popular politician in the nation. Peres agreed to renew the grand coalition with the Likud, this time conceding
24388-720: 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
24570-547: The occasion of his ninetieth birthday they would be publishing a special issue and wanted to know what his message to the world was. Schneerson replied that "'Ninety', in Hebrew , is ' tzaddik '; which means 'righteous.' And that is a direct indication for every person to become a real tzaddik—a righteous person, and to do so for many years, until 120. "This message", Schneerson added, "applies equally to Jews and non-Jews". During his decades of leadership, Schneerson worked over 18 hours
24752-404: The operation went smoothly. Peres then went unannounced to Moshe Dayan , the former minister of Defense, interrupting his dinner with friends in a restaurant, to show him the latest plan to get his opinion. Peres told Dayan of the objections that had been raised by Rabin and Chief of Staff, Mordechai Gur . Dayan dismissed the objections after reviewing the written details: "Shimon," he said, "this
24934-421: The operation, Peres angled to receive some of the credit and adulation, somewhat competing with Rabin for credit. In February 1977, Peres challenged Prime Minister Rabin for the leadership of Labor Party, but lost to Rabin in a narrow 50.72% to 49.28% result in the vote by the party's Central Committee. The leadership election was expected to determine who would lead the party into the 1977 Knesset election . This
25116-525: 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 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
25298-401: The premiership to Shamir for the entire term. In the grand coalition unity government of 1988–90 (the twenty-third government of Israel ), Peres served as minister of finance and also continued to be the designated acting prime minister of Israel. Peres and the Alignment finally left the government in 1990, after " the dirty trick " – a failed bid by Peres to form a narrow government based on
25480-582: 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
25662-562: 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
25844-657: 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
26026-400: The right of Rabin on domestic matters. Instead of positioning himself in contrast to the incumbent Rabin on policy, Peres instead capitalized off of the political atmosphere and staked his candidacy largely on an argument that the Labor Party needed to satisfy the nation's desire for change by choosing a new leader for itself. On 7 April 1977, Prime Minister Rabin announced that, in the wake of
26208-587: The sale of Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Israel, the first sale of US military equipment to Israel. Peres expressed great appreciation and praise for the American decision to sell Hawk missiles in a speech to the Knesset on 25 June 1963. Peres resigned from the 12th government in late May 1965, citing the growing rift between Prime Minister Eshkol and former prime minister Ben-Gurion (Peres was aligned with Ben Gurion). In 1965, Peres and Moshe Dayan were among those that left Mapai with David Ben-Gurion when Ben-Gurion formed
26390-421: The same talk, Schneerson said "one must go to a place where nothing is known of Godliness, nothing is known of Judaism, nothing is even known of the Hebrew alphabet, and while there to put oneself aside and ensure that the other calls out to God." When he spoke to Forward journalist Asher Penn that year, he said, "...we must stop insisting that Judaism is in danger, an assertion that does little but place Jewry on
26572-485: The sixth Chabad -Lubavitch Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn , for the first time. He met the rabbi's middle daughter Chaya Mushka (Mousia) – they were distant cousins. Sometime later they became engaged, but were not married until 1928 in Warsaw , Poland. Taking great pride in his son-in-law's outstanding scholarship, Yosef Yitzchak asked him to engage in learned conversation with the great Torah scholars that were present at
26754-485: 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
26936-468: 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
27118-412: The strong potential of proving unpopular and came with a risk of potentially creating a drastic increase in unemployment. Peres ultimately was convinced to push through the 1985 Israel Economic Stabilization Plan. Once convinced, he was assertive in pushing for the passage of the program, which was quickly after approved by his cabinet on 1 July 1985. This program had quick success in improving the course of
27300-465: 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 the Euphrates , Jordan or Litani ; or maybe the northern Arabian Desert between Babylonia and Canaan ). Compare
27482-435: The three Chabad central organizations, Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch , Machneh Israel and Kehot Publication Society , placing him at the helm of the movement's Jewish educational, social services, and publishing networks. Over the next decade, Yosef Yitzchak referred many of the scholarly questions that had been inquired of him to his son-in-law. He became increasingly known as a personal representative of Yosef Yitzchak. During
27664-580: 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
27846-419: The wedding, such as Meir Shapiro and Menachem Ziemba . Menachem Mendel and Chaya Mushka were married for 60 years, and were childless. Menachem Mendel Schneerson and Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn were both descendants of Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, known as the Tzemach Tzedek , the third Rebbe of Chabad Lubavitch . Schneerson later commented that the day of his marriage bound the community to him and him to
28028-501: 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 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
28210-579: 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" is derived from Old French Ebrau , via Latin from
28392-545: The years 1928 and 1950 and were subsequently published. Following age-old Jewish tradition that the resting place of a tzadik is holy, Schneerson's gravesite is viewed by many as a holy site and has been described by the Yedioth Ahronoth as "the American Western Wall", where thousands of people, Jews and non-Jews, go to pray each week. Many more send faxes and e-mails with requests for prayers to be read at
28574-652: Was Operation Wooden Leg (a long-range Israeli airstrike against the PLO headquarters in Tunisia) and a trip to Morocco to confer with King Hassan II . In 1985, Peres publicly supported the quick pursuit of a military pullback from Beirut to Israel's south Lebanon security belt. A partial Israeli pullback had earlier been approved in 1983 by the Begin-headed Likud-led government that had been in power at that time. A major domestic policy decision of Peres' first premiership
28756-421: 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
28938-460: Was a librarian. Peres had a younger brother, Gershon. He was related to the American film star Lauren Bacall (born Betty Joan Perske), and they were described as first cousins, but Peres said, "In 1952 or 1953, I came to New York... Lauren Bacall called me, said that she wanted to meet, and we did. We sat and talked about where our families came from, and discovered that we were from the same family... but I'm not exactly sure what our relation is... It
