Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Hebrew

What do these funny letters say?

crazylegs — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 15:02:05 -0800

Can you read Hebrew? Help me out! I have a book with the publisher and date written in Hebrew, which you can see here. I totally can't read it. Can you?

Read my t-shirt

ditto75 — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 11:19:12 -0800

What does the writing on this T-shirt (in Arabic?) and its tag (in Hebrew?) say? Translations and transliterations please! T-shirt and tag are here.

Close-up of tag here.

Thanks everybody.

Quick Hebrew-to-English translation, please

dywypi — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 19:07:04 -0800

Easy one for someone who reads modern Hebrew handwriting: what does this say? I went to an artist reception the other day and asked the artist (Dor Guez) to autograph my museum catalog. He wrote in Hebrew. Here's a photo. What did he write? (I'm sure it's just "Best wishes" or similar.)

Which "S" letter to use when transliterating to Hebrew?

juniperesque — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 16:32:01 -0800

When you transliterate from English to Hebrew, how do you determine the "S" for names? If your name was Sandra, Sabrina, Sachi, or something that really has no Hebrew equivalent, how do you decide which letter to put in front? Is it more common to use a Samech or a Sin? Is there a standard convention for this, or do you just pick one?

Alef Bet Song that isn't Debbie Friedman's Version?

danielle the bee — Thu, 31 May 2012 11:25:32 -0800

Can you help me identify this folk-dance version of the Alef Bet Song? I've danced to this song so many times that I'm ashamed I don't know who its by! You can hear it and watch children do an adorable dance to it here. Shazam hasn't been helpful, alas.

I'm hoping to teach kindergarteners this dance next week, so bonus points if anyone could point me to a place online where I can buy it.

Book of Jonah Grammar Question

Paquda — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 07:19:37 -0800

Jonah 1:4: "the ship was like to be broken" - "וְהָאֳנִיָּה חִשְּׁבָה לְהִשָּׁבֵר" - what is the grammar of חִשְּׁבָה ? Is חִשְּׁבָה an active or a passive verb? What is its binyan? What is its subject?

"Are you well?" in Mishnaic Hebrew

egeanin — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:30:58 -0800

Anyone here have mad Mishnaic Hebrew translation skillz? I just need to know how to say the equivalent of "Are you well?" in ancient or medieval Hebrew.

(If anyone can actually answer this utterly random question, I will seriously consider donating my firstborn child to Metafilter...)

Thanks!

Translation of Hebrew engraving

yoyoceramic — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 16:11:23 -0800

What is the translation of this Hebrew engraving? (Picture link inside) http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/images/Spain/cordoba4.jpg

Are Korean and Hebrew languages related?

KingoftheWhales — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 02:04:58 -0800

In Korean, the words for 'mom' and 'dad', respectively, are umma and appa. In Hebrew (maybe other Semitic languages, too), they are ima and abba. Is there a link between Korean (maybe other east Asian languages?) and the Semitic languages?

Fun, free Hebrew fonts?

yersinia — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 10:08:25 -0800

Where can I find some fun, free Hebrew fonts? I'm looking for the Hebrew equivalent of Dafont-- just your basic amateur-level online repository of random freeware fonts-- in order to find a fun and/or artsy way to display a single Hebrew word for a craft project.

This seems like it'd be an easy Google... for someone who can read Hebrew. Alas, that's not me. Anybody have any ideas? I'm cool with the site(s) themselves being non-English (once I'm there, I'm guessing I'll be able to use format cues to get around), but it's the finding them, among a sea of other equally-unintelligible pages, that's been a little problematic. Thanks!

Can you read the (possibly Hebrew) word on the bottom of this salt shaker?

soelo — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 21:11:41 -0800

Can you read the (possibly Hebrew) word on the bottom of this salt shaker? Asking for a friend who bought a set of four sterling silver shakers recently. Here is the clearest picture we could get of the stamp through a loupe, but note that we are not sure about the orientation and it may be upside down. The shortest row is the number 31 enclosed in a half circle and the middle row should be 925 (for 92.5 percent silver). Another shaker has St. 925 clearly stamped on the bottom of it. The shakers themselves are pretty small. Another shaker has the number 30 in the half circle.

This set was purchased from a Jewish man who was very enthusiastic about his heritage in the brief time it took for the sale to complete. To me, it looks like the middle character is Shin and the first two from the right are Yod and then Reish. Can you read the rest of the letters? Any idea if this is even Hebrew writing?

