Everybody wants spirituality. To be a good person means to walk in G-d's ways. How does that translate to reality? The only guidebook to spirituality that has stood the test of time is the Hebrew Bible. The Bible says that the Jews will be a light onto the nations. But if you are not a born Jew, you have to convert, which is not so easy!! If you do convert, it is a lot of work to be a Jew (three times a day prayer, keeping kosher, observing the Sabbath).
This blog will show you how to be Jewish without the work!!
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers and The fortress from the time of King David found in Golan Heights and 8 peacekeepers killed in a helicopter crash in Sinai desert and The Hebrew-Based Judaism And Zionism Of Eliezer Ben Yehuda By Saul Jay Singer and Apollonia National Park two of four and Lots of take-aways from November 2020, Part I: His Fraudulency
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
8 peacekeepers killed in a helicopter crash in Sinai desert
6 Americans. 1 Frenchman, and a Czech citizen from a multinational peacekeeping force killed in the Sinai crash.
A helicopter crash in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula involving a multi-national observer force killed eight people on Thursday -- six Americans, a French national and a Czech citizen, the force said.
"During a routine mission in the vicinity of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, nine members of the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) were involved in a helicopter crash," it said in a statement posted on its website.
"We are deeply saddened to report that eight uniformed MFO members were killed; six US citizens, one French, and one Czech," it added.
Another member of the force, an American, survived and was medically evacuated, the MFO added.
The Israeli army said separately that it had offered to provide immediate medical assistance.
An army "helicopter carrying elite search and rescue soldiers... was scrambled to the Ramon airport (in southern Israel)," its spokesman Jonathan Conricus said.
The peacekeeping force was set up by Israel and Egypt to supervise parts of their 1979 historic peace treaty after the UN did not did not approve a peacekeeping force for the Sinai.
The force was established as an alternative to the UN mission, but has consistently had significant international backing, notably from the United States.
Egypt's Sinai Peninsula is facing a hardened insurgency affiliated with the Islamic State group in the north of the restive region while the south boasts touristic resort towns by the Red Sea, near where the crash happened.
In February 2018, security forces launched a nationwide operation against militants, focused on North Sinai.
More than 930 suspected militants have been killed in the region along with dozens of security personnel, according to official figures.
The multi-national force said in its statement that it would conduct an investigation to determine the cause of the accident.
"At this point, there is no information to indicate the crash was anything except an accident," the MFO said.
The MFO currently has more than 1,100 troops from Australia, the United States, Canada and France. The force's website lists only one French member in its contingent, a liaison officer.
Apollonia National Park
One of the most beautiful spots in Israel
National Park (Tel Arsuf)
Apollonia National Park is on a kurkar (calcareous sandstone) promontory facing the seashore of Herzliya.
Points of interest
The moat
The Roman seaside villa
The Crusader fortress
The coastal path
The glass furnace
Sidna Ali Mosque
The Dinosaur House
details
The city moat – the southern side of the city moat was excavated in 1998, and helps us to estimate the size and strength of the city in Crusader times. In 1996 the eastern city gate, which still lies in grounds belonging to IMI (Israel Military Industries), was excavated. The moat can clearly be seen to continue beyond the excavated area, and it is about 4.5 m deep.
The Roman seaside villa– at the beginning of the 1980s a small part of the Roman villa was excavated, but it was only after intensive excavations in 1998 that the villa was revealed in all its glory. The Roman villa, overlooking the sea, is dated to the 1st century CE, and was destroyed in an earthquake in 118 CE.
The Crusader fortress– construction of the fortress is dated to 1241, and its destruction to 1265, when the city was captured by the Mameluke Sultan Baibars. The fortress building was influenced by similar fortresses in southern England, and is evidence that the architect was European. The fortress has three systems of fortification: a wide and deep moat, a first wall (the external fortification array), and a second wall and donjon (keep). The fortress was built by Balian of Ibelin, Lord of Arsur, but in 1261, at the start of Baibars' campaign to the land of Israel, it was handed over, along with the entire city of Apollonia, to the control of the Hospitaller Knights. Baibars besieged the city for 30 days, and the fortress for another three days. At the foot of the fortress is a small sea anchorage at which boats could tie up.
