Languages of Israel - Official Status of Languages - Hebrew

Hebrew

The Palestine Mandate articles, issued by the Council of the League of Nations in 1922, and the 1922 Palestine Order in Council were the first in modern times to acknowledge Hebrew as an official language of a political entity. This was a significant achievement for the Zionist movement, which sought to establish Hebrew as the national language of the Jewish people and discouraged the use of other Jewish languages, particularly Yiddish, just like Hebrew replaced Aramaic in ancient times.

The movement for the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language was particularly popular among new Jewish Zionist immigrants who came to Palestine since the 1880s. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (born in the Russian Empire) and his followers created the first Hebrew-speaking schools, newspapers, and other Hebrew-language institutions. As Max Weinreich notes in his book, "History of the Yiddish Language, Volume 1", the "very making of Hebrew into a spoken language derives from the will to separate from the Diaspora". After Ben Yehuda's immigration to Israel, and due to the impetus of the Second Aliyah (1905–1914), Hebrew prevailed as the single official and spoken language of the Jewish community of mandatory Palestine. When the State of Israel was formed in 1948, the government viewed Hebrew as the de facto official language and initiated a melting pot policy, where every immigrant was required to study Hebrew and often to adopt a Hebrew surname. Use of Yiddish, which was the main competitor prior to World War II, was discouraged, and the number of Yiddish speakers declined as the older generations died out. However, Yiddish is still commonly used in Ashkenazi haredi communities worldwide, and is often the first language for the members of such communities.

Today, Hebrew is the official language used in government, commerce, Knesset debates, court sessions, schools, and universities. Hebrew is a required subject in Arabic-speaking schools from the third grade onwards, and a Hebrew exam is an essential part of the matriculation exams for students of Israeli schools.

The state-affiliated Academy of the Hebrew Language, established in 1953 by a Knesset law, is tasked with researching the Hebrew language and offering standardized rules for the use of the language by the state. Although its decisions are supposed to be mandatory, their application varies from government bureau to bureau, while commercial adoption of the Academy’s rules (such as in the print media) is voluntary.