Hebrew Language Research Articles

ALTERNATIVE ASSESSMENT AS A TOOL FOR IMPARTING HEBREW LEARNING SKILLS

This research explored the role of alternative assessments in highlighting students' language abilities by focusing on their strengths. Through interviews with 20 Hebrew language teachers in the Arab-Bedouin education system in Israel, the study revealed that, unlike traditional assessments, alternative methods were performance-based, student-centered, and emphasized communication over accuracy. Teachers identified authentic tasks as crucial for allowing students to assess their own learning while meeting educational goals. Key criteria for these tasks included reflecting students' interests, connecting to real-life contexts, encouraging creativity, and producing high-quality results.

Language Management in Transnational Multilingual Families: Generation 1.5 Parents in Finland

In today’s globalized world, more children are born to parents who speak two or more languages between them. These families manage complex language dynamics, with diverse language practices influencing communication among family members. The complexity intensifies when multilingual and multicultural parents move with their children to a country with a new majority language, while keeping connections to their original society. In such cases, balancing heritage and host country languages affects both cultural preservation and integration into a new society. Based on semi-structured interviews with seven Generation 1.5 Russian–Hebrew bilingual parents living in Finland, this paper explores their strategies for managing their children’s multilingual development. The study poses two key questions: What are the language management strategies reported by the parents? What are the major challenges these parents face in maintaining heritage Russian and Hebrew languages in Finland? Thematic data analysis using ATLAS.ti software highlights the parents’ persistent commitment to maintaining multilingualism within their families, focusing on preserving existing social connections and fostering new ones for the entire family. The findings reveal key aspects of parental language management, parental involvement and home environments, along with reported challenges, both personal and institutional, in maintaining Hebrew and Russian as heritage languages in Finland. This study offers a new perspective on language management strategies in multilingual families, handling a less-explored language combination. By analyzing individual language management approaches, this study reveals common strategies used to support multilingualism and balance heritage languages with those of a new environment, thereby contributing to discussions on linguistic diversity and multicultural integration in transnational settings.

The Letters of the Geonim as a Source of Epistolary Linguistic Forms in Modern Hebrew

Abstract The writing formulas in official letters in Modern Hebrew are often identical or similar to the formulas revealed in the Geonic letters. This article presents these similar formulas with two purposes in mind: 1) to illustrate the significance of the Interim Period for the formation of Modern Hebrew; 2) to show that the continuity of the use of the Hebrew language throughout history was a major factor that allowed the revival of Modern Hebrew.

The Spoken Hebrew Language A Linguistic Study According to Selected Phonological and Morphological Aspects

The Spoken Hebrew Language A Linguistic Study According to Selected Phonological and Morphological Aspects

Three Early Linguistic Layers in Haredi Hebrew

Abstract A close examination of contemporary Hebrew as spoken by Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, communities in Israel reveals linguistic layers from several historical and cultural contexts. This article looks at elements from three of these layers: Jewish religious literature, the Yiddish language and outdated Israeli Hebrew. An analysis of these elements sheds light on how Haredi Hebrew differs from ‘general’ Israeli Hebrew and how these differences reflect linguistic perceptions and socio-cultural values that distinguish Haredim from the broader Israeli population. In addition to demonstrating the intricate interplay between language and society, analysis offers insight into the dynamic nature of Hebrew language evolution.

Analyzing learner language: the case of the Hebrew Learner Essay Corpus

AbstractWe present the Hebrew Learner Essay Corpus (HELEECS): an annotated corpus of Hebrew language argumentative essays authored by prospective higher-education students. The corpus includes essays by two main populations: (1) essays by native speakers of Hebrew, written as part of the psychometric exam that is used to assess their future success in academic studies; (2) essays by non-native speakers of Hebrew, with three different native languages (Arabic, French, and Russian), that were written as part of a language aptitude test. The corpus is uniformly encoded and stored. The non-native essays were annotated with target hypotheses (i.e., hypothesized intended formulations in standard written Hebrew). The corpus is available for research purposes upon request. We describe the corpus and the error correction and annotation schemes used in its analysis. In addition to introducing this new resource, we discuss the challenges of identifying and analyzing non-native language use. Among these challenges are determining whether the language used in a particular utterance is native-like, and determining the target hypothesis when language use is non-native-like. We propose various ways for dealing with these challenges.

