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ated development staff at muqata development labs led by senior developer clint eastwood our beta testers our graphic designers the muqata news staff our news partners at the jewish press internet edition and our fans and readers from around the planet as we enter the 9 days period of mourning the destruction of the jewish temples in jerusalem we pray to merit the rebuilding of the third temple along with the ingathering of the jewish people to our homeland in the land of israel from the rolling hills of the shomron jameel rashid the muqata follow the muqata on twitter wherever i am my blog turns towards eretz yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד posted by jameel the muqata no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest monday february 16 2015 a personal reflection on mk uri orbach z l a personal reflection on mk uri orbach z l by jameel the muqata despite the title above i never met uri orbach personally i read his many books read his children books to my children and laughed with my kids at his clever poems rhymes stories and wit while we smiled at the outstanding illustrations from shay charka who partnered with orbach on many books his books and newspaper articles for adults were witty funny introspective and always brought out a smile so how did i know him so well in addition to his books and articles he co hosted the last word daily radio show on idf radio uri was the right leaning kippa wearing host and opposite him was the left leaning secular irit linor their cheerful daily banter on politics and religion was a breath of fresh air in israel s strident media showing that 2 sides of the spectrum could intelligently disagree on issues of major importance with humor and respect if you wanted to see how israel s diverse mosaic of citizens could get along with each other uri was a great representative for religious zionism he could get his message across without yelling without insulting without making someone feel uncomfortable yet with a kindness and humor that was infectious and left you wanting to hear more i looked through my blog for tidbits about uri from over the years and it brought a smile to my face nor did it surprise me at all that he was on the jury for deciding the great efrat cholent competition in 2011 uri entered politics and represented the bayit yehudi party and his background was a living example of the party raised and educated with the values of religious zionism he attended the nechalim religious high school and then the hesder yeshiva in kiryat shmona a 5 year program of yeshiva studies and idf combat service uri brought a unique value to the knesset of togetherness that rarely exists in israel s spectrum orbach had no bitter political enemies in the knesset and while he had his direction ideology and opinions orbach was a rare common denominator that all could agree upon he was a mentsch a leader and a friend uri was a cabinet member in the current government responsible for senior citizen services and you can still hear his influence in the gently comical ads on the radio advertising improved services for the elderly it is hard to succinctly summarize the life of someone who wrote so much communicated via radio tv internet newspapers social media and touched the lives of so many in israel during his short lifetime of 54 years i hope we can continue his legacy of finding some common ground between us to continue the dream of building the state of israel together may his memory be a blessing follow the muqata on twitter wherever i am my blog turns towards eretz yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד posted by jameel the muqata no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels uri orbach tuesday january 20 2015 herzl s switzerland plan theodore herzl founded the zionist political movement in the late 19th century aimed at creating a safe haven for the jewish people besides israel he considered various options to serve as the jewish national homeland first argentina and then later on uganda herzl thought that the situation was so dire that even temporarily jews would be willing to forego israel as their homeland in doing so however he showed ignorance of the eternal and ongoing bond of jews to the land of israel israel was not just a dream it was and is the core and essence of judaism but herzl also didn t realize how much jews were connected to the hebrew language in his book der judenstaat the jewish state published in 1896 he suggested the switzerland plan it might be suggested that our want of a common current language would present difficulties we cannot converse with one another in hebrew who amongst us has a sufficient acquaintance with hebrew to ask for a railway ticket in that language such a thing cannot be done yet the difficulty is very easily circumvented every man can preserve the language in which his thoughts are at home switzerland affords a conclusive proof of the possibility of