Ilan Stavans’ quest began with a dream featuring a beautiful woman speaking an unfamiliar language. The language was Hebrew, and the dream spurred Stavans to search out Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the man who revived the language at the end of the nineteenth century. In this story of how Hebrew was transformed from a dead language to the living tongue of a modern nation, Stavans raises important questions about the role language plays in Jewish survival — questions that relate to the origins of Israel and the idea of a promised land.

Recorded Sunday, December 14, 2008 at Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies.