20.04.2026 • 4 Min.

This is the English version of a German episode. For two thousand years, Hebrew was a dead language. No one spoke it as a mother tongue — it survived only in prayer and religious texts. Then one man, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, arrived in Jerusalem in 1881 with an obsession: to bring Hebrew back to life as an everyday language. Today, nine million people speak it as their mother tongue. This episode is about the most remarkable language revival in history and why there's still an institute in Israel inventing new Hebrew words today. Questions, feedback, or topic suggestions: ⁠podcast@elisabeth-krafft.de⁠ Editorial & Production: Elisabeth Krafft Originally published in German as: Warum sprach 2000 Jahre kaum jemand Hebräisch? This episode was translated with the help of AI.