"Modern Hebrew" is a Zionist invention:
- It was created by Eliezer Yitzhak Perlman, a notorious Zionist and a founder of "Hebrewism", a notion that Hebrew should be the only language that Jews should use, not Aramaic or Yiddish. (As opposed to Yiddishism)
- It is mostly spoken by "Israelis"
- At the time of Hebrew revival, most Jews opposed using holy language for discussing everyday things and preferred Yiddish as a national language of Jewish people
But can a language by itself be Zionist? It is a Zionist invention, it is used by Zionists, but does speaking it make you a Zionist? Should Jews worldwide learn and use Yiddish and Aramaic as a national language instead of "Modern Hebrew"? I mean, "Modern Hebrew" is so artificial, it didn't have curse words at the beginning, so Zionists sweared at Yiddishists in Yiddish!
P.S. Apologies to many smart people here bothering you with my midnight thoughts
it is used by Zionists, but does speaking it make you a Zionist?
Modern Hebrew is no more Zionist in character than Esperanto is Finvenkist. Acting like someone is inherently Zionist on the basis of sy first language is just absolutely unproductive "original sin" type thinking, you absolutely can find L1 Modern Hebrew speakers who have a conscience; on the other hand acting like someone must be Zionist for learning Modern Hebrew as a second language, ignores the fact that there are in fact plenty of very valid reasons to learn Modern Hebrew, reasons that actually led Modern Hebrew to become a mandatory subject in Ghazza's schools in 2012 I believe.
This being said, language absolutely is used as a tool to reproduce settlerism and bourgeois ideology in general, including in the case of Modern Hebrew with Zionism: because the vast majority of fluent and native speakers of Modern Hebrew live in the Zionist Entity, as you pointed out — or rather, the Zionist Entity is the only place in the world where people are actively encouraged to, and not discouraged from, learning Modern Hebrew — the Entity is given an effective monopoly over media produced in Modern Hebrew. This means that anyone with Modern Hebrew as a first language, who wants to consume media in sy first language, has very few choices other than media produced or translated in the Zionist Entity. Such media is practically guaranteed to be under the auspices of the settler bourgeoisie and representative of their ideology.
This is really something I've thought about with regard to languages in general, when reflecting on language dynamics I observe in Norway and Seppoland. A lot more can be said about how languages are used to create identities or oppress others as well, and I really wish I could keep on rambling, but I'm frankly feeling too tired for that.
Should Jews worldwide learn and use Yiddish and Aramaic as a national language instead of "Modern Hebrew"?
Do Jews worldwide really need any one specific national language? There are many different Jewish languages in many different language families, many of these Jewish languages are today endangered, and I personally think that the diversity of Jewish languages is worth preserving. I really don't see why manifold people living all over the world should settle on one specific "national language" on the basis of being part of one specific diaspora.
In my opinion it is a bastardization of multiple languages and is a disgrace to actual hebrew.
Sadly, in Palestine, you are encouraged to learn it. Many such cases of being kidnapped by IOF, with them yelling at you in hebrew and making you admit to things you did not do.
This is a good read: https://electronicintifada.net/content/learning-enemys-language/17661
I hate how Modern Hebrew gets rid of some old Hebrew consonants and swaps them for more European sounding consonants, leading to some letters being pronounced the same.
I would define zionism as taking the Jewish Religion and twisting it into a racial supremacist nationalist project in an attempt to revive a bronze age genocidal kingdom.
In that context modern Hebrew is as zionist as it gets. They took a language that existed only in religious scriptures and turned it into a language they could use to celebrate genocide.
Zionism is all of that, by all means, but I'd rather define Zionism by its causes than its acts: what's the bourgeoisie of a diaspora group to do to consolidate its power and advance its interests in the same manner as the bourgeois dictatorships that surround itself, when the said diaspora group exists as a disparate minority everywhere, with no clear lines to be drawn on a map? — Settler-colonialism, simply put, carried out under the auspices of the major empires and leveraging the persecution and discrimination against the minority group in question, to encourage class collaborationism.
We call this phenomenon "Zionism" when we refer to the particular project that utilizes Jewish aesthetics and tries to recruit among Jews — which is after all the only extant form of this phenomenon, by the quirks of history — but the exact same phenomenon can really show its ugly face among absolutely any stratified diaspora group for which the stars happen to align, and I think this is worth remembering: a bunch of Jews didn't just suddenly decide one day to become genocidal maniacs for no particular reason, there are rather material causes behind everything that's happened.
Not that I'm an expert on the topic, anyways.
So, what are we to do?
the Hebrew language to death?spoiler
Honestly, if it's possible, any Jews of conscience might as well clean house and redefine the language, and to an extent, the culture that surrounds (of course, that will require a change in the economic mode that this culture relies, which should not be settler-colonialism)
After all, if they can bring back Hebrew from the dead, someone can do the former job
Of course, we'll probably encourage other Jewish languages like Ladino, Yiddish, Judeo-Arabiyuh, and so forth, since the Eastern, Iberian, and Germanic Jews are different from each other
I don't think there is much to be done about the language in specific. I think after the collapse of israel it will likely revert to being used primarily in religious settings
Modern Hebrew is essentially a Herzlian invention, with the grammar and other aspects modified to look more European, and according to Jewish tradition Hebrew is a sacred language that is no longer to be employed for casual purposes (otherwise it loses its specialty). The Herzlians threw this rule out the window, probably because it was the only language that all Jews had in common, and now it's become something that many Palestinians associate with their oppressors. It is especially infuriating for anticolonial Jews to see their literary language used as hate speech against the innocent.
Speaking Modern Hebrew does not make anyone a Herzlian, especially if you want to understand what the settlers are saying, but personally I would prefer that it be retired in favor of other Jewish languages and dialects. They could really use the attention. Hebrew should stay a ceremonial and literary language, more or less analogous to Latin.
@AYJANIBRAHIMOV@lemmygrad.ml is a good person to consult on this subject.
