JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

She worked as an editor of the Encyclopedia Hebraica and as
a spokeswoman in the Ministry of Labor.
Ben Yehuda’s lifelong devotion to the cause of spoken Hebrew
began a few years after independence. After study both
at home and abroad (art, Hebrew language, linguistics, and
philosophy), she became a freelance editor who mediated between
the spoken Hebrew developed in the Palmaḥ, marked
by humorous slang and linguistic inventiveness, and the elevated,
highly stylized standards then required by Hebrew
belles lettres. Her dedication to this issue resulted in the 1972
publication of Millon Olami le-Ivrit Meduberet (“The World
Dictionary of Hebrew Slang”; a second volume appeared in
1982), a hilariously irreverent book which she co-authored
with another Palmaḥ member, writer, and satirist Dahn *Ben
Amotz (1924–1990).
Traces of this early work can be found in her later
Palmaḥ Trilogy, which consists of Between the Calendars
(1981); Through the Binding Ropes (1985); and When the State
of Israel Broke Out (1991). Unique both stylistically and generically,
the trilogy, which preserves slang and idiomatic Hebrew
of days gone by, is a subversive revision of a major chapter in
the Israeli national narrative. By reducing the myth of a glorious
past to human and at times petty proportions, the Palmaḥ
Trilogy contributed to the “new historical” de-mythologization
of the 1948 War of Independence. At the same time, the trilogy
also coincided with Israeli feminist research of the 1980s
that exposed the gap between the Palmaḥ’s promise of “sexual
equality” and the sexist reality in its ranks. A personal trauma
caused by this fissure emerges as the hidden motivation behind
Ben Yehuda’s narrative and explains the “writer’s block” underlying
the author’s 30-year-long reticence. Ben Yehuda’s other
books include Autobiography in Shir va-Zemer (1990).
Bibliography: Y.S. Feldman, No Room of Their Own: Gender
and Nation in Israeli Women’s Fiction (1989).
[Yael S. Feldman (2nd ed.)]
BEN-YEHUDAH, BARUKH (1894–1990), Israeli educator.
Ben-Yehudah, who was born in Marijampole, Lithuania,
settled in Ereẓ Israel in 1911. During World War I he joined
kevuẓat Deganyah, teaching there and at Rosh Pinnah. He
then studied at the University of Brussels and, after receiving
a degree in mathematics and physics in 1924, returned to
teaching. He became principal of the Herẓlia Gymnasium in
Tel Aviv. In 1927 he helped found the pioneering high school
youth movement Ḥugim (later known as Maḥanot Olim).
He also founded the Teachers’ Council for the Jewish National
Fund. He was director of the education department of
the Va’ad Le’ummi in 1947, and the first director-general of
the Ministry of Education and Culture of the State of Israel
(until 1951). In 1979 he was awarded the Israel Prize for education.
His books include Toledot ha-Ẓiyyonut (“The History
of Zionism,” 1943); Ha-Keren ha-Meḥannekhet: Tenu’at
Morim Lema’an Ẓiyyon u-Ge’ulatah (“The Educating Fund:
The Teachers’ Movement for Zion and its Redemption” 1949,
1952); Ta’amei ha-Mikra le-Vattei Sefer (“Biblical Cantillation
ben yiẒḤak, avraham
for Schools,” 1968); Kol ha-Ḥinnukh ha-Ẓiyyoni (“The Voice
of Zionist Education,” 1955); and Yesodot u-Derakhim (“Fundamentals
and Ways,” 1952). He also wrote on teaching mathematics:
Hora’at ha-Matematikah be-Veit ha-Sefer ha-Tikhon
(“The Teaching of Mathematics in High School,” 2 vols.,
1959–60) and mathematics texts.
[Abraham Aharoni]
BEN YIẒḤAK, AVRAHAM (pen name of Avraham Sonne;
1883–1950), Hebrew poet. Born in Galicia, Ben Yiẓḥak received
a traditional Jewish and secular education, and then studied at
the universities of Vienna and Berlin. From 1913 to the summer
of 1914, he was visiting lecturer in Hebrew literature and
psychology at the Jerusalem Teachers’ Seminary. After a brief
career in the Zionist organization, he served as teacher and
later principal at the Hebrew Pedagogium (Teachers’ Academy)
in Vienna, founded by *H.P. Chajes. After the Nazi Anschluss
of Austria in 1938, he emigrated to Ereẓ Israel and
settled in Jerusalem. Although he published only 11 poems
during his lifetime Ben Yiẓḥak is considered a distinguished
figure in modern Hebrew poetry. Most of his poems appeared
before World War I and immediately attracted attention. His
first poem, “Ḥoref Bahir” (“Bright Winter”) was published in
Ha-Shilo’aḥ in 1908. His last poem, “Ashrei ha-Zore’im ve-Lo
Yikẓoru” (“Happy Are They That Sow But Shall Not Reap”) in
1928, a farewell to his craft, concludes with the words, “And
their everlasting lot shall be silence.” His refusal to publish further
remains a mystery. Later poems were found among his
effects, but others, which he had read to his friends, are lost.
Some of his work has been translated into English and various
European languages. Ben Yiẓḥak wrote according to the
Sephardi pronunciation (the one adopted in Ereẓ Israel) long
before it was adopted by other Hebrew poets, who wrote in the
Ashkenazi accent used by Hebrew-speaking European Jews.
Ben Yiẓḥak’s lyrics, with their terse style and biblical diction,
focus on nature, meditation, and love. Though the form of Ben
Yiẓḥak’s poems is occasionally reminiscent of the Psalms, their
content expresses a modern outlook on life and poetry, and
he is considered by many to be the first truly modern Hebrew
poet. His prose works included anonymous articles in German-Jewish
periodicals and an essay on *Mendele Mokher
Seforim in Der Jude, 3 (1918–19). One of the most scholarly
and sensitive thinkers of his generation, Ben Yiẓḥak’s personal
influence on both Jewish and non-Jewish writers and philosophers
was profound, yet he always declined to publish his obiter
dicta. His collected poems appeared posthumously.
Bibliography: A. Ben Yiẓḥak, Shirim (1957), original poems
with English translation, biography and essay by Benzion Benshalom
Katz; L. Goldberg, Pegishah im Meshorer (1952); S. Burnshaw
et al. (eds.), Modern Hebrew Poem Itself (1965), 50–53. Add. Bibliography:
L. Hakak, Im Arba’ah Meshorerim: Ben Yiẓḥak, Gilboa,
Zach ve-Zamir (1979); L. Goldberg, Pegishot im Meshorer: Al Avraham
Ben Yiẓḥak Sonne (1988); Ḥ. Ḥever, Periḥat ha-Dumiyah: Shirat
Avraham Ben Yiẓḥak (1993); G. Ganiel, Haggut u-Poetikah be-Shirat
Avraham Ben Yiẓḥak (1997).
[Lea Goldberg]
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 389