The Hebrew Language
Betar recognizes Hebrew as the only and eternal language of the Jewish people. In Palestine it
must become the only language in-all phases of life; in the Diaspora it must, at least, be the
language of the Jewish educational system, starting with the kindergarten and ending with high
school (later on perhaps college too, if we shall ever have Jewish universities in the Diaspora). In
the education of every Jewish child it must be the beginning and base of everything. A Jewish
child who is ignorant of Hebrew is not entirely Jewish, even though he or she is a
Betari.
We have the utmost respect for the other languages which are being utilized by our people.
Especially do we appreciate the tremendous role of Yiddish in preserving our national integrity,
the wealth of its literature and press. We also esteem the Ladino of the Sephardim which also
served as an excellent remedy against assimilation. A national language, however, is something
different and by far greater. It cannot be a language which the nation has, in the course of its
history, derived from a strange people and then suited it for its own purposes. Very significant
indeed is the fact that the greatest immortal works of our national genius (the Bible, the Books of
HaLevi and Ibn Gavirol, of Bialik and Shneour), were not created in Aramaic during
antiquity nor in Yiddish in our own times despite the really great role of both languages in our
development. A national language is one which is born simultaneously with a nation and then
accompanies the latter in one form or another throughout its entire life. Such is Hebrew to us.
I hope - being a hopeful man and having unbounded faith in Betar - that there will eventually
arrive a day when Betar will also play an important part in the renaissance movement of our
language: one role which was forgotten by all the groups participating in this revival movement.
I refer to that role which is to safeguard the beautiful tone and pronunciation of Hebrew. Our
language is being revived, but without that marvelously harmonious enunciation which it
apparently possessed was as musical a language as Latin or French. Today, on the other hand,
Hebrew is spoken vulgarly, and the accents are ill-sounding and foreign, even in Eretz Yisrael.
This too is a problem which can be termed "lack of Hadar" - to talk the language in any manner whatsoever and be careless of its beauty. It is sufficient to look over attentively a page of the
Bible with its various notes of pronunciation, in order to understand the love for each letter and
the wealth of nuances that could be found in its spoken Hebrew. I sincerely hope that it will be
fated to the Betar again to renew this forgotten tradition of our national language. And our
national language must again be what it once upon a time was: a poem, a musical masterpiece.