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Hebrew 101: the origins, history, and importance of our language.

This talk will take us all the way back to a time before there was a Jewish people to discover where the Hebrew alphabet (and all other Western writing systems) came from. We will consider what language was like for the Tribes of Israel and the surrounding nations, and then examine how the Hebrew language came to be the center of our identity in the Babylonian Exile. We will briefly, then, consider its importance in the Maccabean Revolt and the establishment of the Hasmonean Kingdom, and how our Hebrew language texts preserved the Jewish people through 2000 years of the Diaspora. Finally, we will examine how Hebrew came to be chosen by the Zionist movement as the language of modern Israel and how it was successfully revived – more successfully so than any other language in human history.

Jan 15, 2023 02:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)