Ben-Zion Ben-Yehuda

Itamar Ben-Avi (Also Ittamar, Hebrew: איתמר בן אב"י‎‎, [itaˈmar ben.aˈvi]; born Ben-Zion Ben-Yehuda, בן-ציון בן-יהודה, [ben.t͡siˈon ben.je.huˈda] on 31 July 1882, died 8 April 1943) was the son of Deborah and Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, and the stepchild of writer Hemda Ben-Yehuda (née Beila Jonas). Eliezer is credited with reviving the Hebrew language; he and Hemda brought up Itamar to be the first native speaker of Hebrew (The first Hebrew child, הילד העברי הראשון / ha-yeled ha-ivri ha-rishon, [a.jeˈled a.ivˈri a.riˈʃon]) in the modern era. Ben-Avi worked as a journalist (starting with his father's newspaper HaZvi), and as a Zionist activist.

Ben-Zion grew up speaking Modern Hebrew with his parents, making him the first native speaker of the Hebrew language in over a thousand years. When he was very young, Itamar 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 three of his siblings from diphtheria (which spread through Jerusalem and killed many children), and the death of his mother Deborah in 1891 from tuberculosis. He and his family were also ostracized from the ultra-orthodox community, due to their usage of Hebrew as a day-to-day language. The religious community saw this as sacrilege because they viewed it as the language of the Torah and prayers, and not for use in "idle chatter."

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