From Hebrew Infusion to Acquisition: Unleashing the Power of the Hebrew Language

When Charles Dickens, a somewhat repentant purveyor of antisemitic tropes, opens A Tale of Two Cities with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” he might be describing the contemporary Jewish experience. In every generation, our people confront new opportunities, but also new and historic challenges. Today is no different. With a rise in antisemitism, many young people are choosing to move towards the exit of the Jewish community, and the growing gaps between both Jews of different orientations and between the two largest Jewish communities, Israel and North America, are of critical concern. As more Jews begin to define themselves as “Just Jewish,” “Culturally Jewish,” or consider removing “Jewish” from their identities, we must unlock strategies and interventions that creatively weave both the old and the new in ways that engage, inspire, and connect.

Read the full article by Rabbi Andrew Ergas in the winter 2023 Jewish Educational Leadership, Building the Jewish Experience issue by The Lookstein Center

TalentEducators: Data-Driven Professional Development for Hebrew Teachers

By: Aharoni Carmel and Yael Harari

The statistics for teachers leaving the field are shocking: between 30-50% of teachers in the US resign within the first five years. Research has also indicated that the right professional development and mentoring can reduce this attrition rate significantly. That said, a one-size-fits-all approach to professional development has proven to be highly ineffective.

For this reason, at TalentEducators, after we match and place teachers in new positions, we place emphasis and resources on highly professional and personalized support for each of our newly recruited teachers. To do this, we work with the educational institution as well as the educator to build a comprehensive support plan that includes programs from many wonderful partner organizations that offer professional development. This support plan looks different for different teachers even if they are teaching the same subject – such as Hebrew – at the same school.

In our experience, there are two specific challenges that need to be addressed when supporting new Hebrew teachers in their positions: the skills involved in teaching a second language and the cultural gap that many non-native North Americans experience when teaching in a day school for the first time.

In the past two years, we placed 59 Hebrew teachers in day schools in North America and the UK. These Hebrew teachers have required different support plans depending on the school requirements, and the teacher’s education and experience:

  • Hebrew at the Center bootcamp. Hebrew at the Center offers a three day bootcamp for new Hebrew teachers. In the last two years, 16 of our North American teachers have attended this bootcamp, preparing them for the first days of school.
  • One-on-one mentoring. All of our fellows have individual mentors who meet with them once a week to coach them through pedagogical approaches as well to address on the ground issues. Many of our mentors are independent though some are through organizations such as BetterLesson, JNTP, and Hebrew at the Center.
  • Curriculum support. For schools that follow a specific curriculum, we fund our fellows participation in iTalam, B’shvil HaIvrit, and Ulpan Or professional development sessions during the summer and throughout the year.
  • Graduate degrees. For teachers who are looking for both practical pedagogy as well as academic rigor, we have funded several of our fellows MA degrees as Middlebury College in Teaching Hebrew as a Second Language.
  • Cohort. We bring our Hebrew teachers together as a cohort to share best practices, ask questions, and create a community of new Hebrew teachers. This cohort has been run by Hebrew at the Center in the past and is now run by a TE staff member who is a veteran Hebrew teacher.

In order to measure the efficacy and success of these teachers as well as the support TalentEducators provides them, we conduct surveys twice a year. Our survey results reveal that these educators’ satisfaction in their positions as well as their administrators’ approval rate is higher than that of other new teachers. On a scale of 1-5, the employers rated their satisfaction with their Hebrew teachers’ work at 4.5, as opposed to an approval rate of 3.9 for other new teachers. In addition, all of the Hebrew teachers felt that their mentors positively impacted their teaching, rating the impact as a 4.6 out of 5. More than 80% of these Hebrew teachers are still in their original position (surpassing the average retention rate even amidst the Great Resignation), and the few who have left have either moved to a new location or have been given expanded responsibilities.

During the course of this work, one of the major challenges that we encounter when working with new Hebrew teachers is the reluctance of day schools to hire teachers with little to no teaching experience. The administration worries that the cultural gap combined with inexperience will ultimately lead to failure. In our experience, focusing on potential while creating a comprehensive personalized support plan can lead to greater satisfaction and retention. There is still a significant shortage of teachers, and specifically Hebrew teachers, however, if there is a mindset shift in addition to personalized professional development and mentoring, perhaps we can slowly bridge the gap.

 

Aharoni Carmel is the founding CEO of TalentEducators and a veteran principal of educational institutions both in Israel and the US with over twenty years of experience in the field of education.

