SOURCE: Seidman, Naomi. “A Stormy Divorce: The Sexual Politics of the Hebrew-Yiddish ‘Language War.’” In A Marriage Made in Heaven: The Sexual Politics of Hebrew and Yiddish, pp. 102-31. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.

In the following essay, Seidman explores Eliezer Ben-Yehuda's influence on the polarity of vernacular Hebrew and Yiddish in Europe, aligning the former language with masculinity and the latter with femininity.

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, What a far-out kind of Jew. Words, words, words, words, He concocted in his feverish brain. 

And he had a son, and thus said he: My firstborn shall be called Ben-Yehuda, Itamar From the breast until old age, From circumcision until the grave— He will be a sworn friend to the Hebrew tongue, And a fierce foe of all foreign ones. 

Itamar—became a man, Tall as a palm and handsome, And he spoke the Hebrew tongue. Itamar Ben-Avi, His father's prophecy...