Notice announcing the funeral of Itamar Ben Avi, 1947.

A notice announcing the funeral of Itamar Ben Avi ...

Notice announcing the funeral of Itamar Ben Avi, 1947.

A notice announcing the funeral of Itamar Ben Avi (the son of Ben Yehuda) - after his body was brought to Israel, 1947.

48x32cm.

folding lines, minor tears on the upper border and filing holes.

Itamar Ben-Avi (Ben-Zion Ben-Yehuda, 31 July 1882 – 8 April 1943) was the first native speaker of Hebrew in modern times. He was a journalist and Zionist activist.

Itamar Ben-Avi was born as Ben-Zion Ben-Yehuda in Jerusalem on 31 July 1882, the son of Devora (nee Jonas) and Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. Eliezer is credited with reviving the Hebrew language. Itamar was brought up to be the first native speaker of Hebrew in the modern era. At his fathers insistence, Itamar was not permitted to hear any language other than Hebrew at home. 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. His three siblings died in a diphtheria epidemic and his mother died of tuberculosis in 1891. He and his family were 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 as an everyday language.

After his mothers death in 1891, his father married her younger sister, the writer Hemda Ben-Yehuda (nee Beila Jonas), so Itamars aunt became his stepmother. After his mothers death, he changed his name to Itamar, as that was the name his parents originally intended to give him (named after the priest Ithamar). The name Itamar means Island of Dates and derives from the Hebrew word tamar (date or palm tree), which is a symbol of Zionism. As his last name, he used Ben-Avi. Avi is an acronym (as indicated by the use of the character) for Eliezer Ben Yehuda (as written in Hebrew) and also means my father, so Ben-Avi means my fathers son.

At the age of 19, Ben-Avi sailed to Europe and studied at universities in Paris and Berlin. He returned to Palestine in 1908 as a journalist, joining his father in editing and writing Hebrew newspapers.

Ben-Avi married Leah Abushedid (1889-1982), born in Jerusalem to a wealthy Moroccan-Jewish family. Ben-Avi met her when he was 23 and she was 16. Due to his poor financial situation, his Ashkenazi background, and their age difference, Abushedids parents did not approve of their marriage. Hoping to convince her parents, he published poems proclaiming his love for her in HaOr. After three years, when he published a poem about suicide, they relented and permitted the marriage. After two years of negotiating the marriage contract, the couple married in 1914. They had three daughters: Dror-Eilat (1917-1921), Drora (1922-1981), and Rina (1925-2016). Drora and Rina became radio news broadcasters.

In 1919, he founded a Hebrew daily newspaper called Doar HaYom (The Daily Mail), and ran it until 1929. In addition, he was a Zionist activist and officer with Bnei Binyamin and the Jewish National Fund. He served as a Jewish National Fund emissary to various countries. Together with Oved Ben-Ami, he helped raise the funds for the founding of Netanya.

In 1939, as his financial situation deteriorated and in need of a steady income, Ben-Avi left his family for the United States to take up a posting as the Jewish National Fund representative in New York City. He died there in 1943 at the age of 60, five years before the establishment of Israel. His body was brought back to Palestine for burial in 1947, and was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.