His task had been double. He had first to create
what was practically a new language with which to express all the conceptions and indeed the data which have been added to the knowledge of mankind during the last two thousand years, and this new language he must graft on to the old primeval Hebrew rock (or rather he must make the old rock flower into these modern complexi- ties), and when, having trained himself as a philologist, he had accomplished this gigantic task, he must induce his apathetic, or more often actively hostile, country- men to use the new-old language. Somehow the thing was done. He saw the
" sew Jerusalem with its entertainments, theatrical perform- ances, operas, public speeches, scientific discussions—all in Hebrew. He lived to see Hebrew recognized as the official language of his own country ; the official publication in Hebrew of a Parliamentary White Paper, the insertion of a clause in the terms of the British mandate in Palestine, and a census return according to which 96 percent. of the inhabitants of Palestine declared Hebrew to be their mother-tongue."
Surely the achievement of Eliczer ben Yehudah is one of the most extraordinary in human history.
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