The Wordmaker

At the beginning of the twentieth century, a language war raged in Palestine. The contenders: Yiddish, Russian, French, German, English -- and Hebrew, a language barely spoken for 2000 years. At stake: the national language of the Jewish homeland-in-the-making. The Wordmaker is the dramatic life story of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda who championed the cause of modern Hebrew. He was zealous and stubborn and had one driving passion: breathing life into the ancient biblical tongue. Denounced as a heretic, dismissed as a dreamer, this brilliant man pressed on tirelessly, often at the expense of family and health. - Container.