The coastal path– from the point where it splits off, the path descends towards the Roman villa, and then follows the route of the city wall. The trail rejoins the upper trail at the Tamarisk tree compound.
The glass furnace– the glass furnace at the entrance to the park was in use in the Byzantine period (6th century CE). So far 12 furnaces have been found around Apollonia, and it seems that the glass industry was one of the most important branches of the city's economy. By firing at a particularly high temperature (1,100°C) in the glass furnace, the raw material, mainly the silica found in beach sand, was turned into a sheet of raw glass, 50 cm thick. After firing, the glass sheet and the furnace were dismantled, and so the furnace was used for only one firing. From the quantity of potsherds found near the furnaces, it can be concluded that they were used a number of times for making pottery vessels before glass was fired in them, after which they were abandoned and a new furnace was made.
Sidna Ali Mosque– Sidna Ali mosque was built in 1481, and was named after the soldier Ali Ibn Alim (Al-Hasan ibn Ali), who, according to Muslim belief, fell in battle against the Crusaders at Apollonia in 1250. The minaret of the mosque rises to a height of 21 m. The mosque was built by Shams al-Din, whose tomb is in the town of Jaljulia. The mosque is in use today, and entry is permitted only in modest dress. Between the mosque and the cliff is an ancient Muslim cemetery, which is an antiquities site, containing the tombstone of Sheikh Mansour and a number of neglected shaft tombs.
The Dinosaur House – quarrying the caves in the sandstone rock created an interesting and mysterious structure. It was named the "Dinosaur House", and Herzliya Municipality has given it the status of a tourist site. The Dinosaur House attracts many curious visitors, and beautifies the shoreline. The upper part of the structure is on the border of Apollonia National Park, but it lies mostly in the area of Herzliya Municipality.
Fortress from time of King David found in Golan Heights
A fortified complex from the time of King David was exposed for the first time in archaeological excavations carried out by IAA in Hispin in the Golan Heights.
The archaeologists consider that the fort was built by the kingdom of Geshur, the ally of King David, in order to control the region.
The excavation was undertaken prior to the construction of a new neighborhood in Hispin, and funded by the Ministry of Housing and Construction and the Golan Regional Council, with the participation of many local residents.
According to Barak Tzin and Enno Bron, excavation directors on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, "The complex we exposed was built at a strategic location on the small hilltop, above the El-Al canyon, overlooking the region, at a spot where it was possible to cross the river."
"The c. 1.5 m wide fort walls, built of large basalt boulders, encompassed the hill. In the excavation, we were astonished to discover a rare and exciting find: a large basalt stone with a schematic engraving of two horned figures with outspread arms. There may also be another object next to them."
It is noteworthy that in 2019, a figure carved on a cultic stone stele was found in the Bethsaida Expedition Project, directed by Dr. Rami Arav of Nebraska University, at Bethsaida just north of the Sea of Galilee.
The stele, depicting a horned figure with outspread arms, was erected next to a raised platform (bama) adjacent to the city gate. This scene was identified by Arav as representing the Moon-God Cult.
The Hispin stone was located on a shelf next to the entrance, and not one, but two figures were depicted on it. According to the archaeologists, "it is possible that a person who saw the impressive Bethsaida stele, decided to create a local copy of the royal stele."
The fortified city of Bethsaida is considered by scholars, to be the capital of the Aramean Kingdom of Geshur, that ruled the central and southern Golan 3,000 years ago. According to the Bible, the kingdom upheld diplomatic and family relations with the House of David; one of David's wives was Maacah, the daughter of Talmi, King of Geshur.
Cities of the Kingdom of Geshur are known along the Sea of Galilee shore, including Tel En Gev, Tel Hadar and Tel Sorag, but sites are hardly known in the Golan. This unique fortified complex raises new research issues on the settlement of the Golan in the Iron Age (eleventh to tenth centuries BCE).
