הנסיך הקטן / Ha-nasikh Ha-qatan — in Hebrew.
Hebrew is an ancient Semitic language that served as the liturgical and literary language of the Jewish people for centuries. It was the language of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and was used for religious texts, prayers, and scholarly works during the diaspora. By the time of the Jewish diaspora, following the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Hebrew had largely ceased to be a spoken vernacular. Instead, Jews around the world spoke various local languages, including Aramaic, Yiddish, Ladino, and others, while Hebrew was reserved for religious and scholarly use.
Zionism emerged in the late 19th century as a nationalist movement among Jews, advocating for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the land of Palestine (then part of the Ottoman Empire). This movement was partly a response to widespread anti-Semitism in Europe and the challenges of Jewish assimilation. Leaders of the Zionist movement, many of whom were Ashkenazi Jews from Europe, recognised the need for a unifying national language that could bind Jews from diverse linguistic backgrounds. Hebrew, with its deep historical and religious significance, was seen as the ideal candidate.
Ashkenazi Jews, particularly those from Eastern Europe, were the most prominent demographic in the early Zionist movement. The Ashkenazi Jews are a Jewish ethnic group that historically lived in the Holy Roman Empire and later spread to Eastern Europe, including countries like Poland, Lithuania, Russia, and Germany; but they were actually descendants for the Khazars, a part of Turkic people who converted to Judaism. They spoke Yiddish, a High German-derived language written in the Hebrew alphabet, which became the primary vernacular for many Ashkenazi communities. The migration and illegal occupation of these Khazars-descendant Ashkenazi Jews to Palestine and their choice to revitalise Hebrew language were critical in the language’s revitalisation. The revitalisation of Hebrew was seen as a key component of the “new Jew” that Zionism sought to create. With the establishment of the illegal political entity called Israel in 1948, Hebrew was declared the official language.
In the world, almost all other languages are institutionalised using proper educations and culture development. But Hebrew is currently expanded using genocide and other extreme crimes against humanity in Palestine. It is a real example of the baobab seeds as described at this very book.
