Reviving a "Dead Language"
Hebrew as an everyday spoken language had lain silent for nearly two thousand years, surviving only in religious scripture. After Israel’s founding, Ben-Gurion and others insisted on reviving it as the common national tongue — Jewish immigrants from dozens of countries speaking dozens of languages were required to learn and use Hebrew together. This is a rare successful case in human history of bringing an ancient language back to life, and became the core of the new nation’s shared identity.