29120-431: Was at moment when Labor was threatened with the prospect of losing its control of government after 28-consecutive years due to the rise of both the right-wing Likud bloc and the centrist Democratic Movement for Change , which were seen as collectively cutting into the Labor Party's support in the upcoming election. At the time, Rabin and Peres presented little policy difference, with Peres being seen as only slightly to
29302-590: Was awarded the highest order of the French, the Legion of Honor , as Commander. At Sèvres , Peres took part in planning alongside Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury , Christian Pineau and Chief of Staff of the French Armed Forces General Maurice Challe , and British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd and his assistant Sir Patrick Dean . Britain and France enlisted Israeli support for an alliance against Egypt. The parties agreed that Israel would invade
29484-628: Was born on April 5, 1902 ( OS ) (11 Nisan , 5662), in the Black Sea port of Nikolaev in the Russian Empire (now Mykolaiv in Ukraine ). His father was rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson , a renowned Talmudic scholar and authority on Kabbalah and Jewish law . His mother was Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson ( née Yanovski ). He was named after the third Chabad rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneersohn ,
29666-406: 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 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
29848-416: Was educated by him. … My grandfather taught me Talmud . It was not as easy as it sounds. My home was not an observant one. My parents were not Orthodox but I was Haredi . At one point, I heard my parents listening to the radio on the Sabbath and I smashed it." When he was a child, Peres was taken by his father to Radun to receive a blessing from Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (known as "the Chofetz Chaim "). As
30030-434: Was initially described by British Prime Minister Anthony Eden as the "highest form of statesmanship". The three allies, especially Israel, were mainly successful in attaining their immediate military objectives. However, the extremely hostile reaction to the Suez Crisis from both the United States and the USSR forced them to withdraw, resulting in a failure of Britain and France's political and strategic aims of controlling
30212-435: Was killed during the successful rescue operation was its commander, 30-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Netanyahu , older brother of Benjamin Netanyahu . Before Rabin ultimately approved the rescue mission, he and Peres were at odds on how to proceed. Rabin was open to acquiescing to the terrorists' demands to release forty Palestinian militants if no military option presented itself. Peres, however, felt acquiescing to be
30394-495: Was known to plead with acquaintances not to make a fuss over the fact that he was the son-in-law of Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn. While in Berlin, Schneerson met Joseph B. Soloveitchik and the two formed a friendship that remained between them years later when they both emigrated to America. He wrote hundreds of pages of his own original Torah discourses, and conducted a serious interchange of halachic correspondence with many of Eastern Europe's leading rabbinic figures, including
30576-438: 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
30758-411: Was now up to them to continue this task: "I have done my part, from now on you do all that you can." A few months later, when a reporter from CNN came to meet him at dollars, he said, "Moshiach is ready to come now, it is only on our part to do something additional in the realm of goodness and kindness." On Sunday, March 1, 1992, Gabriel Erem, the editor of Lifestyles Magazine told Schneerson that on
30940-446: Was one of the founders of Kibbutz Alumot . In 1941, he was elected Secretary of HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed , a Labor Zionist youth movement, and in 1944 returned to Alumot, where he had an agricultural training and worked as a farmer and a shepherd. At age 20, he was elected to the HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed national secretariat, where he was only one of two Mapai party supporters, out of the 12 members. Three years later, he took over
31122-406: 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 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
31304-413: Was reluctant, and actively refused to accept leadership of the movement. He continued, however, all the communal activities he had previously headed. It would take a full year until he was persuaded by the elders of the movement to accept the post. On the first anniversary of his father-in-law's passing, 10 Shevat 1951, in a ceremony attended by several hundred rabbis and Jewish leaders from all parts of
31486-470: 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
31668-433: Was she who later said that she was my cousin; I didn't say that". Peres told Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson that he had been born as a result of a blessing his parents had received from a chassidic rebbe and that he was proud of it. Peres's grandfather, Rabbi Zvi Meltzer, a grandson of Rabbi Chaim Volozhin , had a great impact on his life. In an interview, Peres said: "As a child, I grew up in my grandfather's home. … I
31850-479: 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
32032-432: Was the implementation of the 1985 Israel Economic Stabilization Plan. By 1985, Israel's economic fortunes were looking dire, with immense and quickly rising inflation (Israel was experiencing hyperinflation), a government budget deficit equal to between twelve and fifteen percent of the nation's GDP and national debt equal to 220% of the nation's GDP, and Israel's foreign currency reserves were quickly dissipating. With
32214-437: 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
32396-431: Was to "make the world a better place", and to do what he could to eliminate all suffering. In a letter to Israeli President Yitzchak Ben Tzvi , Schneerson wrote that when he was a child the vision of the future redemption began to take form in his imagination "a redemption of such magnitude and grandeur through which the purpose of the suffering, the harsh decrees and annihilation of exile will be understood ..." In 1991,
32578-408: 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
32760-435: Was to engage in outreach which was exclusively directed at women and teens. In 1953 he opened branches of these organizations in New York, London and Toronto. In a marked departure from an entrenched tendency to limit high-level Torah education to men and boys, Schneerson equally addressed his teachings to both genders. He addressed meetings of the organizations, and led gatherings exclusively for women. Schneerson would describe
32942-408: Was when he visited Camp Gan Israel Parksville, New York in 1956, 1957 and 1960. In 1977, during the hakafot ceremony on Shemini Atzeret , Schneerson suffered a heart attack . At his request, rather than transporting him to a hospital, the doctors set up a mini-hospital at his office where he was treated for the next four weeks by doctors Bernard Lown , Ira Weiss, and Larry Resnick. He made
33124-570: 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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