Father of modern Hebrew Eliezer Ben Yehuda describes how Balkan nationalism drew him to Zionism

Eliezer Ben Yehuda (see “Hebrew Zealot,” Segula 22) wrote this article soon after the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, when the Zionist movement was cresting a wave of optimism. He describes his path to Jewish nationalism, beginning with two teachers: the dean of the Plonsk yeshiva, who introduced him to secular literature, and a tutor who prepared him for university and gave him his first glimpse of subversive politics. Both interests distanced young Ben Yehuda from Judaism, but his devotion to Hebrew kept him reading the early Hebrew Enlightenment periodicals. One such, Ha-shahar (The Dawn), set him wondering: 

My perusal of Ha-Shahar stoked the coals of my affection for the Hebrew language, which had begun to cool under the ashes of nihilism. Only a rare gust of wind was needed to set it aflame. 

That wind suddenly arrived. [It] came from the Balkans, where the Bulgarians had rebelled against the Turks. All over Russia, a great cry arose that it was the Russians’ sacred duty to come to the aid of their “younger brothers,” deliver them from the yoke of the infidel, and restore the Bulgarian nation to its ancient borders. This was the call issuing from all the Russian newspapers. 

I read [them] all thirstily, at first without sensing their connection to me. I saw only that I alone, of all my fellow college students, was following the news from the battlefield, rejoicing over every Russian and Bulgarian victory, and enjoying the articles on the freedom of the Bulgarian nation and its land even more. 

 

From Newspaper to Dream

Once again – “it happened at midnight” [a reference to a refrain sung at the conclusion of the Haggada].

After hours of reading the papers and thinking about the Bulgarians and their future independence, suddenly, like lightning before my eyes, my thoughts flew from the Shipka Pass in the Balkans to the fords of the Jordan in the land of Israel, and an inner voice took me by surprise: “The revival of Israel and its language in the land of the forefathers!”

That was the dream.