Подільське відділення Російського біблійного товариства: спроба інтеграції в світовий культурно-релігійний простір початку ХІХ ст.

The article’s purpose is to highlight the history of the Podillia branch of the Russian Bible Society (RBS), which extended its activities from Kamianets-Podilskyi not only to Podillia province but also to Bessarabia and Moldova. In the appendix to the article, two documents stating the involvement of the Podilia branch in the international affairs of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) are published. The methodological basis of the article is the principles of historicism, objectivity, complexity and systematicity, as well as the methods of archival heuristics and source studies. The scientific novelty consists in the primary study of the activity of the Podillia branch in the international context, not as a structural unit of the RBS, but as one of the branches of the BFBS. Conclusions. The Podillia branch was one of the most numerous societies and the most powerful in terms of the scope of its activities. It had its own specifics, directly related to the ethnic and religious composition of the population of Podillia. It distributed the majority of the Holy Scriptures in Polish, as well as in Slavic and Hebrew languages since native speakers of these languages were predominant in the region. The branch was in contact not only with the St. Petersburg and Moscow RBS committees, but also with the Polish Bible Society, branches functioning in Belarusian cities, and BFBS missionaries. Receiving reports of other foreign branches of the BFBS, the members of the Podillia branch felt like participants of the worldwide community of Bible fans (Bible Union). A significant role belonged to missionary Robert Pinkerton who supported the Podillia Branch Committee on behalf of BFBS. It was inspired by the successes of the BFBS and its branches in Great Britain, France, Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, Poland and Germany, India, China, Persia, Turkey, African countries and tribes, including Ethiopia, North America, as well as all provinces of the Russian Empire.

“Almost a mother tongue”

Abstract Passage of Israel’s Jewish nationality law in 2018 shined more than usual light on the Druze citizens of Israel. It put into painful question their integration into Israeli society. Key to that integration is Druze mastery of the Jewish State’s official language; hence the question, “How do Israeli Druze learn Hebrew?” The answer is multivariable: pedagogy, gender, bilingualism, technology, religion, conscription, and socialization are all factors. Druze mastery of Hebrew through the IDF is being replaced by formal language education. This is reinforced through growing participation of Druze females in Israeli institutions. Arabic being the maternal tongue of Druze, unlike among the nation’s Jewish majority Hebrew surpasses English as their second language. Increasing use of social/digital media in Hebrew, particularly among the young, reinforces the bilingual identity of Israeli Druze. So do Hebrew language textbooks, which “Israelize” Druze by teaching about Judaism and emphasizing similarities between Jewish and Druze traditions.

Jewish anthropology: the jewish people as an ancestral and native people of the Land of Israel, the jewish people as an indigenous people

This scientific research presents conceptions and intersections about cultural identity, religious or ethnic-religious identity, indigenous identity and Jewish identity. It aimed to identify and describe theoretical currents and international organizations such as the UN (United Nations) on the breadth that the term indigenous brings. The methodology used was the review of anthropological literature with a qualitative-descriptive character, and also exploratory and descriptive through the search for Jewish and indigenous information sources available in international Jewish newspapers and international organizations. The results we reached are that the conception of indigenous terminology encompasses people of various origins and territories, present in practically all continents on planet Earth, and that its core characteristic is the fact that they are people originating from the territories they inhabit, a historical, religious, cultural, linguistic, ethnic-racial connection, among other elements, with the territory from which they originate. The conclusion is that Jews are indigenous peoples, as they have a connection to the Land of Israel from which they were expelled and wandered through different countries throughout the millennia of the Jewish diaspora, they have their own culture that is different from the local hegemonic culture of the diaspora, the scriptures Jewish sacred rites (Tanach and Torah), prayer books (siddur), religious rituals, eating habits, Hebrew language for prayers and other cultural aspects that define the Jew as a native people of the Land of Israel, therefore the Jews are an indigenous people and originating in the Land of Israel.

