Itamar Ben-Avi

Itamar Ben-Avi (31 July 1882–1943) (איתמר בן אב"י), born Ben-Zion Ben-Yehuda (בן ציון בן יהודה), was the son of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who revived the Hebrew language and brought up his son to be the first native Hebrew speaker of modern times. Ben-Avi worked as a journalist (starting with his father's newspaper "HaZvi"), and a Zionist activist.

Childhood

When he was very young, he always wanted someone to play with, but his parents did not want him to speak with the other children who spoke different languages. He made friends with a dog, which he called Maher, meaning "fast" in Hebrew. Ben-Zion grew up without any friends, as he was the only child who spoke Hebrew. Growing up, Ben Zion experienced many troubling situations, including the death of many of his siblings by Diphtheria - (which spread through Jerusalem and killed many children), and the death of his mother. He and his family were also ostracized from the Haredi community, due to their usage of Hebrew as a day to day language, which the religious community saw as sacrilege, because they viewed Hebrew as the language of the Torah and prayers, and not for use as "idle chatter." After his mother's death, Ben-Yehudah, his father, took his late wife's sister for a wife, so that Ben-Yehudah's step mother was also his aunt.

Later life

At the age of 19, Ben Zion left Jaffa port, and set sail for Europe, where he studied at University in Paris and Berlin. He returned to Palestine as a journalist, and published many successful newspapers. Ben-Zion was also an ardent Zionist, and often took many roles in supporting and spreading the idea of the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine. He died in 1943, 5 years before the establishment of Israel. He had 2 children.

He changed his name after his mother's death, as that was the name his parents originally intended to give him. "Itamar" derives from the Hebrew root t-m-r, meaning date or palm tree, as a symbol of Zionism. "Avi" is an acronym for Eliezer Ben Yehuda (as pronounced in Hebrew); it also means "my father" in Hebrew.