February 22, 1914
An important moment in Israel’s nation-building comes as the Kuratorium (board of trustees) of the Technikum, then under construction in Haifa, reverses its decision of October 1913 and decides that Hebrew, not German, will be the language of instruction.
Jewish intellectuals, especially secular ones, began efforts to revive Hebrew as a spoken language in the mid-19th century. Peretz Smolenskin (1842-1885) said, “We have neither monuments nor a country at present. Only one relic still remains from the ruins of our ancient glory, the Hebrew language. Those, therefore, who discarded the Hebrew tongue betray the Hebrew nation and are traitors both to their race and their religion.” (Raisin, Jacob S., The Haskalah Movement in Russia, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1913, p. 264)
In 1880, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, then living in Paris, published an article calling for the use of Hebrew in educational institutions in Jerusalem. The following year, he moved to Jerusalem and devoted himself and his family to speaking only Hebrew in their household. In 1890 he founded the Va’ad ha-Lashon, the forerunner to the Academy of Hebrew Language, Israel’s primary authority on the Hebrew language and the adoption of new words. Hebrew spread from a few families using the language to more and more organizations adopting the language for official use at their meetings. Poets and writers in Europe and Palestine began writing more in Hebrew. Many schools established in the late 19th century adopted Hebrew as their language of instruction.
In 1901, a German Jewish aid organization, Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden (Aid Association of German Jews, known in the Land of Israel as Ezra), was established. Among its activities was the creation of a network of schools in Palestine, including a teacher training institute. At first these schools were devoted to instruction in Hebrew because “a single language as the medium of instruction is necessary as the basis of instruction. And that language is Hebrew. Hebrew, be it understood, is no longer a dead language in Jerusalem” (from a March 29, 1908, report of the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden, quoted in The Struggle for the Hebrew Language in Palestine by the Actions Committee of the Zionist Organization, 1914, p. 12). Despite this proclamation, within a few years Hebrew had been pushed to the background in favor of German in the Hilfsverein schools, especially those above kindergarten.
At the same time that the language of instruction in primary and high schools was being debated in the Yishuv, plans were developing for a Jewish technical college in Haifa. Jews from Europe and America donated money, and the cornerstone of the institution was laid in 1912. No decision was made about the language of instruction.
On October 26, 1913, the Kuratorium met in Berlin to decide on the language of instruction. The leaders of the Hilfsverein successfully pushed for German, and only three votes were cast for Hebrew. The decision sparked a language war that resulted in many debates and student strikes throughout the Yishuv. Ahad Ha’am, Dr. Schmarja Levin and Dr. Yehiel Tschlenow resigned from the Kuratorium in protest. Many new Hebrew schools were established, and many students left the Hilfsverein schools and enrolled in the new institutions. American supporters of the Technikum stressed their belief that Hebrew should be the language of instruction, and Russian representatives in December expressed opposition to the decision from two months earlier.
Fearing a loss of financial and popular support, the Kuratorium reverses its language decision in the February 22 meeting and changes the name of the institution from the German Technikum to the Hebrew Technion. The school opens in 1924.
