I came across what I think is a nice mishnaic wordplay. The first mishnah is from Berachot 8:6 and the second is from Zevaḥim 12:4 (cf. Eiduyot 2:2). אֵין מְבָרְכִין לֹא עַל הַנֵּר וְלֹא עַל הַבְּשָׂמִים שֶׁל נָכְרִים, וְלֹא עַל הַנֵּר וְלֹא עַל הַבְּשָׂמִים שֶׁל מֵתִים, וְלֹא עַל הַנֵּר וְלֹא עַל הַבְּשָׂמִים שֶׁלִּפְנֵי עֲבוֹדָה זָרָה. [...]
Today is Eliezer Ben-Yehudah’s yarzheit. Ben-Yehudah died on 26 Kislev 5683/December 16, 1922. Not only did Ben-Yehudah die during Ḥanukkah, but his wife Hemda Ben-Yehudah invented the word חנוכייה. Here is a previous post that I wrote on the origins of the word חנוכייה.
Avshalom Kor is an expert in the Hebrew language who has been a fixture on Israeli radio and television for many years. He is most well known for his daily radio broadcast, באופן מילולי. For a few minutes every day Kor discusses a word or phrase in Hebrew, speaking about its origins and history. Kor’s [...]
Ynet has posted a video (Hebrew) about the possible demise of Rashi script as part of the Israeli bagruyot. See here for an earlier post of mine on Rashi script.
Ḥullin 137b has a nice piece of dialogue that illustrates rabbinic awareness of the difference between the Hebrew of the Sages and the Hebrew of the Torah. This source addresses the question about the plural ending of masculine nouns, whether it is -im or -ot. Now for the source from Ḥullin. כי סליק איסי בר [...]
Another Israeli TV show, Asfur, has been picked up by an American production company. (hat tip) Here’s a description of the show from Wikipedia: Motti Amoyal lives on a bus farm in Jerusalem with his three best friends, Itzik, Newton and Katzar. Their lives are about to change drastically as they discover that the land, [...]
The Cairo Genizah has provided numerous examples of different rabbinic texts that were vocalized. Whether the vocalization was Palestinian, Tiberian, or Babylonian, is another question that raises other issues. See the first comments to this post at the Talmud Blog for some implications about the type of vocalization found in Mishnah texts from the Genizah. [...]
The following is part of an advertisement from the Academy of the Hebrew Language that was published in this past Shabbat’s Ha’aretz. בתיאבון.
A review of the Hebrew version of Peter Schäfer’s book Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World can be found here. The following quote is from the English version (p. 9). The Greeks and Romans were mostly preoccupied with the monotheism of the Jews, their customs and rituals such as abstinence from pork, [...]
Here are some recent decisions of the Academy of the Hebrew Language. blogger-רשתונאי tweet-שדרון comment on a blog/talkback-קישורית
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