Perhaps you’ve been to חֶבְרוֹן (khev-ROHN) – Hebron, to the Tomb of the Patriarchs. In Hebrew, that site is called מְעָרַת הַמַּכְפֵּלָה (meh-ah-RAHT hah-mahkh-peh-LAH) – the cave of the doubling. Why doubling? I’m aware of two reasons provided by the Rabbis: 1. Couples are buried there, and 2. The cave is two-storied. The…
The next in our nutrition-fact series is the Hebrew word for calcium – סִידָן. How did Modern Hebrew scholars come up with this word, a natural element discovered only in the nineteenth century? Well, the word limestone – a white substance, just like calcium – is אֶבֶן סִיד (EH-ven seed). And to whitewash is לְסַיֵּד (le-sah-ee-YED)….
The Modern Hebrew word for profession – מִקְצוֹע (meek-TSOH-ah) appears in the Bible meaning the side of a room/ a geometrical figure. The root is ק.צ.ע (k.ts.a), a root that shares its first two letters with other roots of a similar meaning: ק.צ.ה (k.ts.h) – edge; ק.צ.ר (k.ts.r) – short (in length); etc. What…
Now, if you’ve read the previous post, you know that I am probably on a trip in the Galilee and the vicinity. You may be wondering how I’ve managed to write a Ktzat Ivrit entry on my vacation! The answer is that I’ve written it in advance, and hit “publish” before I left….
Hiking is to Israelis as playing soccer (futbol) is to South Americans… or as dipping in ice water is to Russians. It’s just what they do. So there isn’t really a word in Hebrew that communicates the rigors of hiking. Instead, a hike is usually referred to in the broader sense of the…
A couple of days ago we did the word for carbs – פַּחְמִימוֹת (pahkh-mee-MOHT). Today we’re going to look at another item on the Nutrition Facts section of packaged food – protein. Hebrew’s rendition of protein is חֶלְבּוֹן (khehl-BOHN), which is also the term for egg white. If you look closely at the word –…
Click the Hebrew word above to hear it pronounced. The Hebrew word for summer is קַיִץ (KAH-yeets), probably related to the Biblical Hebrew word for end – קֵץ (kehts), as summer can be seen as the end of the year (especially with Rosh Hashana coming up). Now, you may know that Aramaic is a…
Click the Hebrew word above to hear it pronounced. After Shabbat the other night I was pretty hungry – not because I hadn’t eaten enough at my gracious Kfar Chabad cousins’ place, but because over the past two days my diet has consisted mostly of white-flour products – lots of carbs. The…
Click the Hebrew word above to hear it pronounced. One of the first verbs people typically learn in most ulpans is to write – לִכְתּוֹב (leekh-TOHV). In Ulpan La-Inyan, the introduction to this verb gets pushed off to Level 2, since we teach first and foremost the verbs necessary for everyday spoken communication. …
Click the title to hear the word pronounced. The other day we had לְהִשְׁתַּחְרִר (le-heesh-tahkh-REHR), which means to be liberated. An informal synonym of להשתחרר is לְהִתְפָּרֵק (le-heet-pah-REHK). This word means, literally, to fall apart, as in הַדֶּלֶת הִתְפָּרְקָה (ha-DEH-leht heet-pahr-KAH) – the door fell apart (i.e. off its hinges or something). …
דווקא First of all, this word is used in Modern Hebrew, but it’s borrowed from Aramaic. The Hebrew root it’s related to is ד.ו.ק (d.v.k), which has to do with thinness. The word דַּק (dahk) means fine or slight, or subtle. The root also gives rise to the words לְדַיֵּק (le-dah-YEHK) – to be precise; and דִּקְדּוּק…