Yael Harari is the Chief Operating Officer of TalentEducators and has more than fifteen years of experience in the field of education: as a teacher of literature and language and as a teacher-mentor in American Jewish schools and in Israeli mechinot.

HATC Newsletter: Hitkadmut Workshops, Hebrew Musicals, and More!

 

Our Big Fat Greek Chanukah by Dr. Jeremy Benstein, HATC Senior Advisor

Elections And Politics – Hebrew Style

By Dr. Jeremy Benstein

The Choosing People

Both the Israeli and American publics are going to the polls this month, to take part in that supreme ritual of democracy – elections. The word for “elections” in Hebrew is bechirot, from b-ch-r (בחר), “choose.” We are able to choose our representatives because politically we have zechut bechira (זכות בחירה), “the right to vote.” Some might argue that even more fundamental is the belief in bechira chofshit (בחירה חופשית), “free choice” (or “free will”).

While a mivchar (מבחר) is simply a “range” or “selection,” something nivchar (נבחר) is “chosen” or “select.” For example, the nivcharim (נבחרים) are “those chosen to represent,” for instance in Knesset; and a nivcheret (נבחרת) is an “all-star team” in sports.

In Israel, though, we vote for party lists, not individual candidates. This sounds more fun in English: it’s about parties! Here we have miflagot (מפלגות),“political parties,” from p-l-g (פלג), a root meaning “to divide, split.” The rabbis called the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11) “Dor Hapelaga” (דור הפלגה), “the Generation of Division” (or divisiveness). In its own babbling way, with twenty-some-odd parties (and some are quite odd!) and the likes of Bibi and Benny, Yair and Yvet, Merav and Betzalel (and Ayman and Mansour), Israeli politics is indeed plagued by palganut (פלגנות), “disputes” and “divisions,” “fracas” and “fray.”

Affairs of city and state

But not all election related words are Hebrew in origin. For instance, the word “politics” itself, in Hebrew, politika (פּוֹלִיטִיקָה). Coming from the Greek for city, polis, it refers to running civic affairs. In Hebrew, it can appear in a number of forms: a politician is a politikai (פּוֹלִיטִיקָאִי), and if an issue or organization has become politicized, it has experienced politizatzia (פוליטיזציה). There was even once a political commentary television show called Popolitika (פופּוֹלִיטִיקָה), whose distinctive and very vociferous combination of politics and populism made it very, well, popular.

Another Greek contribution is demokratya (דֵמוֹקרָטִיָה). There is no single Hebrew word that means democracy, though it is usually defined or glossed as shilton ha’am (שלטות העם), “the rule of the people” (as in the Greek roots: demos, “people,” kratos, “rule”). Here, too, we see a variety of forms: there are states which are demokratyot (דמוקרטיות)(plural), and others undergoing demokratizatziya (דמוקרטיזציה).

In elections, the parties struggle for every seat in the Knesset, known as mandatim (מנדטים). This time from the Latin, a mandate is a commission or authorization (from manus and datum, “given over into the hand”), and elegantly expresses the idea of representative democracy – demokratya yitzugit (דמוקרטיה ייצוגית)– that the MKs are there because we sent them there: they are emissaries on our behalf.

Let’s make a (democratic) deal

Sometimes in order to wangle a place on a party list that is considered reali, that is, “realistic,” or likely to get in, a politician will need to wheel and deal, finagle or otherwise coax and cajole his – or her – way there. This may involve a promise of quid-pro-quo arrangements known in Hebrew as dilim (דילים) (“deals”). Though it’s all part of playing the political game, the shadier dilim may be, or become, quite scandalous. These are two more loan words you may be likely to read on the op-ed pages: intrigot (אִינְטרִיגות) and skandalim (סקנדלים). Even though skandal has a lovely Hebrew equivalent – sha’aruryah (שַׁעֲרוּרִיָה) – it has not been completely replaced.

Unite and rule

The ruling coalition of parties who form the government is called – what else?  – the koalitziya (קוֹאָלִיצִיָה). Those not in the koalitziya from the opozitziya (קוֹאָלִיצִיָה), the opposition (whether loyal or not). These are examples of words for which the Hebrew Language Academy has proposed Hebrew equivalents, but which simply have not stuck. Impress your Israeli friends with the words yachdah (יחדה) and negdah  (נגדה) which are the official Hebrew terms for “coalition” and “opposition,” respectively, from y-ch-d (יחד), “together” (see here), and n-g-d (נגד) “against, opposed.”