Is this a reasonable price for a language course?

bchaplin — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:20:38 -0800

Is $720 for a semester of language learning a reasonable price in the Boston area? I'd like to learn modern Hebrew, and the most comprehensive evening course I could find in the greater Boston area was that taught at Hebrew College. The price was a shock to me though. I would benefit from the interactivity and motivation of having a teacher and other students, so I'm not sure a course such as Rosetta Stone or Pimsleur (although cheaper) would work for me. And in my experience with other languages, software will only get you so far in terms of language acquisition.

So, is this a reasonable tuition? I've looked for alternatives and haven't been able to find anything in the area that is equivalent. I have a discount at certain other educational institutions, but they do not offer the language I'm interested in, unfortunately.

Please identify this Israeli pop song!

holterbarbour — Wed, 18 May 2011 17:03:45 -0800

Please identify this Israeli pop song (circa 2000) That's pretty much it. I'm pretty sure I first heard this during a stay in Jerusalem in late summer/early fall 2000. The clip has terrible audio quality (I recorded it the other day with my phone off an internet stream; but I couldn't record straight from the stream), and it only captures a part of the song that's quite different from the rest of it (think the "na-na" portion of "Hey Jude" compared to the rest of it). Halfway through that chant it switches from a studio recording to a live recording of an audience making the chant.

Anyway, the song is very dreamlike and the phrase "ova le lo" (or something similar; my Hebrew listening is terrible) repeated throughout like it would be the probable song title.

Song begins about 4 seconds into the clip.

Thanks!

Hebrew & Chinese translations?

torticat — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 13:31:03 -0800

Translations please, please! Hebrew and Chinese (?) I have a ceramic tile with a Hebrew inscription and a silk print with Chinese characters (I think--it could be Japanese; I'm not sure). Hebrew is here; Chinese is here. (I hope the quality is good enough on this one.)

Thanks so much to anyone who can tell me what these say!

Hebrew in LaTeX?

lhude sing cuccu — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 15:10:56 -0800

Help me with LaTeX (again)! I need to find a way to write decent Hebrew. I like the cjhebrew package, but I don't know how to change the font. I also tried using XeTeX, but I don't know how to get Right-to-left using it. Also, other problems. Warning: Long explanations involving Terminal and installing new packages that aren't on CTAN will go over my head. I've looked everywhere. There is enough information on Hebrew in LaTeX out there, but for some reason I can't get any of it to work properly.

First of all, I'm using TeXShop for Mac. I changed it to UTF-8 Unicode because this and this told me to. I've also installed some nice Hebrew fonts, SBL Hebrew and Ezra SIL.

Using XeTeX works for one word at a time, but when I try to write a paragraph, the vowel points go all over the place. I've tried to fix this by re-entering the text, but to no avail:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\TeXXeTstate=1
\usepackage{bidi}
\usepackage{fontspec,xltxtra,xunicode}
\begin{document}
\newfontfamily{\H}[Scale=1]{Ezra SIL}
\setRL {\H
בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃
וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֨הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְה֑וֹם וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם:
וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֖ים יְהִ֣י א֑וֹר וַֽיְהִי־אֽוֹר׃
{
\end{document}

I like using the cjhebrew package, even though the input method takes some getting used to, but I don't know how to change the font within the package itself:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{cjhebrew}
\usepackage{times}
\title{\huge{\cjRL{b*:`ib:ryit}}}
\begin{document}
\maketitle

\section{Hebrew}
\begin{cjhebrew}
b*:re’+siyt b*ArA' 'E:lohiym
'et ha+s*Amayim w:’et hA’ArE.s; w:hA’ArE.s
hAy:tAh tohU wAbohU w:.ho+sEk:
`alp*:

ney t:hOm w:rU/a.h 'E:lohiym
m:ra.hEpEt `alp*:
ney ham*Ayim;

\end{cjhebrew}

\section{English}
To type this is as follows:
\emph{b*:re’+siyt b*ArA’ ’E:lohiym ’et ha+s*Amayim w:’et hA’ArE.s; w:hA’ArE.s
hAy:tAh tohU wAbohU w:.ho+sEk: ‘alp*:
ney t:hOm w:rU/a.h ’E:lohiym
m:ra.hEpEt ‘alp*:
ney ham*Ayim;}

\end{document}

I tried this:

\begin{cjhebrew}
\newfontfamily{\H}[Scale=1]{Ezra SIL}

{\H b*:re’+siyt b*ArA' 'E:lohiym
'et ha+s*Amayim w:’et hA’ArE.s; w:hA’ArE.s
hAy:tAh tohU wAbohU w:.ho+sEk:
`alp*:

ney t:hOm w:rU/a.h 'E:lohiym
m:ra.hEpEt `alp*:
ney ham*Ayim;}

\end{cjhebrew}

Any ideas? I don't know how to use fontspec or pretty much anything else. I really hate the cjhebrew font (it's So. Small. I think it's really just Times), and I want to change it to Ezra SIL or SBL Hebrew. I'll be writing a paper with occasional Hebrew words and occasional Hebrew clumps that may or may not be set into a two-column format.

