Israeli Language
The two main languages of the country are Hebrew and Arabic. English is also commonly understood. For Jews living in Israel, Hebrew is the most commonly spoken language. Similarly, for Arabic citizens, Arabic is the household language. Hebrew is the original language of Judaism. It has only been introduced as a common language in the last one hundred years. During the 19th century Zionists contemplated what language should be spoken by the native Russians, Arabs, English, and Spanish. At the time many agreed on German, but there was much debate. When Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, a Polish linguist, moved to Israel he decided that the official language should be resurrected from religious history. Eliezer wrote a new dictionary and came up with new grammatical patterns. Since then, Hebrew has been commonly used throughout Israel.