a federation of tongues we shall remain in the new country what we now are here and we shall never cease to cherish with sadness the memory of the native land out of which we have been driven we shall give up using those miserable stunted jargons those ghetto languages which we still employ for these were the stealthy tongues of prisoners our national teachers will give due attention to this matter and the language which proves itself to be of greatest utility for general intercourse will be adopted without compulsion as our national tongue our community of race is peculiar and unique for we are bound together only by the faith of our fathers herzl did not realize that the jewish nation is bound both by a common tongue hebrew and by a common land israel but herzl quickly realized his mistake michael berkowitz der judenstaat s hebrew translator wrote in his foreword to the hebrew readers that herzl asked him to erase that section in a later edition of the book he retells the tale when herzl entered the zionist circle and came to know the eastern hovevei zion group their demands and aspirations and the state of their hebrew education he realized that there are among us many readers of hebrew not only of books but also of newspapers and when he gave me permission to translate his book into hebrew he found in this very fact that hebrew readers would read his book proof that this language can and will be rejuvenated as the national language and that it must be the sole dominant language in the jewish state and then he asked me to erase from my translation the entire chapter which talks about the language of the land but for the literary truth i chose to present the book with its original content and format since even the german original didn t change in the newer editions though the author had already changed his mind as to some details כשנכנס לחוג הציוניים והכיר את חובבי ציון המזרחיים דרישותיהם ושאיפותיהם ומצב השכלתם העברית נודע לו כי יש בקרבינו הרבה קוראים לא רק לספרים אלא גם לעתונים יומיים בעברית וכשנתן לי הרשות לתרגם את ספרו לעברית מצא בעובדה זו עצמה שקוראים עברים יקראו את ספרו ראייה כי שפה זו יכולה ועתידה לחדש נעוריה בתור שפה לאומית וצריכה היא להיות השפה השלטת היחידה במדינת היהודים ואז מלא את ידי למחוק בתרגומי את כל הפרק המדבר על אודות שפת הארץ אולם למען האמת הספרותית בחרתי לתת את הספר בתכנו הראשון ובצורתו המקורית יען כי גם המקור האשכנזי לא נשתנה במהדורות החדשות אף על פי שבכמה פרטים נשתנו כבר אז דעתו ומחשבתו של המחבר the details in question were israel as the national homeland and hebrew as the national tongue herzl wrote his book in 1896 more than 15 years after eliezer ben yehuda launched his revival of hebrew but apparently nobody bothered to inform herzl herzl did not realize that jews had been reading newspapers in hebrew even before he was born he did not know that jews met and conversed in hebrew he was completely unaware that hebrew was still living and breathing just as he was unaware that the land of israel was still living and breathing and so berkowitz translated the book including the paragraph about nobody being able to order a train ticket in hebrew in hebrew הן לא נוכל היום לדבר עברית כי מאתנו יש לאל ידו לדרוש פתקא למסעו במסלת הברזל בשפת עבר אבל גם הדבר הזה פשוט הוא מאד it s interesting to note that though the modern words for ticket and train כרטיס and רכבת had already been invented many years previously ticket by yehuda leib gordon and train by eliezer ben yehuda berkowitz used the more antiquated words in fact those new words weren t really needed hebrew was a living lanugage and hebrew speakers and writers could communicate quite well about the most mundane matters even before ben yehuda appeared it is true that we were missing some vocabulary but many newly coined words replaced existing words for example using one word nouns instead of compound nouns though berkowitz preferred to retain the language issue in the hebrew version of der judenstaat he published a letter in the most popular hebrew language newspaper of the time hamagid informing readers that herzl had realized his mistake berkowitz later served as herzl s hebrew language secretary herzl needed to know how the zionist movement was portrayed in the hebrew press and needed somebody to assist him answering all the hebrew letters he received see here for an archive of articles about our history in israel follow the muqata on twitter wherever i am my blog turns towards eretz yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד posted by ora no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels history of israel thursday january 08 2015 what convinced ben yehuda that hebrew could be revived during the past millennium and a half hebrew was used by jews mainly as a literary language and in fact as the sole literary language however jews did use hebrew in speech as well when it was necessary to communicate with other jews linguist chaim rabin points out that since every jewish man had to know hebrew on some level hebrew was the natural candidate