Following this discovery, changes in the development plans will be carried out together with the Ministry of Housing and Construction, in order that the unique fortified complex will not be damaged.
The complex will be developed as an open area along the El-Al river bank, where educational-archaeological activities will be carried out, as part of the cultural heritage and a link with the past.
Lots of take-aways from November 2020, Part I: His Fraudulency
The election was stolen, but as with all expert fraud — it was carefully hidden and covered up. A month won't suffice to find it. Op-ed.
Tags: Voter Fraud Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer Presidency
Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer , Nov 25 , 2020 3:00 PM
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1. It is appearing that Biden (hereinafter "His Fraudulency") will be the next president. Attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell have staged a nice show, but there comes a time to produce the goods. So far, no goods. And even if they present evidence of fraud, it is not evident that they have evinced enough to move sufficient votes from His Fraudulency back to the cemetery where they came from. Only a powerhouse breakthrough that shows massive cheating via the Dominion machines and software will carry the day, and I don't see it.
2A. The election was stolen. Where's my proof? My proof is that the election was stolen. Period. Why? Because. It won't change the results, but there is an old Yiddish proverb (also the title of a Judge Judy book): "Don't micturate on my leg and tell me it's raining."
For two decades I have taught Advanced Torts at two law schools. A tort is a social wrong that, instead of being enforced by the government, gets enforced when a victim successfully sues the tortfeasor (the person who perpetrated the tort). We cover subjects like invasion of privacy, intrusion, right of publicity, false light, defamation, and business torts including fraud. Every term, in my lead-up to our section on fraud, I ask my class whether any of them ever has been defrauded but found himself or herself unable to gather or access the evidence needed to sue. At least 50 percent of my 2,000-plus students over the years have raised their hands: yes.
And then I describe to them two or three situations in which I was defrauded — in the years when I simply was a naïve rabbi believing in every person's inherent goodness — and never got justice. Then I became a pretty good attorney, and it never again has happened.
There was a ton of fraud, but — as with all expert fraud — it gets hidden and covered up. Robert Mueller investigated for two years. John Durham — if there even is such a guy — has been investigating forever. A month is ridiculously inadequate time to investigate 75 million ballots.
2B. I have absolutely no doubt the presidential election was stolen by cheating. It was stolen, inter alia, in these ways:
1. Democrats conned Republicans, state by state, into approving election procedures that were impossible to manage or police. States never before had undertaken massive mail-in balloting of the dimensions and quantity proposed. Democrats knew that state elections commissions would be overrun, utterly incapable of handling the mail tsunami. A chef experimenting with a new recipe does not serve it for the first time at a major banquet before testing it first, very carefully. Thus, for example, there was no human way possible to check each and every signature, for envelopes to match registrars' rolls. Amateurs cannot check signatures. That is why we litigators pay a fortune for handwriting experts to testify when signature verification is essential. What can be more essential to a democratic republic than signature verification?
2. In too many critical states, Republican poll watchers were denied access to overseeing the goings on.
3. Dead people voted. So many that they should be entitled to at least four Congressional representatives and, if the Democrats had their way, to their own state.
4. Ballots were backdated, "cured," and "fixed" in ways that cannot be justified.
5. Ballots were lost and never counted. Just consider the 5,000-plus ballots that kept getting discovered during the Georgia manual recount. "Oh, hey — lookit: we just found another 3,000 uncounted ballots!"
6. Ballots were harvested, often in states that ban harvesting. Even in states that wrongly permit ballot harvesting, many were harvested by ineligible out-of-state volunteers.
7. The Social Media monopolies closed off communication of matters that advantaged Trump and disseminated matters that advantaged His Fraudulency. The ban on news published by the New York Post about the Hunter Biden laptop was only the tip of an iceberg. Millions of Americans were fed controlled news, as Stalin did in the Soviet Union with Izvestia and Pravda, and as Hitler and Goebbels did in Nazi Germany with Der Stuermer.