But despite all this, there’s more Hebrew than not in political palaver. The main ancient political institution that the State of Israel revived with its founding is the Knesset, taking its name from “the Great Assembly” (k-n-s (כנס)– “assemble”) of the first return to Zion from Persian times almost 2500 years ago. For a discussion of “Knesset” and related words, see here.

Going behind the curtain

To insure privacy in the voting process, we go into a booth behind a curtain, which is called a pargod (פַּרגוֹד). Coming into Hebrew from Greek back in Talmudic times, the pargod was a sort of metaphysical partition between humans and the deity, and hearing something from meachorei hapargod (מאחורי נפרגוד), “behind the curtain” (or screen) meant eavesdropping on God, hearing something from the heavenly sphere. More recently (1969-2005), the word began referring to a more theatrical curtain – for example, the Pargod club was an edgy fringe theater and jazz nightclub in Jerusalem.

But the cultic association continues in the voting process. While behind the curtain, we take one of the many slips of paper, representing the different parties, put it into an envelope and slip it into a slot of a big box – which is the kalpi (קַלפֵּי) (or kalfi). Also a Greek term from the rabbinic period, kalpi originally meant an urn for drawing lots, such as the lots to decide the fate of the two goat sacrifices on Yom Kippur. One was to be sacrificed on the altar, the other driven out to a place called Azazel (which has since become an epithet for “hell,” as in “go to…”) – becoming the original “scape-goat”. So, where our forebears removed slips of paper from the kalpi, we put ours in, but perhaps the result – choosing a scapegoat – isn’t all that different…

The some of its parts

Once the process is complete, the votes are tallied, and the mandatim are apportioned. The head of the party with the best chance of creating a coalition (usually the biggest party) will be approached by President Herzog, the nasi (נָשִׂיא) (another Biblical word) to engage in harkavat hamemshalah (הרכבת הממשלה), the process of “forming the government,” literally assembling it, using the same verb as putting together a puzzle.

The classical associations continue, for this is often known in the press as ma’aseh merkavah (מעשי המרכבה), meaning “the act of assembly,” but referencing a Jewish mystical concept meaning something like “the works of the chariot.” This is a theosophical doctrine, also stemming from the rabbinic period, based on Ezekiel’s vision of the divine throne or chariot (Ezekiel 1). Because this is indeed a complex mystical idea, colloquially, it has also come to mean “no easy feat.”

And indeed translating the will of the people (or the range of wills of the range of voters) and coming up with a group of people who can govern the country is exactly that.

Elections And Politics – Hebrew Style

Elections And Politics – Hebrew Style

By Dr. Jeremy Benstein

The Choosing People

Both the Israeli and American publics are going to the polls this month, to take part in that supreme ritual of democracy – elections. The word for “elections” in Hebrew is bechirot, from b-ch-r (בחר), “choose.” We are able to choose our representatives because politically we have zechut bechira (זכות בחירה), “the right to vote.” Some might argue that even more fundamental is the belief in bechira chofshit (בחירה חופשית), “free choice” (or “free will”).

While a mivchar (מבחר) is simply a “range” or “selection,” something nivchar (נבחר) is “chosen” or “select.” For example, the nivcharim (נבחרים) are “those chosen to represent,” for instance in Knesset; and a nivcheret (נבחרת) is an “all-star team” in sports.

In Israel, though, we vote for party lists, not individual candidates. This sounds more fun in English: it’s about parties! Here we have miflagot (מפלגות),“political parties,” from p-l-g (פלג), a root meaning “to divide, split.” The rabbis called the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11) “Dor Hapelaga” (דור הפלגה), “the Generation of Division” (or divisiveness). In its own babbling way, with twenty-some-odd parties (and some are quite odd!) and the likes of Bibi and Benny, Yair and Yvet, Merav and Betzalel (and Ayman and Mansour), Israeli politics is indeed plagued by palganut (פלגנות), “disputes” and “divisions,” “fracas” and “fray.”

Affairs of city and state

But not all election related words are Hebrew in origin. For instance, the word “politics” itself, in Hebrew, politika (פּוֹלִיטִיקָה). Coming from the Greek for city, polis, it refers to running civic affairs. In Hebrew, it can appear in a number of forms: a politician is a politikai (פּוֹלִיטִיקָאִי), and if an issue or organization has become politicized, it has experienced politizatzia (פוליטיזציה). There was even once a political commentary television show called Popolitika (פופּוֹלִיטִיקָה), whose distinctive and very vociferous combination of politics and populism made it very, well, popular.

