LEARNING HEBREW IN MELTING-POT-LAND by Bobbie Ann Cole

 

Did you know that the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls coincided exactly with the United Nations vote to create a sovereign State of Israel— November 30, 1947? More than 90% of the scrolls that have been discovered, comprising of secular documents and everyday invoices as well as holy writings, are in Hebrew.

THEY ALWAYS SPOKE HEBREW

This confirms that Hebrew was the language of the Holy Land in Jesus’ time.

It became the official first language of Israel on Independence Day, May 14, 1948.

Immigrants from Morocco, Russia, France, Spanish-speaking countries, Ethiopia and all over the world need to learn it: they receive free training.

I am a linguist, yet I have not found Hebrew to be a walk in the park by any means. Apart from the obvious different alephbet, written back-to-front (i.e. right-to-left) and without vowels, it is a semitic language more closely related to Arabic than to any European language.

BEAUTIFUL AND ECONOMICAL

I find it beautiful and economical but almost every word has to be committed to memory. It is unlikely to be related to any I know.

Example: מדבר – (MDBR) this could be medaber – I speak (masculine singular) or midbar – desert.

Likewise, the grammar, though elegant, is far from obvious.

Example: אני בבית מלון – (ani b’bait mahlon) I am at a hotel. They don’t bother with the verb ‘to be’ so the ‘am’ is understood. They attach the ‘at’ -  ב – to the noun. That don't bother with the 'a'. And the hotel – ‘bait mahlon’ or ‘house of hotel’ is not connected to any expression I might be familiar with in English, French or German.

IT COULD HAVE BEEN YIDDISH

It didn’t always appear that Hebrew would become Israel’s national language. This is largely due to the effort and commitment of Eliezer Ben Yehuda who created the first modern Hebrew dictionary in the late 19^th century.

There was opposition from religious sects who considered Hebrew, the language of Torah, too holy to be casually spoken. One time, Ben Yehuda’s son was heard at play talking to the family dog in Hebrew. Some religious were so outraged that they killed the dog!

Some early immigrants from Eastern Europe considered that the national language of Israel should be Yiddish, a predominantly German dialect. This did not suit the many Sephardi Jews, (of ‘Spanish’ origin).

HAD TO BE HEBREW

Only Hebrew could unite the Jews who had lived in exile in the four corners of the world for almost 2,000 years, since the time of the destruction of Herod’s Temple and the Sack of Jerusalem, (AD 70).

Many Israelis today speak more than one language. You can get by almost everywhere with English. Public transport and road signs are in three languages: Hebrew, Arabic and English.

People also speak the language of the countries they have left behind— Russian and French  currently predominate. 

JEWISH STUDIES MA

Modern Hebrew is a requirement of my Jewish Studies MA at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I had to duck out of classes, however, as the requirements of long hours of online learning, along with homework, prevented me from giving any time to my core modules.

I am pleased to say we are back to live learning after three months of online classes at the start of the war. I hope to be taking Hebrew back up soon. I currently speak like a five-year old. (with the vocab of a 2–3-year-old, actually.)

 

Bobbie Ann Cole is a Christian author, speaker and teacher, currently living and studying in Israel. Keep up with her blog posts and newsletters about her life in the Holy Land by signing up at http://scrollchest.com. You will receive her 5-Minute Testimony, HOW I MET JESUS: “It happened seventeen years ago, in a Jerusalem church where, as a Jew, I thought I wasn’t supposed to be.”