Hebrew music?

lhude sing cuccu — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:14:18 -0800

I'm looking for Israeli music and/or music in Hebrew. I'm learning Hebrew, and after reading this, I went from just wanting to pick up a few words to absolutely not being able to get enough. I'm annoying my family. Anyway, I was hoping you had some suggestions for what I could listen to. Here are some examples of what I really liked:

Sichot Diplomatot by Arik Einstein (It's impossible to find, but it's on grooveshark)
I also think this song is awesome.
Shalom Aleicheim by Avishai Cohen
Makir Oto by Yoni Bloch
Idan Raichel.
I really love this song. (Beyom Shabbat by Idan Raichel)
The Green Line by Ethnix (also on grooveshark)
Kavod by Aviv Geffen was OK.
Gam Ani Roze by Yehuda Poliker...though it's a little more "party mix" than I'm used to.

Outside of Hebrew, I also listen to Talking Heads, Pere Ubu, and The Fall, if that might give you an indication of what type of music I'm looking for.

Any suggestions of certain bands/albums/songs I should be listening to? The only rule is that I'd prefer to listen to songs that aren't about things I'd be embarrassed to listen to if I knew what they were saying (killing, mean things, etc.)

Hebrew language support for the iPad

greenmagnet — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 06:56:39 -0800

When will the iPad fully support Hebrew? I've been playing around with an iPad, and the only thing so far I've seen that I don't like about it is that it doesn't yet support Hebrew (no built-in Hebrew keyboard layout). This surprised me since the iPhone supports it very nicely.

In doing some searching, I came up with this article, which says that the iPad will be officially released in Israel "in a few weeks" with "complete Hebrew language compatibility."

Does that mean there will be a generally available (I'm in the U.S.) update that will enable Hebrew language support on all iPads?

Also, does anyone have more specific information on when that release is scheduled?

Resources for learning Hebrew, French, Lithuanian, Russian?

lhude sing cuccu — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 14:57:05 -0800

I'm at different levels in three different languages I'm learning (French, Hebrew, Russian/Lithuanian). How to proceed in each? French: I've been learning French since I was twelve, but it was mostly in school, so I'm not very good at it. I can write fairly well, but I have horrendous listening and speaking skills. I also don't like to read large amounts in French (doing the accent in my head is tiring). I'm at the point where I've learned enough—probably way too much—grammar, but I don't know enough to really (so I believe) benefit from watching French movies. I'm figuring I'm at a fork in the road: either live in France, or my French skills will deteriorate. I blame my lack of reading and listening skills on having so much grammar drilled into me at school. But what can I realistically do to improve my French? I don't mean in general, because I know I should ideally join a class or move to France or talk to French people. But I can't right now, realistically. I've had a lot of French penpals, but obviously that only helps with writing. You know. With French, I pretty much want to get better at conversational French. Even children's movies in French are too hard for me! Would it be worth the try though?

Hebrew: I just started learning Hebrew, but it's surprisingly hard to find good resources that teach anything past the alphabet. What's really important to me is to not ruin Hebrew for myself by learning way too much grammar, so I want a book or tape or some way to learn Hebrew more "naturally" than I learned French. I'm taking a class at our temple...but, er, it's not really fast-paced. My main goals in Hebrew are 1.) Not to learn it the way I learned French, and 2.) Be able to test out of Hebrew 101 when I transfer this spring! I know a few roots in Hebrew, and very few words, but I don't want to learn too much more grammar right now. I found a great Hebrew comic book, and that's probably the kind of stuff I'm looking for right now.

Russian: I mostly want to learn Russian in case I can't learn Lithuanian, because I want to visit Lithuania. I'll have to re-learn the alphabet but I know "hello", "thank you", and that's about it. Are there any good Russian resources?

Lithuanian: There's pretty much zero Lithuanian resources anywhere! Should I even try to learn without taking a class in Lithuania?

Thanks for any help you have! I'm mostly concerned with Hebrew, and I'm secondly concerned with Lithuanian. I'm at vastly different levels in each, but I'm wondering if there are any alternative, unusual, interesting methods for learning a language that I'm not aware of.

