thumb|150px|eliezer ben-yehuda eliezer benâyehuda (&lrm; ; 7 january 1858 â 16 december 1922) was a litvak lexicographer and newspaper editor. he was the driving spirit behind the revival of the hebrew language in the modern era. ==biography== 150px|thumb|ben-yehuda and wife hemda, 1912 eliezer ben-yehuda was born eliezer yitzhak perlman (yiddish ××××¢××¨ ××¦××§ ×¤×¢×¨××××), in luzhki (belarusian ÐÑÐ¶ÐºÑ (luÅ¾ki), polish ÅuÅ¼ki), vilna governorate of the russian empire (now vitebsk oblast, belarus). he attended cheder where he studied hebrew and the bible from the age of three, as was customary among the jews of eastern europe. by the age of twelve, he had read large portions of the torah, mishna, and talmud. his parents hoped he would become a rabbi, and sent him to a yeshiva. there he was exposed to the hebrew of the enlightenment which included some secular writings.young ben yehuda later, he learned french, german, and russian, and was sent to dÃ¼naburg for further education. reading the hebrew language newspaper hashahar, he became acquainted with the early movement of zionism and concluded that the revival of the hebrew language in the land of israel could unite all jews worldwide. upon graduation he went to paris to study at the sorbonne university. among the subjects he studied there were history and politics of the middle east. while he was in paris he met a jew from jerusalem, who spoke hebrew with him. it was this use of hebrew in a spoken form that convinced him that the revival of hebrew as the language of a nation was feasible. ben-yehuda spent four years in paris. in 1881 ben-yehuda immigrated to palestine, then ruled by the ottoman empire, and settled in jerusalem. he found a job teaching at the alliance israelite universelle school. motivated by the surrounding ideals of renovation and rejection of the diaspora lifestyle, benâyehuda set out to develop a new language that could replace yiddish and other regional dialects as a means of everyday communication between jews who made aliyah from various regions of the world. ben-yehuda regarded hebrew and zionism as symbiotic: "the hebrew language can live only if we revive the nation and return it to the fatherland," he wrote. to accomplish the task, ben-yehuda insisted with the committee of the hebrew lang
1858_births 1922_deaths Belarusian_Jews Burials_at_the_Jewish_cemetery_on_the_Mount_of_Olives Hebrew_language Imperial_Russian_Jews Imperial_Russian_emigrants_to_the_Ottoman_Empire Israeli_newspaper_editors Jewish_grammarians Jewish_printing_and_publishing Jews_in_Ottoman_Palestine Lexicographers Orthographers People_from_Vilna_Governorate University_of_Paris_alumni Zionists