Another Greek contribution is demokratya (דֵמוֹקרָטִיָה). There is no single Hebrew word that means democracy, though it is usually defined or glossed as shilton ha’am (שלטות העם), “the rule of the people” (as in the Greek roots: demos, “people,” kratos, “rule”). Here, too, we see a variety of forms: there are states which are demokratyot (דמוקרטיות)(plural), and others undergoing demokratizatziya (דמוקרטיזציה).

In elections, the parties struggle for every seat in the Knesset, known as mandatim (מנדטים). This time from the Latin, a mandate is a commission or authorization (from manus and datum, “given over into the hand”), and elegantly expresses the idea of representative democracy – demokratya yitzugit (דמוקרטיה ייצוגית)– that the MKs are there because we sent them there: they are emissaries on our behalf.

Let’s make a (democratic) deal

Sometimes in order to wangle a place on a party list that is considered reali, that is, “realistic,” or likely to get in, a politician will need to wheel and deal, finagle or otherwise coax and cajole his – or her – way there. This may involve a promise of quid-pro-quo arrangements known in Hebrew as dilim (דילים) (“deals”). Though it’s all part of playing the political game, the shadier dilim may be, or become, quite scandalous. These are two more loan words you may be likely to read on the op-ed pages: intrigot (אִינְטרִיגות) and skandalim (סקנדלים). Even though skandal has a lovely Hebrew equivalent – sha’aruryah (שַׁעֲרוּרִיָה) – it has not been completely replaced.

Unite and rule

The ruling coalition of parties who form the government is called – what else?  – the koalitziya (קוֹאָלִיצִיָה). Those not in the koalitziya from the opozitziya (קוֹאָלִיצִיָה), the opposition (whether loyal or not). These are examples of words for which the Hebrew Language Academy has proposed Hebrew equivalents, but which simply have not stuck. Impress your Israeli friends with the words yachdah (יחדה) and negdah  (נגדה) which are the official Hebrew terms for “coalition” and “opposition,” respectively, from y-ch-d (יחד), “together” (see here), and n-g-d (נגד) “against, opposed.”

But despite all this, there’s more Hebrew than not in political palaver. The main ancient political institution that the State of Israel revived with its founding is the Knesset, taking its name from “the Great Assembly” (k-n-s (כנס)– “assemble”) of the first return to Zion from Persian times almost 2500 years ago. For a discussion of “Knesset” and related words, see here.

Going behind the curtain

To insure privacy in the voting process, we go into a booth behind a curtain, which is called a pargod (פַּרגוֹד). Coming into Hebrew from Greek back in Talmudic times, the pargod was a sort of metaphysical partition between humans and the deity, and hearing something from meachorei hapargod (מאחורי נפרגוד), “behind the curtain” (or screen) meant eavesdropping on God, hearing something from the heavenly sphere. More recently (1969-2005), the word began referring to a more theatrical curtain – for example, the Pargod club was an edgy fringe theater and jazz nightclub in Jerusalem.

But the cultic association continues in the voting process. While behind the curtain, we take one of the many slips of paper, representing the different parties, put it into an envelope and slip it into a slot of a big box – which is the kalpi (קַלפֵּי) (or kalfi). Also a Greek term from the rabbinic period, kalpi originally meant an urn for drawing lots, such as the lots to decide the fate of the two goat sacrifices on Yom Kippur. One was to be sacrificed on the altar, the other driven out to a place called Azazel (which has since become an epithet for “hell,” as in “go to…”) – becoming the original “scape-goat”. So, where our forebears removed slips of paper from the kalpi, we put ours in, but perhaps the result – choosing a scapegoat – isn’t all that different…

The some of its parts

Once the process is complete, the votes are tallied, and the mandatim are apportioned. The head of the party with the best chance of creating a coalition (usually the biggest party) will be approached by President Herzog, the nasi (נָשִׂיא) (another Biblical word) to engage in harkavat hamemshalah (הרכבת הממשלה), the process of “forming the government,” literally assembling it, using the same verb as putting together a puzzle.

The classical associations continue, for this is often known in the press as ma’aseh merkavah (מעשי המרכבה), meaning “the act of assembly,” but referencing a Jewish mystical concept meaning something like “the works of the chariot.” This is a theosophical doctrine, also stemming from the rabbinic period, based on Ezekiel’s vision of the divine throne or chariot (Ezekiel 1). Because this is indeed a complex mystical idea, colloquially, it has also come to mean “no easy feat.”

