A state deliberately revived Hebrew to forge unified national identity

Evidence

However, Hebrew, unlike Arabic, has not historically been as consistently used as spoken language between Jews. Hebrew, prior to the founding of Israel in 1948, was primarily restricted in some Jewish communities as a holy language for use in prayer and religious ceremonies and for literary purposes (Ben-Rafael, 1994). But with the founding of the state of Israel, Hebrew has evolved into a modern language that is increasingly used by Jews worldwide as a spoken language beyond its historically religious and literary uses (Ben-Rafael, 1994). This has worked to unify Jews both in Israel and around the world and to reinforce a shared religious identity among an ethnically/racially diverse group. Ulpans, or free institutes for learning Hebrew, were initiated soon after the founding of Israel in order to promote a unified national language. By strongly encouraging modern Hebrew language education of new Jewish immigrants to Israel, Israel has purposefully used language to reinforce a common Jewish worldview and identity (Ben-Rafael, 1994). It is a modern example of how language can be used by a large collective group to foster a group identity, increase the ability to share information, and ultimately promote group coordination and dependence. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 903

Categorization

• XREF: Contrast case to the reader’s outgroup-mechanism thread: here language engineering is used by an ingroup on itself (assimilation of new immigrants) rather than to exclude an outgroup — useful contrast for how the same mechanism serves solidarity vs. discrimination.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 903