Hebrew For Dummies, by Jill Suzanne Jacobs

This book is one that desperately wants to be hip and to show that a language that had been moribund for centuries, limited to liturgical use, had been resurrected like the Messiah as a modern language can have all the accoutrements of a contemporary language, but the author forgets (if she ever knows) that not all authors would even want to point this out or celebrate these corruptions of the language. To be sure, there is a lot of what some readers would consider corruptions, be it the transliteration of telephone into its Hebrew equivalent, the expression for a female rabbi that the author’s grandmother apparently contributed to modern Hebrew, the way that the author views Jewish tradition as equal to scripture, and non-binary forms of the language that the author makes a great to-do over. It is almost as if the author thinks or fears nothing insofar as God’s judgment is concerned and wants to celebrate how cool and how Progressive Hebrew is. While there are no doubt some readers who will celebrate this, especially in light of the serious struggle that Israel faces in world opinion, perhaps trying to appeal to the progressive left was a mistake that the author realizes in time to fix for the next edition of this book. We can only hope.

Aside from general structural considerations, there is a wide degree of variety in the Dummies series. While all of the Dummies volumes contain chapters that are for sets of tens, each author has a great deal of freedom to adapt the structure of the series to suit their own tastes and preferences. I cannot say that this book, which struggles under the weight of heavy and ponderous tables of vocabulary words, especially verb conjugations, is as interesting a read as it could have been. Perhaps the fundamental disconnect for me is that I would have welcomed a book on biblical Hebrew that would have stuck more or less to the rules defined within the scriptures. To be sure, that would have cut out a great deal of those aspects of Judaism, certain progressive trendiness in certain corners, the Talmudic traditions of the rabbis, but it would have been the sort of book I would have appreciated because it would have been about the Word of God rather than about the author’s oversized pride in a language that has been changed to a great degree by the politics of the past century and a half or so. There certainly is a time and a place for addressing the return of Hebrew to a language that is spoken by millions of people and the basis of a particularly robust nationalism in the present-day, but I’m not sure that is exactly the book I would have preferred to read.

In terms of its contents, and including the appendices of the book, which are a proper part of the pages, this book sprawls to almost 400 pages in length. After an introduction the book begins with part one, which introduces the reader to Hebrew in three chapters that show the reader already knows some Hebrew (1), introduces basic Hebrew grammar (2), and then provides terms for meeting and greeting (3). This is followed by a lengthy part of the book that shows Hebrew in action in such areas as small talk (4), food (5), shopping (6), having fun (7), enjoying free time (8), talking on the phone (9), and at the office and around the house (10). After this there are four chapters of Hebrew on the go in planning and taking a trip (11), getting around by flying, driving and riding vehicles (12), money (13), and handling emergencies (14). A couple of chapters show the author delving deeper into Hebrew life by introducing the reader to Israel (15) as well as issues of war and peace (16). Three chapters deal with sacred Hebrew in the Bible (17), often understood through the Talmud, prayers (18), and sacred times and spaces (19). The part of tens shows the author telling the reader about ten books of Hebrew the reader must have (20), ten favorite Hebrew expressions (21), and ten great Israeli phrases (22). This is followed by appendices that show verb tables (a), give a mini Hebrew-English dictionary (b), and provide an answer key to questions during the text (c), as well as provide an index.