And indeed translating the will of the people (or the range of wills of the range of voters) and coming up with a group of people who can govern the country is exactly that.

HATC Updates: Call for Proposals for Hitkadmut, Denver Jewish Day School Highlight, and More

HATC in the Community
עברית במרכז בקהילה
September 28, 2022

Coffee And Politics, Or: From Cups To Coups

By Dr. Jeremy Benstein, HATC Senior Consultant

The favorite joke of one of my sons, when he was about four years old, went as follows (translated from the original Hebrew): “A man was walking along, fell into a hole, and couldn’t get out. ‘God,’ he prayed, ‘Make a miracle for me!’ God answered: ‘With sugar or without sugar?'”  

Now, in order to get this joke, you have to understand that the word for “miracle” in Hebrew is nes, which also means “instant coffee.” So, if you ask someone to make you a nes, you’re more likely to get a cup of coffee than a miracle. Even from God.  

Nes, by the way, is actually short for nescafe, which though the brand name of a type of coffee made by Nestle, is generic in Israel for “instant coffee.” The correct term for that light brown powder dissolved in hot water (which is hardly divine, by any standard) would be kafeh names, literally “dissolving coffee.” Compared to other types of coffee, this one (pronounced “nah’mess”), indeed involves less mess, and thus is somewhat miraculous.  

Today Israel boasts world-class cafes in most cities and a burgeoning coffee culture, with a plethora of brews to fit every discerning palate. But once nes was one of a mere two types of Israeli coffee.  

The other was a sort of Turkish coffee that, instead of being cooked on the stove, is simply mixed in water like nes. But since it is essentially unbrewed coffee grounds, the miraculous dissolution does not occur. This leaves a thick, black sludge at the bottom of the glass, which looks a lot like mud, or in Hebrew, botz, which became the name for this potent beverage usually served in small glass cups.  

It’s not hard to imagine the chalutzim, Israeli pioneers, after a hearty mug of muddy botz in the morning, going out to drain the swamps — the bitzot, same root — whose black peat looked and probably smelled about the same.  

Miracle or Mud? 

These two types of coffee seemed to define the two poles of Israeli reality: miracle or mud. Roses or thorns, paragon or pariah: a country of extremes. And it’s no accident that these are opposites. For the third type of coffee, which came on the scene a little later, is kafeh hafuch, or simply hafuch, meaning “opposite,” or “reversed.” Or upside-down, or inside-out, or backwards – from the Hebrew word hafuch means all those things. More on that to follow.  

In the case of coffee, though, it means something between a cappuccino and a latte (or café au lait) – a shot of espresso, with a lot of milk, and possibly some ketzef, whipped or steamed milk, depending on your taste. It’s not clear whether this is considered hafuch, backwards or reversed, because the hot milk is poured in first, and only then the coffee (not every barista would agree with that method), or simply because as opposed to nes, which is a lot of water and a little milk, this is the opposite. (While this coffee is usually not made at home, it is one of the most popular types ordered in cafes.)  

Many claim that this is a unique Israeli blend, but it turns out that in the Netherlands something like this type of coffee exists and is called verkeerd,“incorrect” or “cockeyed,” not unlike hafuch. Who knows? Perhaps it was not only the Turks who influenced Israeli coffee culture, but the Dutch as well.  

A revolutionary word 

The root of the word hafuch is h-f-ch, which may not evoke the same symbolism as do “miracles” and “mud,” but is also central to Israeli culture and history. The very oscillation between the “roses” and the “thorns” is an indication that reality here is very hafachpach, a beautiful word that means “changeable,” “volatile,” or “erratic.” It is in a form that repeats the second syllable (“f” and “p” being alternates of the same medial letter) to make it a descriptor, and almost onomatopoeic at that: one can almost hear the flip-flop.  

Probably the most well-known use of this root was by the legendary newscaster Haim Yavin, who broadcast the results of the election polls in the game-changing vote of 1977 when the Labor Party was ousted and the Likud, under the leadership of Menachem Begin, came to power for the first time in the history of the state.  

To this day, Israel uses paper ballots, and so it can take many hours to get even preliminary results. That year was the first time public opinion surveys were conducted at the polling stations to get an indication of the results before the final count. When Yavin got the news that the polls showed Likud with a significant lead, he summed it up in a word: “Mahapach!,” a reversal, an upset, a sea change.  

