尽管东欧犹太移民声称自己代表一个在离开两千年后回归家园的土著民族，但事实上，俄罗斯籍人士才是犹太复国主义运动的核心力量。

Although Eastern European Jewish settlers claimed to represent an indigenous people returning to its homeland after 2000 years of absence, in fact Russian nationals formed the hard core of Zionist activism.

这种自我“再本土化”，以及对阿拉伯语和巴勒斯坦阿拉伯地名的模仿，为塑造神话般的新希伯来“萨布拉”人、建构一种全新的犹太身份，付出了巨大的努力。

This self-re-indigenisation and copying from the Arabic language and Palestinian Arab toponyms required a great deal of effort to create the mythological New Hebrew Sabra Man and construct a new Jewish identity.

难怪如此,因为早期的犹太复国主义定居者不仅致力于"发明一片土地和发明一个民族"(Rabkin 2010: 130),还致力于发明一种新的语言和身份。在1948年之后的时期,为了重塑他们自己新的、以希伯来语想象的圣经式身份,犹太复国主义的高层领导人、军队指挥官、圣经考古学家和作家们纷纷将自己的名字从俄语、波兰语和德语改为听起来"正宗"的希伯来式(圣经式)名字。

No wonder, for the early Zionist settlers were intent not only on ‘inventing a Land, and inventing a Nation’ (Rabkin 2010: 130), but also on inventing a new language and identity. Reinventing their own new, Hebrew-imagined biblical identity, the post-1948 period saw top Zionist leaders, army commanders, biblical archaeologists and authors changing their names from Russian, Polish and German to ‘authentic’ Hebrewsounding (biblical) names.

尽管在19世纪后半叶，语言学家和种族理论家将欧洲犹太人“闪米特化”，但事实上，现代希伯来语是20世纪初由阿什肯纳兹犹太复国主义者发明的。它并非作为一种闪米特语言，而是作为一种混合语言：词汇带有欧洲特征，与欧洲文化有着紧密联系。这一文化空间让在巴勒斯坦的犹太复国主义定居点（Yishuv）的新移民感到亲切自在。巴勒斯坦的犹太复国主义定居点（“纯粹的殖民地”：Kimmerling 2003: 22）成为了一种新的流散形式，而这种崭新的、强烈欧洲化的希伯来语，则成为连接旧欧洲文化空间的关键纽带之一。

Despite the Semitisation of European Jews by linguistic and racial theorists in the second half of the 19th century, in fact modern Hebrew was invented by Ashkenazi Zionists in the early 20th century not as a Semitic language, but rather as a hybrid language, with European vocabulary and strong European connections, a cultural space with which new settlers of the Zionist colony (Yishuv) in Palestine felt at home. The Zionist Yishuv (‘pure colony’: Kimmerling 2003: 22) in Palestine became a new form of exile for which a new, strongly European, new Hebrew provided one of the key links to the old European cultural space.

然而,对于早期的欧洲犹太复国主义领袖而言,要在巴勒斯坦建立一个新的"家园"/国家,就需要发明一种新语言、奠定民族神话,并进行某种截然不同的工作——创造一种全新的、世俗的现代阿什肯纳兹希伯来语。许多早期犹太复国主义者称自己为"新希伯来人"而非犹太人,并且,正如我们将在下文看到的那样,他们刻意将原本的意第绪语、俄语、波兰语或德语名字改得更具希伯来味、更像圣经中的名字。一个广为人知的例子是大卫·格律恩(David Grün),他移民巴勒斯坦后最初改名为大卫·格林(David Green),随后又改名为大卫·本-古里安(David Ben-Gurion)。 不过,现代希伯来语的关键发明者和"之父"是埃利泽·本-耶胡达(Eliezer Ben-Yehuda,原名拉撒·佩雷尔曼,Lazar Perelman)(1858–1922)。他成为与政治犹太复国主义的奠基人西奥多·赫茨尔并列的犹太复国主义传奇英雄。作为文化犹太复国主义者,本-耶胡达视"现代希伯来语"与犹太复国主义为共生关系。他在塑造一种植根于被发明出来的"古老意识"的新希伯来集体身份认同方面影响极大。这一身份认同建立在将礼仪希伯来语从休眠(几乎死亡)的语言转变为如今数百万以色列人所使用的新语言的基础之上。如今,本-耶胡达在以色列被尊奉为希伯来语"复兴"与"振兴"的发起者,以及现代犹太复国主义白话的创造者。今天,位于西耶路撒冷市中心的本-耶胡达街(Rehov Ben-Yehuda,Ben-Yehuda Street)便是为纪念这位以色列希伯来语的创造者而命名的。

However, for early European Zionist leaders, to build a new ‘homeland’/ state in Palestine required the invention of a new language and the founding national myths and something altogether different – a new secular modern Ashkenazi Hebrew language. Many early Zionists called themselves ‘New Hebrews’ and not Jews, and, as we shall see below, deliberately changed their European Yiddish, Russian. Polish or German names to sound more Hebraic, more biblical; for a well-known example, David Grün initially became David Green after immigrating to Palestine, and subsequently David Ben-Gurion. However, the key inventor and ‘father’ of modern Hebrew was Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (formerly Lazar Perelman) (1858–1922), who became a legendary hero of Zionism on a par with the founding father of political Zionism, Theodor Herzl. As a cultural Zionist, Ben-Yehuda regarded ‘modern Hebrew’ and Zionism as symbiotic. He was hugely influential in the fashioning of a new Hebrew collective identity rooted in an invented ‘ancient consciousness’. This was based on the transformation of liturgical Hebrew from a dormant (almost dead) language to a new language spoken today by millions of Israelis. Today Ben-Yehuda is revered in Israel as the instigator of the Hebrew language ‘resurrection’ and ‘revival’ and the creator of a modern Zionist vernacular. Today Rehov Ben-Yehuda (Ben-Yehuda Street), in central West Jerusalem, commemorates the creator of Israeli Hebrew.

但本-耶胡达也是现代希伯来语的奠基人,他对该语言的两大神话负有责任。

But Ben-Yehuda was also the founding father of modern Hebrew and he was responsible for its two myths:

希伯来语复兴的神话。

• The myth of Hebrew restoration.

• 现代希伯来语是闪米特语的说法是一个神话。

• The myth that modern Hebrew is a Semitic language.

正如下文所示,现代希伯来语实际上是一门新语言:一种闪含语与欧洲语言的混合体。本-耶胡达本人不仅视自己为现代希伯来语的发明者,也视自己为“犹太民族”的发明者之一。21 他写道:

As we shall see below: modern Hebrew was in reality a new language: a Semito- European hybrid. Ben-Yehuda himself saw himself not only as the inventor of modern Hebrew but also as an inventor of the ‘Jewish people’.21 He wrote:

“犹太人若缺少两样东西，就不会成为一个民族（'am）：”

‘There are two things without which the Jews will not become a people [‘am]:

“这片土地〔ha-aretz，即巴勒斯坦〕和这门语言〔ha-lashon〕。”

the country [ha-aretz; i.e. Palestine] and the language [ha-lashon].’