An important part of Jewishness is the Hebrew language. It is the original language of Judaism and the Hebrew Scriptures (what Christians call the “Old” Testament). We read our sacred texts in the ...
English and European words such as alphabet, earth, loco and habitat could come from Hebrew, according to an independent Israeli linguistics researcher who has written a number of unpublished ...
Hebrew vowels make their appearance through ‘nikkud’—a system of 16 different symbols representing 5 basic vowel sounds. These symbols are strategically placed around the letters to guide ...
I'm sure you can think of words that come from Hebrew or Yiddish — religious words like rabbi and torah, food words like bagel and latke, cultural words like chutzpah and verklempt. But there's a very ...
Although yod is the smallest Hebrew letter (similar to the Greek iota ı),** its ancient form was much larger, looking more like yad “hand” (from shoulder to middle finger). It is the most frequent ...
Beyond words, let us first look at word order. Modern Hebrew, as I will mention below again, is shaped after modern English languages. Ego-enlarging as they seem to be, they have the subject come ...
Students ask me: “What does artsot ha-brit, “the United States” have to do with brit, brit (milah), a “circumcision ceremony”? Then they add, jokingly: “Not everybody here is Jewish or circumcised.” ...
The evening of Dec. 10 marks the start of Judaism's eight-night Festival of Lights, Hanukkah. Or is it Chanukah? Hanukka? The confusion over the spelling comes because the name of the holiday is a ...
Jesus’ name in Hebrew was “Yeshua” which translates to English as Joshua. So how did we get the name “Jesus”? And is “Christ” a last name? Watch the episode to find out! Origin of Everything is ...