In saying this, Yavin meant that this was not nearly a mahapecha, a full-fledged “revolution.” And since it was achieved by democratic means, neither was it a haficha, a coup d’etat. But all of these words from h-f-ch signify different political developments that turn things, well, inside-out, upside-down, or backwards – at least relative to previous regimes or norms.  

Even though the Starbucks chain famously failed in Israel, it seems that the global coffee culture is here to stay. One might say that this trend is not hafich, “reversible.” This form makes the verb “X” mean “X-able,” such as achil “edible”, from aleph-ch-l, “eat,” or kari, “legible,” from k-r-aleph, “read” or dalik, flammable, from d-l-k, “burn.”  

But to someone who would claim that regime change or a bad political decision is irrevocable or irreversible, bilti hafich, we would say: lehefech! “Au contraire!” Hope springs eternal, and we have to believe that there’s still room for some surprising tahapuchot – turnarounds, changes of direction, though at times it may seem like this requires nothing short of a nes.  

The Heat Of Summer – In Hebrew

Dr. Jeremy Benstein, HATC Senior Consultant

In Israel, we take our vacations very seriously. Even a short respite from work or school here is called a chufsha, from the root ch-f-sh, meaning “freedom” or “liberty.” We don’t just vacation, we escape bondage! Even more dramatically, the two-month summer break from school, which we are currently in the thick of, is called hachofesh hagadol – “The Great Freedom.”

We devote most of this chofesh, an alternative word for “vacation,” to finding ways to beat the “heat,” chom. When there’s a heat wave – gal chom – we look for galim, waves of a different sort down at the chof, “beach” (unrelated to the word for vacation).

Jerusalem, the holy city, ‘ir hakodesh, is landlocked and surrounded by hills. But coastal Tel Aviv has many beautiful beaches, making it the preeminent ‘ir shel chol – meaning both “city of sand” but also “secular city” (chol from chullin, means “secular” or “profane,” while another chol means “sand”).

The words for hot and cold have parallel forms. “Hot” is cham, “warm” is chamim and “heating” is chimum. “Cold” is kar, “cool” is karir, and “cooling” is kirur. You may be chilling drinks in the mekarer, the refrigerator. But when you drink them, please go easy on the environment, and don’t use cups made of that light-cooling stuff – kal, light, fluffy + kar, cold = kalkar, “styrofoam.”

Struggling to find time for a drink? Maybe the kids would enjoy some time at camp. There are two words for camp in Israel. “Overnight camp” – often organized by a youth movement – is a machaneh, also the word for a military encampment.

The root, ch-n-h, also gives us the contemporary word for ‘park’ – not the type where you would go camping, but what you do with your car, lehachnot, “to park,” and chanayah, “parking.” And what do you call going camping in Hebrew? La’asot kemping, of course. Go figure.

The other word for “camp,” usually used for the day camp variety, is kaytana. Since day camp is usually for small children, I used to assume the word had something to do with katan, “small.” But it turns out it’s from the Aramaic word for “summer,” kayta – kayitz in Hebrew – which also gives us kayit, a “recreational holiday.”

If you can’t ship your kids off to camp, you can all go for a dip at the pool. A pool is a bereicha, and while there probably is no linguistic connection, you may feel that on these long days in this ‘Great Freedom,’ the chofesh hagadol, there is no greater blessing, beracha, than that.

Can Computers Invent New Hebrew Words? AI meets the Akademiya, or: “Eliezer Bot Yehudah”

By Dr. Jeremy Benstein, HATC Senior Consultant

Like France and Spain, Israel has a national institution to guide language policy: the Academy of the Hebrew Language – האקדמיה ללשון העברית. One of the tasks it is charged with is coming up with good Hebrew equivalents for foreign words that have made their way into Israeli Hebrew from English or other tongues – known as lo’azit, all languages that are not Hebrew. For this task they have a special committee, composed of members of the Academy, along with representative writers, teachers and other language mavens. They also have started asking the public what they think about new ideas and suggestions for Hebrew neologisms (new words, coinages).

Indeed, in the end it is the public that will decide the fate of a new word, and sometimes it’s hard to predict what will catch on, and what will die an ignominious death of neglect. For instance, no Israeli would ever say kompyuter, since the universally accepted (Academy-coined) word is machshev (from the root ch-sh-v, meaning both think and compute). However, the Academy’s attempt at creating a Hebrew equivalent for telefon in sach-rachok (from words meaning ‘speak at a distance’) failed completely, and t-l-f-n has been accepted as a “Hebrew root,” and a person can even metalfen (call) someone else, though of course now that’s mostly on the nayad (portable), sometimes still called the cellulari.

