Hebrew language Christian seminaries. The Torah (the first five books), and most of the rest of the Hebrew Bible, is written in Biblical Hebrew, with much of its present form specifically in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, around the time of the Babylonian captivity. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as "" (), "the Holy Language", since ancient times. The modern English word "Hebrew" is derived from Old French "Ebrau", via Latin from the Greek "Ἑβραῖος" ("Hebraîos") and Aramaic "'ibrāy", all ultimately derived from Biblical Hebrew "Ibri" (), one of several names
Hebrew language "reactionary" since it was associated with Zionism, and the teaching of Hebrew at primary and secondary schools was officially banned by the People's Commissariat for Education as early as 1919, as part of an overall agenda aiming to secularize education (the language itself did not cease to be studied at universities for historical and linguistic purposes). The official ordinance stated that Yiddish, being the spoken language of the Russian Jews, should be treated as their only national language, while Hebrew was to be treated as a foreign language. Hebrew books and periodicals ceased to be published and were seized from