Professor Uzzi Ornan has been pitted in a tenacious struggle with the Ministry of the Interior and the Israeli establishment in general for more than six decades. A linguist by training, Ornan is a member of the Academy of the Hebrew Language and a researcher of natural languages at the Hebrew University. Born in Jerusalem, he was banished during the British mandate to Eritrea due to his membership in the Irgun. He returned upon the establishment of Israel. A nonagenarian, he is neither disheartened nor ready to let up in his struggle for a secular identity for the state of Israel.