This important mission of adapting the language to changing realities and needs has been basic since the beginning of bringing Hebrew back as a spoken language. (Actually, even before, since Hebrew in antiquity and the medieval eras also needed new words and concepts to deal with foreign novelties and changing times). One of Eliezer Ben Yehudah’s central tasks in his journalistic and lexicographical work was indeed to enrich the contemporary vocabulary – either with “repurposed” words from the sources, or with new coinages based on earlier roots, or borrowings from the closely related language of Arabic.

Neologizing, or creating a new Hebrew word requires several different skill sets and knowledge bases. A thorough grounding in general linguistics and the structure of the Hebrew language is essential. Familiarity with the different historical strata and classic texts of the language is up there too, but so is imagination and creativity, as well as a common touch, a more emotional intelligence about how words function in society, and what will actually “work.”

Given that, could this complex task be entrusted to a computer? Even with the amazing progress that machine learning and artificial intelligence have demonstrated recently (in everything from self-driving cars, to chat-bots that are almost human), could they acquire and apply the various skills necessary to come up with new Hebrew words?

The answer seems to be yes. Hebrew University computer science students Moran Mizrahi and Stav Yardeni Seelig (under the direction of Prof. Dafna Shahaf) undertook to design a program that can suggest neologisms that are at least as likely and potentially attractive as what the Academy serves up. This brief description is based on their work (see below for reference).

What did they do? They designed a process whereby they take an original English word, tease out its semantic components, translate those components into Hebrew, identify the equivalent roots, run those through a generator with the relevant mishkalim, the nominal or verbal forms that the roots are expressed in, and voilá – out comes a (potential) new word. One example they go into in depth is the word palette (a board artists use to mix colors). Israelis generally say paleta, though there does exist a rarely-used Academy-coined word p’techa (from a Talmudic root p-t-ch that meant “to mix”). The word palette connects to: color (צבע), mix (ערבב, ערבל), and board (לוח, קרש). There are several possible mishkalim, but the most relevant is maf’ela, which can be used for tools. So out comes matzbe’ah, and also ma’arbelah. The generator also will make up compound words – such as luach tzeva, a color board –  and even “portmanteau words,” mushing two words into one, like kaduregel for “football” (kadur + regel) or ramzor for “traffic light” (remez + or). In this case the result was irbuluach, “a mixing board.” They then submit the ideas to a rating process done by actual humans, who grade each idea on three scales: suitability (as a Hebrew translation of the original idea); likability, and creativity.

Some words their generator came up with rated quite highly. For instance, Israelis use the word kapkeyk (ie cupcake) even though there is a “proper” word that has been proposed – עוגונית, oogonit, a diminutive of ‘ooga, “cake.” Their suggestion? גביעוגה, gevi’oogah, combining a word for cup gevi’a with cake, which may be a better proposal than the experts. And occasionally they come up with a whole list of possibilities. You’d think that an argumentative culture like Israel has a good word for debate, but most Israelis use that – dibeyt. The Academy has proposed ma’amat, from ‘imut, “confrontation.” But that has not been accepted at all. Their program suggests: sichuach (from sicha, conversation), pilmus (from the originally Greek pulmus, polemic or argument), krav diyun (a compound meaning “discussion battle”) and others.

Who knows? Maybe some day we will have a self-driving Academy.

 

Note:

The Hebrew essay Eliezer Bot Yehudah, by Moran Mizrahi and Stav Yardeni Seelig (under the direction of Prof. Dafna Shahaf) of the Hebrew University is a “popular” Hebrew language version of their academic paper, “Coming to Terms: Automatic Formation of Neologisms in Hebrew,” (published in Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2020, pp. 4918–4929). The “bot” can be tried here.

 

INVESTING IN HEBREW: FUNDERS’ PERSPECTIVE

With a background in developmental psycholinguistics and as a Jewish day school parent, I have spent the last 40 years preoccupied with the state of Hebrew teaching and learning, especially in day schools, throughout North America and beyond. Anyone who knows me knows that I am meshuga ledavar, obsessed with Hebrew teaching and learning and unwilling to accept the mediocre results that characterize most of Jewish education when it comes to Hebrew.

