Liora R. Halperin, Babel in Zion: Jews, Nationalism, and Language Diversity in Palestine, 1920–1948. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015. 313 pp.

This chapter reviews the book Babel in Zion: Jews, Nationalism, and Language Diversity in Palestine, 1920–1948 (2015), by Liora R. Halperin. In Babel in Zion, Halperin explores the multilingual scene in the Jewish settlement in Palestine (the Yishuv) during the Mandate period. Halperin’s book aims to elucidate “the dynamics of linguistic diversity in a society officially committed to the promotion of a single tongue,” taking into account the fact that Hebrew, despite the proclaimed pro-Hebrew consensus, actually functioned within a complex setting of relationships—not only with a variety of immigrant languages among the Jewish population but also with Arabic and English. Babel in Zion does not assume a dichotomy between ideology and practice, nor does it deal with the attempts to eradicate other languages in order to promote Hebrew. Instead, its focus is on the social reality of multilingualism.