Twitter, Facebook, and Google are monopolies more dangerous than John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil ever was. These people have an agenda, and they — not Putin — engineered massive election fraud. Yes, they are smart. Much smarter than the Republican senators who question them. They engineered His Fraudulency's election, broke all kinds of rules, and then they "humbly" apologized . . . after the fact, after the damage was done, after it could not be remedied.
That was the game: manipulate voters and, afterwards, apologize. I remember Jack Bauer once saying "It is more blessed to ask forgiveness than to ask permission." But that was a TV show, "24," not a presidential election.
8. For many months in advance of the election, Democrat state legislatures started changing election rules while Republicans were asleep at the wheel. It seems that, no matter how many times Democrat Lucy picks up that football, Republicans fall for it. It all comes back to CNN"s Candy Crowley cheating as a debate moderator and leaving the oh-so-proper Romney like a deer in the headlights. It always happens.
9. Those presidential polls.
10. Incomprehensible percentages of "voter turnout" in just the right precincts needed to turn the election.
11. So much more stuff.
3. Trump's court fight is absolutely worth it, even though Trump seems en route to losing. The American Way, for those of us not operating under a local dictatorship, is to seek justice in the courts when all other avenues for redress are closed. The legal battle already is exposing so many of the above flaws in the voting-by-mail, Dominion, and other aspects of the election.
Many countries among them Israel, outright prohibit mass voting by mail, permitting it only for overseas diplomats, military men and women stationed away from home, hospital and nursing-home patients, and (where applicable) for prisoners.
4. Still, despite all, the GOP blew away the Democrats down ticket. Not a single House Republican incumbent lost an election. Republicans took back two-thirds of the seats they need to regain the House. Just six or seven more flips in 2022, and Pelosi can go back to blow-drying her $13-a-pint ice cream.
Senate seats that were said to be in jeopardy — Susan Collins in Maine, Steve Daines in Montana, Joni Ernst in Iowa, Thom Tillis in North Carolina, John Cornyn in Texas, Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, Mitch McConnell in Kentucky — all were huge and easy wins, typically by spreads of approximately ten points or more.
The false polls wreaked havoc by giving Democrat millionaires and billionaires false hopes of winning unwinnable seats, thus inducing them to pump tens of millions and hundreds of millions they would not have donated if they knew the real numbers underlying voter sentiment. So the phony polls made the non-competitive races "competitive" by motivating money to be pumped in. Even so, the GOP blew them off down ticket, even with major wins in state houses.
5. Paradoxically, the phony polls helped, too. By convincing the Democrats that they would take the Senate and add ten or fifteen more House seats, the polls encouraged them to boast openly that they would end the filibuster, pack the Supreme Court, add Puerto Rico and D.C. as states, and mess with other aspects of the U.S. Constitution. They promised to defund the police, open the borders, and basically to send the whole country to purgatory. And, oh yes, the Green New Deal. As a result, their bold boastfulness terrified many Independents and moderates to take back many of the House seats they just had entrusted to Democrat "moderates" two years earlier.
6. Why didn't the cheating extend down ticket? Several reasons.
First, it takes time to falsify a ballot. It is one thing to fill in one circle. It is another to fill in ten.
Secondly, the polls predicted that the House and Senate seats were handily in Democrat hands, so no point in risking having an entire ballot invalidated when the only office in doubt was the presidency.
Third, the focus was on electing His Fraudulency over Trump, and many such voters had no idea who or what else was on the ballot.
A remarkable number of ballots for His Fraudulency had no other bubbles filled in at all down ticket.
Did I say fraud? What happened this time was a train wreck coming for six months and more. So many of us saw it coming. Trump kept blowing the whistle. The GOP just-plain blew it.
Part !I will be posted on Thursday.
Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer is adjunct professor of law at two prominent Southern California law schools, Senior Rabbinic Fellow at the Coalition for Jewish Values, congregational rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, California, and has held prominent leadership roles in several national rabbinic and other Jewish organizations. He was Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review, clerked for the Hon. Danny J. Boggs in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and served for most of the past decade on the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America. His writings have appeared in The Weekly Standard, National Review, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Jerusalem Post, American Thinker, Frontpage Magazine, and Israel National News. Other writings are collected at www.rabbidov.com .
The Hebrew-Based Judaism And Zionism Of Eliezer Ben Yehuda
Eliezer Ben Yehuda (1858-1922), the "Father of the Modern Hebrew Language," is almost single-handedly responsible for one of the greatest socio-linguistic events in world history: the revival of spoken Hebrew, which for millenia had been used only for Jewish prayer.
He accomplished this task at a time when not a single person conversed in Hebrew as his mother tongue, when the resurrection of a dead language had never occurred in all of human history, and when virtually no one else believed it possible. As one commentator pithily observed, "before Ben Yehuda, Jews could speak Hebrew; after him, they did."
As a founding father of modern Zionism, Ben Yehuda was also a strong advocate of the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination, and he firmly believed that the creation of a Jewish state and the revival of the Hebrew language were inextricably connected. He explained that establishing Hebrew as the Jewish national language was the only way that olim arriving from the four corners of the earth could hope to communicate with each other. An inspiring speaker, he became recognized as an important voice of the Jewish nationalist movement.
Born Eliezer Yitzchak Perelman to an observant Lithuanian family (his father was a Chabad chassid), Ben Yehuda, showing signs of being a child prodigy and already well-versed in Torah and Talmud at age four, was sent to a yeshiva to become a rabbi. However, he later became attracted to the secular world, became a secularist, and completed his secular studies at Russian gymnasium (1877).
Nonetheless, after reading Daniel Deronda (1876), George Eliot's final novel in which the renowned author laid out his passionate call for a homeland for the Jewish people, Ben Yehuda concluded that the European concept of national fulfillment should also be applied to the Jews and he began to plan for both his own aliyah and for the Jewish return to Eretz Yisrael.
He left Russia (1878), first going to Paris to study medicine (at the Sorbonne) so as to become more valuable to the Jewish community in Eretz Yisrael, but he was prevented from completing his studies due to tuberculosis and he left for Eretz Yisrael in 1881, settling in Jerusalem.
Few people know that one of his first projects upon making aliyah was printing the first Hebrew daily wall calendar (1885). He printed every Shabbat page in red, featured Jewish historical events on each page, and changed the date to reflect the number of years that have passed since the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash in Jerusalem (see featured correspondence, below).
Ben Yehuda's plan for the rebirth of Hebrew emphasized spoken Hebrew at home. He and his first wife, Devora, pledged to speak only Hebrew to each other, and they decided to raise their son, Ben-Zion, as the first all-Hebrew speaking child in modern history. His fanaticism in this regard was such that when his wife was dying from tuberculosis and, in desperation, he smuggled his Russian-speaking mother in to help the family, he refused to let her speak so much as a word to his children.
When the Jewish public in Eretz Yisrael learned about his "extremism" in refusing to let his son even hear other languages, many believed that Ben-Zion would grow up to be a "disabled idiot." Even famed Hebrew poets Yehuda Leib Gordon and Moshe Lilienblum believed that Hebrew would never again become a spoken language, and no less a personage than Herzl declared, after a meeting with Ben Yehuda, that the idea of Hebrew as the Jewish national tongue was "ridiculous."
Ben Yehuda at work on his Dictionary.
With a Hebrew-speaking child to raise, Ben Yehuda needed to find appropriate Hebrew words for the mundane things of everyday 19th century life; in fact, much of the inspiration for many of his "everyday" words came when his Hebrew-speaking young son would point to objects and ask, "Mah zeh? – What's that?"
He further appreciated that for modern Hebrew to become a truly functional language, it had to meet the needs of educated Jews and that there had to be a Hebrew vocabulary that included academic and scientific expression. Accordingly, he coined many hundreds of new words, thus facilitating both the development of modern Hebrew vocabulary and the naturalness of Hebrew expression.