Over the past few weeks, I have had the pleasure to discuss their commitment to Hebrew with various funders of Jewish education, all of whom have held leadership roles at Jewish day schools. Our conversations focused on two questions:

  • Why do we believe it is so important to invest in Hebrew?
  • How should we leverage our investment in Hebrew?

WHY HEBREW?

Hebrew is the language of the Jewish people. It is both a link across generations and the language of the State of Israel, the Jewish state. There have been many concerns expressed about the widening gap between Jews in Israel and the Diaspora; Hebrew is viewed as a key element to narrowing that gap and strengthening our connection to each other. In addition, Hebrew not only provides deep and direct access to our heritage, our texts and to meaningful engagement in prayer but has the added benefits associated with learning another language, a language that has personal meaning for all Jews.

According to Sara Bloom, board chair of Hebrew Public: Charter Schools for Global Citizens, “Hebrew creates a deep connection between Jews and non-Jews and Israel.” Evelyn Katz, past chair of Hebrew Academy (RASG) in Boca Raton, called Hebrew “the gateway to our culture and our heritage.” Speaking more than one language broadens our own world to include others. When we think about strengthening the connections between America and Israel, she points out that we can best relate to, understand, and enjoy a country, its people and culture when speaking their language.

David Koschitzky, immediate past chair of the board of trustees of Keren Hayesod, expressed, “For us, the Hebrew language has been a defining part of Jewish culture through the centuries. It would be a shame to lose as an anchor and building block.”

Alisa Doctoroff, chair of the board of the Jim Joseph Foundation, said, “The story of Hebrew is compelling as a story. At one point in history, it was spoken by very few people and now it is the language of a whole country. It is exciting and is the bond between the past, present and future.”

Manette Mayberg, founder of the Jewish Education Innovation Challenge, reflected, “As the language of the Jewish people, Hebrew provides the glue for Jews globally. Without shared language, there is no culture to attach to and ultimately no potential for lasting community.”

It is not possible to extract the deep meanings and wisdom embedded for us in our legacy as the Jewish people without access through Hebrew language.

HOW TO INVEST?

When asked how to most effectively invest in Hebrew education, one strong message is to invest in our educators. The recent CASJE research study of Jewish educators makes it clear that Jewish education will be strengthened when we provide deep, sustained professional development opportunities for our teachers and educational leaders. Al achat kamah vekhamah, all the more so for Hebrew. Even in many of our day schools where students might spend up to 13 years with anywhere from 3 to 5 hours a week in Hebrew class, students are graduating who don’t speak Hebrew or are unable to navigate Jewish texts in the original.

As Manette Mayberg pointed out, it’s crucial to dispel the notion that any Hebrew speaker can teach the language. Investing in organizations like Hebrew at the Center that prioritize training and coaching of Hebrew language professionals and take language transmission seriously, in other words, investing strategically in the human resources that are key to achieving the goals we set for our day school graduates, provides the most value.

In Sara Bloom’s view, the average day school gives very little thought to the outcomes of Hebrew education—whether their kids can navigate a Tanakh or buy a bus ticket. Day school leaders are not necessarily thinking intentionally about these outcomes, and many of the teachers don’t have the sophistication to realize articulated outcomes. She also points out that in order to realize the benefits of truly functioning in a language, we need to be encouraging and investing in truly immersive Hebrew learning as opposed to other pedagogic frameworks.

As parents, board members and funders, we can play a key role in calling attention to this deficiency by engaging our school leaders to focus more on their Hebrew programs and to set higher expectations. For example, the Koschitzky family ties its funding of Jewish education to requirements that schools include a certain amount of Hebrew, Tanakh and Israel education as part of the curriculum.

It is important not only that these elements are viewed as essential elements of a Jewish education but that they are coupled with an investment in assessment. There are effective tools available to language educators to help them set clear goals, measure student proficiency and adjust the teaching to ensure that students continue to progress. This is an essential element of effective education that holds us as educators accountable and fosters student growth.

If we are truly interested in giving our children a strong start, there are clear benefits to introducing Hebrew at an early age. In addition, we can expand access through the development and use of technological tools, online apps and programs that allow our students to enhance the language learning beyond the classroom.

English might be my mother tongue, but Hebrew is the language of my heart and heritage. It is our responsibility to pass this gift on from generation to generation.

In the words of Alisa Doctoroff, “Language has power. Hebrew has power for the Jewish People.”

Click here for the original post at prizmah.org