Quote Originally Posted by Eric C. View Post
Maybe there's something I haven't been told o_O
What you might probably have not been told is that the State of Israel had not come out of nowhere. It has history prior to 1948. More specifically, please have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revival_of_the_Hebrew_language and pay some extra attention to the last paragraph. Unfortunately, it does not go into too much detail, but at least you will get the right timeline.