Sadly, Ben Yehuda's greatest and most vociferous opponents were the charedim who knew Hebrew best from their intense Biblical and Talmudic studies and were perhaps the best candidates to adopt Hebrew as a native language. They believed that it was sacrilegious to use lashon hakodesh (the holy tongue) for everyday mundane purposes.
In contrast, the religious Zionists agreed that Zionism and Hebrew are inseparable and quickly adopted teaching Hebrew in their yeshivot. To facilitate the ability of their teachers to teach in Hebrew, Ben Yehuda initiated the idea of teaching Hebrew using Hebrew ("Ivrit b'Ivrit") and wrote several Hebrew textbooks for teaching secular subjects.
Ben Yehuda determined that the best way to disseminate his plan for the Jewish nation to communicate in Hebrew was through a newspaper – even though there was not yet any Hebrew word for "newspaper" (or "printer," "subscriber," and the like). Accordingly, in 1884, he founded Hatvzi, his own weekly newspaper, and commenced printing a list of a few new Hebrew words in each issue. By the end of the 19th century, virtually every Jew in Eretz Yisrael could read and understand a Hebrew newspaper with little difficulty.
Hatvzi, however, generated great controversy as the result of the "Shemittah Affair." A substitute editor ran an article urging farmers in Eretz Yisrael to obey the Biblical command to let the land lie fallow every seventh year, leading enraged farmers to argue that this would mean the end of the Jewish settlements, which were already struggling to eke out the first crops in two millennia from the infertile soil of Eretz Yisrael. Ben Yehuda sided with the farmers and published a renunciation of the article, arguing that the survival of the Jewish people and the establishment of Jewish settlements was more important, at least for now, than the laws of shemittah.
Not surprisingly, this move earned him even greater enmity from the charedim, whom he characterized as "zealots." Ashkenazic rabbinic leaders pronounced a general ban on reading his newspaper, referred to him as a pagan and "the great heretic," and pronounced writs of excommunication against him in their synagogues. However, through the support of less zealous Sephardic Jews, he was able to continue to print and disseminate his newspaper.
Ben Yehuda, though a secular Jew, had believed that the major obstacle to his goal of unifying all Jews through Hebrew was the separation – indeed, the alienation – of the charedi community from general society. Accordingly, to promote the unity of the Jewish people, he and his wife had become strictly observant, with him donning religious garb and growing out his beard and peyot and his wife covering her hair.
After the Shemittah Affair, however, he decided that outreach to the charedi community was futile and he abandoned any pretense of observance, thereby providing further ammunition for his charedi opponents to use against him.
Moreover, he began to publish articles demanding that charedi rabbis provide detailed accounts of all donations received and that, rather than continuing to live off the charity of others, they use the money to buy land for their yeshiva students to build homes and farms. He became extreme in his anti-religious outlook, even going so far as to officially register as "a national Jew without religion."
The unsurprising result was even more bans and excommunication orders, the creation of a permanent rift between Ben Yehuda and the charedi community, and a material deterioration of his already challenged finances. Even when Devora got a much-needed position teaching Hebrew at one of Baron Rothschild's Alliance schools, she was summarily dismissed when the charedi leadership threatened to impose a general ban on the school.
The hatred for Ben Yehuda in zealot circles was such that plans were hatched to murder him; in fact, he barely escaped with his life during an attack on him in the Old City of Jerusalem. The charedim misrepresented his articles so as to incite the Turkish authorities against him, which resulted in a charge of sedition that carried a possible death sentence (he was ultimately sentenced to one year in prison). They even went so far as to attempt to physically block his wife's burial on the Mount of Olives and to celebrate his death as the Lord's righteous revenge on a great sinner.
In this correspondence from Jerusalem dated 27 Elul 1897, Ben Yehuda writes to Gershom Bader that the charedim and anti-Zionist zealots are, sadly, more dangerous that "our Gentile enemies:"
It interests me very much to know the reason for the estrangement between the "Zionists" and many other people who also seem to be warm and loyal Chovevei Tzion (lovers of Zion). Truly, it disturbs me greatly that besides the battle against our Gentile enemies, we are required to fight against our zealot enemies, who are more dangerous than the former.