A Medieval Islamic Astrolabe with Hebrew Inscriptions in Verona

Abstract This article presents a hitherto unknown remarkable astrolabe from Al-Andalus which likely belonged to the collection of Ludovico Moscardo (1611–1681) assembled in Verona in the seventeenth century. The astrolabe is datable to the eleventh century and features added Hebrew and Latin inscriptions. It underwent many modifications, additions, and adaptations as it changed hands and owners over time thus becoming a palimpsest object. With its added translations from Arabic into Hebrew, the astrolabe closely recalls the recommendations prescribed by the Spanish Jewish polymath Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089–1167) in the earliest surviving treatise on the astrolabe in the Hebrew language written in 1146 precisely in Verona. The astrolabe—today preserved in the Fondazione Museo Miniscalchi-Erizzo—stands out as a testimony to the contacts and exchanges among Arabs, Jews and Europeans in the medieval and early modern periods.

Diasporal Jewish school newspapers and children's Hebrew commercial press journey between 19th century to the Israeli establishment

At the end of the 19th century and throughout the first half of the 20th century, the Hebrew press in Jewish schools in Europe and the United States mainly formed part of the social and cultural image of the Jewish communities in the diaspora, and inspired the emergence of a commercial press for children in the Hebrew language. Newspapers developed as platforms for various purposes, mainly as learning Hebrew and personal expression. The newspapers were managed and edited by the school educational staff, and sometimes the students also participated in it. This press was used as an infrastructure for the school press in the Land of Israel in the years before and after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

Hebraic Influences in The Life of Lazario de Termes

The focus of this article is the impact of the Hebrew language with its literature, philosophy, biblical exegesis, and history on the sixteenth century anonymous author of The Life of Lasiloo de Termes. I assumed the task of investigating the Jewish cultural heritage embedded in this work, as my studies in Hebrew Language and Literature could contribute towards a fuller comprehension of this masterpiece. And indeed, in addition to linguistic and biblical associations, I have detected influences that appear inspired by the monumental works of medieval Jewish Spanish theologians and philosopher Crescas, Maimonides and Nahman ides in particular. I invite the reader to share and comment on this analysis.

Student Expectations in Hebrew Teacher Training: On the First Cohort of Palestinian Female Students from East Jerusalem

The study focused on the first cohort of Palestinian female students from East Jerusalem to enroll in a “Hebrew for Arabic speakers” teacher training program at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. This novel curriculum is designed for Hebrew teachers in Arab schools, particularly in East Jerusalem. The research examined the students’ expectations from the curriculum and instructional staff. The study’s main argument was that students’ expectations from the program were impacted by a variety of historical, sociocultural, and political factors specific to the context of Jerusalem, as was their ability to become Hebrew teachers in East Jerusalem schools in accordance with the Israeli curriculum. Analysis according to Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory indicated that students’ expectations pertained to: the development of personal and professional identity; the need for lecture support on academic and occupational issues; command of the Hebrew language as a stimulus for academic, occupational, and social development; integration in the Jerusalem employment market; and social mobility. The findings contribute to the little existing research on Palestinian Jerusalemites’ academic integration by conceptualizing a minority population’s aspirations in Israeli higher education. In this way, they may help policymakers in Israeli academic institutions to develop training programs targeted at specific populations.