Does my friend lament?

lazy robot — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:04:24 -0800

What does this mean?: מה העניינים אני צריכה ללמוד למבחן אבל אין לי כח My friend wrote me this in a recent email. I only know the odd word in Hebrew, so all I recognise in this sentence are the words aval, ani, and li. What's it say?

Hebrew Translation

elis — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 08:37:10 -0800

I found an old parchment scroll while looking through my old family papers. There is Hebrew written in black ink on it, and it is dated 1896.
From the English that is also written on it, I know that is is some kind of appreciation for my Great Grandfather who was a doctor, but I would love to know what the Hebrew portions of the scroll says, and would appreciate your assistance!

I have uploaded a high resolution photo to my flickr page here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/martinpro/4702826667/

(click all sizes for larger views)

Thanks AskMefites!!

Hebrew name ups and downs

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 21:43:59 -0800

If I were to convert to Judaism, and my dad was already Jewish, would I need to know his Hebrew name? I am a female. My mom is not Jewish, of course. I was just wondering if any of you have had any experience in this. I don't have his contact information, and I would feel like I was using him if I found him just to extract information. Would an English name be acceptable? I don't want to have to stick with the generic name converts get: "X bat Sarah", because I still want to recognize that I do have some sort of Jewish ancestry. I've looked for the information, but I couldn't find any information for this specific situation. This would be a Conservative congregation, if it counts.

I'd ask my rabbi, but I sort of want to know now so I can start trying to find my dad if I have to, and I'm not quite ready to have the old "I want to convert" conversation yet.

Thanks in advance!

Scooby Doo mystery...written language sleuths needed.

jeanmari — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 09:44:27 -0800

Please help me identify the origin/purpose of this mystery scroll. Or just the language its written in. Long story short...bought old house, crammed with stuff from crazy reclusive world traveling family, I have asked for help identifying mystery items before, blah blah blah.

One of the latest finds we've stumbled across has been this mysterious parchment scroll with blue silk backing, wrapped around a carved wood spindle. It was in a Dominick's bag from the 50's (60's? 70's?) and this original artwork from the Balinese artist, Ida Bagus Rai, was also in the bag.

These types of weird things are par for the course in here. Nothing is sorted, everything is jumbled. It could be something, it could be nothing. Original art has been found in boxes and bags with stuff that is kitschy baubles or just junk. Wonderful and maddening at the same time.

Any help would be super appreciated.

Hebrew for "Irene"?

Mid — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:26:31 -0800

Language/Hebrew Baby Name Help -- What would be a good Hebrew name for a girl to honor a deceased relative named Irene? From my in-depth anthro-linguistical research (10 minutes on google), it appears that the name Irene is from the Greek language and means "peace." We would like to give our new daughter a Hebrew name that somehow references Irene, though, based on my research, there does not appear to be a direct Hebrew analogue. "Shalom" for "peace" seems too generic. It could just be something that sounds kinda like Irene. Any thoughts?

Hebrew inscription translation

greenmagnet — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:13:30 -0800

What does this Hebrew inscription on the handle of a Torah scroll mean? It appears to be mem-yod-zayin-beth, although the yod might be a gimel with a worn-off leg, or maybe a kaf.

The letters have dots above them, which leads us to believe it's either representing a number or an abbreviation. We couldn't make any sense out of numbers, though, so perhaps an abbreviation.

The best we can come up with is perhaps mi-yad Z.B., with Z.B. being the initials of the scribe.

Photos here; #
1
2

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Photo enhancement for old tombstones

Asparagirl — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 12:40:33 -0800

Calling all Photoshop and photo enhancement experts, and/or people who can pick out Hebrew letters: help me digitally fiddle with these photos of old weathered Romanian-Jewish tombstones to make the inscriptions clearer, so that I can hopefully get the Hebrew writing on them translated. I have received a number of digital photographs that were recently taken in an old Jewish cemetery in northern Romania.* I have had a native Hebrew speaker volunteer to translate all of the tombstone inscriptions for me, which I am compiling into a spreadsheet to submit to the JOWBR, except for a few photos where the stones' surfaces were too weathered or damaged for her to make out any of their words.

Here are the six full-size unedited original digital photos that she could not make out, and then my crude attempts at playing with the "Levels" command in Photoshop to bring out the Hebrew lettering:

http://www.brazenstudios.com/sacel/

Can anyone give any suggestions as to how to further enhance the photo quality so that more of the writing can be made visible? I feel like for some of them, the enhancement may need to be done in two separate parts because the top and bottom parts of the tombstones have very different ranges of gray.

(Translations cheerfully accepted too!)

*Săcel (a.k.a. Szacsal or Izaszacsal), Maramureş county, Romania -- formerly Máramaros county, Hungary