Gershom Bader (1868-1953) – an important Eastern European Haskalah figure, political commentator, author, playwright, editor, and Hebrew, Yiddish, German, and Polish journalist – was an enthusiastic supporter of Chibat Tzion and sharply critical of the pro-chassidic and conservative policies of the charedi community, sharing with Ben Yehuda a mutual disdain for the anti-Zionist charedi "zealots."
Ben Yehuda's financial salvation ultimately came in the form of an angel: the Nadiv Hayadua ("the Well-Known Benefactor") Baron Edmond de Rothschild who, though deeply skeptical that Hebrew would ever again become a widely spoken language – and who actually forbade teaching Hebrew in his schools in Eretz Yisrael – nonetheless admired Ben Yehuda's work and dedication. It was this support, and ambitious fundraising work by his wife, that enabled the poverty-stricken Ben Yehuda to continue to publish Hatzvi and to devote himself to working on his dictionary.
Ben Yehuda's singular literary contribution may well be his dictionary – for which, ironically, no Hebrew word existed. His main source of income was from subscriptions to Hatzvi, but that proved inadequate, not only for the development and sale of his dictionary, but even to provide for his family, so he had to rely on financial support from others.
July 13, 1939 invitation to a party at Hemda Ben Yehuda's home to celebrate the transfer of Ben Yehuda's Thesaurus from Germany to Eretz Yisrael.
Turning himself into a scientific lexicographer, he was determined that each word would have its roots in Biblical sources to the greatest possible extent. However, in many cases, there were no analogs, so he had to create new words from whole cloth.
He compiled his dictionary using strict philological rules, and the results of his arduous labor was his 17-volume A Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew, which was carried forward by his second wife, Hemda (his first wife's sister), after his death and was not completed until 1958.
Exhibited here is probably the most incredible Ben Yehuda letter I have ever seen, a handwritten correspondence addressed to Nachum Sokolow, then editor of Ha-Tzfira in Jerusalem (1896):
Jerusalem, 20 Shevat 1896,
1,826 years since our exile [in the year 70 C.E.]
In a short while, the first leaves of my great work, "Dictionary of the Hebrew Language," will come out of the printing press and I would be honored to send to you to review this sample and for you to let me know your thoughts on it, and if you find, as I hope you will, that it is appropriately worthy and deserving, you will give it positive mention in your beloved newspaper and will rouse the public to support (what is in my opinion) this precious treasure so that I may bring to light this great work which requires considerable funds to print it.
And now, I will ask you to do a great kindness for me and publish the attached advertisement several times in your newspaper. And I believe that for such an announcement, one should pay in full, but right now I am short and cannot act accordingly, and I request kindness from you, and your heart should be certain that I will, at every possible opportunity where I can serve you in any matter, I will do so willingly and with great joy. Alas, were I only financially able to pay for the advertisement and (I am not], G-d forbid, seeking a free gift.
With feelings of boundless grace and respect, I await your thoughts and judgment on my work.
In a P.S., Ben Yehuda adds a request to publish in Ha-Tzfira an advertisement for his newspaper, Hatzvi, to help defeat its major competitor, Ha-Chavatzelet which, he writes, is against Chibat Tzion, the early founding organization promoting aliyah and settlements in Eretz Yisrael.
To assist with his dictionary and to solve various problems of terminology, pronunciation, spelling, and punctuation, Ben Yehuda founded the Va'ad Halashon (Hebrew Language Council, 1890), the forerunner of today's Hebrew Language Academy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, currently the supreme arbiter and authority on approving new Hebrew words and passing on all matters pertaining to the Hebrew language.
The success of his endeavor was impliedly recognized by the British Mandate Authority when, on November 29, 1922 it recognized Hebrew as the official language of the Jews in Eretz Yisrael.
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