ФОРМУВАННЯ СУЧАСНОГО ПРАВОВОГО ТЕРМІНОЛОГІЧНОГО АПАРАТУ В ІВРИТІ: СПОСОБИ ТА ВПЛИВ ІНШИХ ПРАВОВИХ СИСТЕМ

The article is dedicated to the peculiarities of the legal terminology formation, which took place in the process of the restoration of the Hebrew language and its becoming the official state language of the modern Israel. The legal system of Israel has been created during XX century, after near two-thousand-year period of its existence without own state, being limited to the small community’s common and religious law in different languages only. Thus, creation of the own state has demanded not only to adapt the legal institutes, but to develop new actual terminology in the new official state language. But the terminology complex of the Hebrew was based on the ancient language sources, so creation or adapting of the classic Hebrew words for the definition of the modern legal terms became a great scientific challenge. In the article we conclude, that new lexemes were not created in the process of the Israel legal terminology formation, but the old texts words were chosen, usually with some rethinking and reinterpretation of its meanings. This approach provides the possibility to avoid direct borrowing of the terms, which is a typical process in the reception of law in other states. Despite the fact that, in addition to the English Common Law, the formation of Israel’s legal system was influenced by the Ottoman and Romano-Germanic law, concepts from the English legal system were taken as the basis for the selection of many basic terms. The terms creation was not limited to formal denomination only. Often the process becomes more substantive, noticing the etymology, the content of the legal institute and the mechanisms of the practical law-enforcements. After this deep scientific work of the linguists and lawyers Hebrew terminology of the Israel legal system fully expresses the content and the scope of the concepts of the relevant legal institutes.

시간의 시작과 끝을 너머 새로운 지평으로

This paper endeavors to elucidate the semiotic, morphological, and historical observations of some Hebrew vocabularies signifying the commencement and culmination of time and space, in the context of the era of return marked by the widespread dissemination of apocalyptic literature and eschatological worldview. The early period of the return, following the exile, stands as one of the most theologically fertile phases in ancient Israel’s history. During this time, the Hebrew language evolved to become more multilayered and diversified, coinciding with the spread of apocalyptic and eschatological thought.
 Upon scrutinizing such terminology, it becomes evident that ancient Israel, within the purview of apocalyptic eschatology, embraced and assimilated foreign linguistic elements on the one hand, while reinterpreting and infusing distinctive expressions with signification on the other. Some terms like קץand אחרית, for example, signifying the end of time, and ראשית,ראש,קדם, representing the beginning of time, reveal the theological development during this era in multilayered ways. New terminology that crosses the the boundaries of time and space also emerged during the era of return. ‘Island’(אי) signifies Israel’s expansion of awareness beyond geographical limits. Additionally, the loanword סוף, imported Aramaic term, clearly denoted the end of eschatological time, while the Persian loanword פרדס did not yield such meaning. This multifaceted and diversified nature reveals that the documents of ancient Israel were shaped through continuous dialogue and interchange with external influences.

Between Peretz Smolenskin and Ahad Ha’am: The Forgotten Historiography of the Jewish National Movement Hibbat Zion

Abstract When we study the Jewish-national historiography of the last quarter of the 19th century, there is a tendency to pass directly from Smolenskin’s doctrine to the Zionist-cultural approach of Ahad Ha’am and his students, omitting the works written in between. However, even before the emergence of Ahad Ha’am as a cultural icon in the Jewish national movement, some Hibbat Zion activists engaged in Hebrew cultural activities directed at shaping national Jewish consciousness. The main figures in this trend were Saul Pinchas Rabinowitz and Avraham Shalom Friedberg. Their world view was based on education that advocated proto-nationalism: Jewish solidarity, love of the Hebrew language, promoting Hebrew newspapers, and preserving Jewish tradition. To this they added settlement in Eretz Israel as a solution for the harsh conditions of the Jews in Russia. They edited literary and scientific collections in Hebrew and Jewish historiography and wrote historical monographs and biographies. In this way, they sought to introduce national historical protagonists instead of the Hasskala’s pantheon of historical characters to vividly illuminate periods of historical “golden ages” suited to the national ideology and teach the lesson of historical history—that Hibbat Zion is the solution to the plight of Jews and Judaism.

