https://web.archive.org/web/20111018150223/https://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=241523 :

On October 13, 1881, a short time before moving to Palestine, Eliezer Ben Yehuda held what is thought to be the first modern conversation in Hebrew with two friends at a Paris café. That moment became the impetus for Ben Yehuda’s at times tortuous revival of the language, which for centuries had been relegated solely to the written word.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Zionism