for the inter jewish lingua franca the common language as we ll see israel was the one place where hebrew was consistently in use both because israel is the birthplace of hebrew and traditions remained for generations and because israel was the place where jews from all over the world converged and they usually shared only one language hebrew since this use of language was anecdotal all evidence is also anecdotal this article does not intend to be complete there are many more examples from all over of jews speaking hebrew rabbi saadia gaon of the 10th century wrote the first hebrew language dictionary where he explains i ve seen that many jews aren t using our language properly even on its simple level and so of course they aren t familiar with its more difficult words and when they speak they use many words erroneously ראיתי שרבים מבני ישראל אינם בקיאים בצחות לשוננו הפשוטה ועל אחת כמה וכמה במלים הקשות שלה וכאשר הם מדברים הרי מלים רבות בשגיאות the dictionary was written mostly for poets but rav saadia gaon points out that the book it also intended to help jews speak with god wherever they go in their business dealings in the privacy of their homes and to their children שוח ישיחו בו עם אלהינו בצאתם ובבואם ובכל משלח ידם ובחדרי משכבם ואל עולליהם we have a few pieces of anecdotal evidence regarding 10th century jews speaking hebrew in tiberias eli ben yehudah ha nazir a hebrew grammarian writes in his arabic book on the hebrew language i would sit long hours in the town squares of tiberias and its villages listening to the speech of the simple and common folk and studying the language and its foundations and what they pronounced in the hebrew language and the syriac language and its kinds that is the language of the targum and the rest for it is close to the hebrew language aharon ben moshe ben asher a grammarian as well writes that a certain hebrew pronunciation was common in tiberias whether they read from the torah or speak in conversation men women and children jacob mann the great researcher of the cairo genizah wrote that those documents show that hebrew might have been spoken during the 10th 12th centuries and that they supply material for study on hebrew in speech and in writing throughout the centuries both in palestine and in the countries of the diaspora writing about a 12th century woman s letter written in fluent and poetic hebrew he points out that she came from a learned family and that it would not be unusual for her to have possessed a good knowledge of the hebrew language the ability to write personal letters which we can find jews doing throughout the generations shows that jews had the vocabulary and capability to handle a hebrew language conversation if you can write your friend what you did today then theoretically you can also speak to him about it rabbi shlomo parhon a 12th century north african scholar wrote a lexicon in hebrew called mahberet he arukh מחברת הערוך at the time sephardi linguists wrote their books in arabic which meant they were inaccessible to ashkenazi jews rabbi shlomo parhon wanted to introduce ashkenazi jews to the advances of hebrew grammar by the sephardi linguists in the introduction he apologizes for his bad hebrew unlike european jews he says he wasn t very experienced in speaking hebrew because those who live here were not so accustomed to speaking the holy tongue because all the places in muslim lands share the same language and all the visitors who come to them are familiar with their language so that they had no need to use the holy tongue or to be accustomed to it but each of the christian lands has a different language and when visitors come to them they don t understand what they are saying and they had to speak to them in the holy tongue and therefore are more accustomed to it sefer hasidim written in germany in the early 13th century also mentions spoken hebrew in one story an elderly man is asked what he did to deserve such long life he answers because i had guests in my home and they did not understand my language and spoke hebrew to me while i was in the bathhouse and i never spoke hebrew in the bathhouse or toilet also for secular matters even though it s allowed and because i was strict about the sanctity of hebrew i was awarded with long life notice that the man spoke hebrew and could do for both religious and secular matters but refrained from speaking it when he was in the bath or toilet another story describes a jew who was taken captive in a distant land one day a group passed by and the captive identified them as jews as they spoke hebrew amongst themselves sefer hasidim also gives advice to those who don t speak hebrew well if somebody comes to you who doesn t understand hebrew and wants to focus in his prayers or if a woman comes to you tell them to learn the prayers in a language they can understand obviously not everybody could understand or speak hebrew women for example weren t even expected to in that era but most men were expected to pray in hebrew and un...