Hebrew offensive language taxonomy and dataset

Abstract This paper introduces a streamlined taxonomy for categorizing offensive language in Hebrew, addressing a gap in the literature that has, until now, largely focused on Indo-European languages. Our taxonomy divides offensive language into seven levels (six explicit and one implicit level). We based our work on the simplified offensive language (SOL) taxonomy introduced in (Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk et al. 2021a) hoping that our adjustment of SOL to the Hebrew language will be capable of reflecting the unique linguistic and cultural nuances of Hebrew. The study involves both linguistic and cultural analysis beyond Natural Language Processing (NLP). We employed manual linguistic analysis to understand the nuances of offensive language in Hebrew. An accompanying dataset, gathered on Twitter and manually curated by human annotators, is described in detail. This dataset was constructed to both validate the taxonomy and serve as a foundation for future research on offensive language detection and analysis in Hebrew. Preliminary analysis of the dataset reveals intriguing patterns and distributions, underscoring the complexity and specificity of offensive expressions in the Hebrew language. The aim of our work is to capture the complexity and specificity of offensive expressions in Hebrew beyond what automated NLP methods alone can provide. Our findings highlight the significance of considering linguistic and cultural variations when researching and correcting abusive language online. We believe that our streamlined taxonomy and associated dataset will be crucial in improving research in Hebrew language sociocultural studies, natural language processing, and offensive language detection. Our study also makes a substantial contribution to the study of low-resource languages and can be used as a model for future research on other languages.

Distance Learning in the Shadow of War: Poetry, songs and digital games in Hebrew as a teaching method and as a content in the Hebrew language textbooks intended for students of an early childhood age in Arab schools strengthen their skills and make Hebrew accessible to them as a second language.

The Iron Swords War between Israel and Hamas Organization, which began on October 7th, 2023, caused sudden changes in the teaching curriculum. The students have had to experience an emergency situation and a state of uncertainty similar to that during the Corona epidemic. The Ministry of Education decided to apply the method of Distance Learning as an emergency teaching method in all towns and villages that are located in risk areas. Distance Learning also gave an opportunity to creative teachers to enhance their students' group learning and individual self-learning by listening to Hebrew poetry and songs, and play digital games that use spoken Hebrew. Teachers applied their innovative methods on early childhood students, who study Hebrew in Arab schools. This study was conducted with a specific purpose: to investigate the effectiveness of listening to poems, songs and digital games on the early childhood Arab students who study Hebrew as a first foreign language through their Distance Learning meetings and self-learning in their free time. The study found that listening to Hebrew poetry, songs and digital games have positive effect on the early childhood students and enriched their vocabulary, improved their grammatical skills, and their state of mind. The contents of poetry, songs and digital games provided the students with positive values of peace, understanding, hope, tolerance and acceptance of the other.

Coleridge in the Pleasure Dome of Hebrew

ABSTRACT Samuel Taylor Coleridge maintained a deep relationship with Hebrew. In this article, I examine the Hebrew infrastructure of his poem “Kubla Khan” (1816) and the translations of this poem into Hebrew in light of Coleridge’s translations from Hebrew. These will serve as keys for a threefold argument. My first goal is to obtain new insights into Coleridge’s poetry and thought through the prisms of Hebrew and translation, especially through the intersection of Kubla’s “pleasure-dome” with the biblical “House of the Forest of Lebanon” and Coleridge’s Hebrew-English mini-lexicon. The second goal is to map the mutual shaping power of English Romanticism and Hebrew Enlightenment through the possibility that Coleridge was influenced by the European Hebrew scholar-poet Solomon Löwisohn (1780–1821). The third goal is to investigate the translations of Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” into Hebrew in view of his choices in translating from Hebrew, his insights on Biblical poetry and the Hebrew language. These three threads, linking the study of language, poetry, translation, and history, open new paths to understanding Coleridge’s work, offer a complex perspective on the relations between European Romanticism and Hebrew Enlightenment, and hint at new possibilities for the prismatic translation of Coleridge’s poetry into Hebrew.

Between Imagination and Exegesis: The Masorah Figurata Illustrations of the Two Menorot in Vatican ebr. 14

Abstract This article will deal with two folios from Ms. Vatican ebr. 14, a Pentateuch (with haftarot and megillot) written by Elijah ben Berekhiah ha-Nakdan in 1239. Both folios display a seven-branched candelabrum (menorah). The one on folio 104r is depicted lying on its side, while the one on folio 155v is standing upright. Both lampstands consist of masoretic material in micrographic script. The article will address both the form and content of the masorah figurata illustrations and relate them to Elijah’s overall pedagogical concept of teaching the Bible with a special emphasis on Hebrew language, grammar, and masorah. In addition, it will address the relationship between biblical text and its visualization, and it will ask whether the concept of peshaṭ exegesis was a necessary tool for visualizing biblical objects.