ANCIENT FORMZ OF HEBREW DANCE FULL

Language of today.” Beneath this instruction we can locate, in small print, a clue: the poster acknowledges “the assistance of the Hebrew Language Division, the Department of Education and Culture in the Diaspora, W.Z.O.Ĭonnecting biblical language to contemporary Hebrew speech is a classic move of Jewish nationalism. Yet the poster’s buoyant demeanor is somewhat at odds with the imperative slogan in its top corner: “Learn Hebrew. Katz’s alef-bet poster taps into this playful spirit, while also demonstrating a principle of language pedagogy: mnemonic devices, such as patterns or associating a letter with a particular picture, can aid in the brain’s ability to remember and process a new language. Oz muses, for example, on the lamed that waves at the end of degel (flag) and the shin that appears like a pitchfork in the middle of the word kilshon (pitchfork). His description of teaching himself to read as a child in pre-state Jerusalem likewise centers on the alef-bet’s sudden appearance as friendly shapes. Nearly a century later, in his autobiographical masterpiece Sipur al ahavah vehoshekh (A Tale of Love and Darkness, 2002), the novelist Amos Oz would also write about that magical moment when letters and sound coalesced into reading. The letter shin-a kind of adder with three heads the letter lamed-a stork stretching its neck and standing on one leg like the one that lived in a treetop behind our house the gimmel-a riding boot, like the one pictured on the jars of shoe polish being vigorously rubbed by a little devil with a tail.The dalet-looking like an ax, and so with them all….” (p.34 in David Patterson’s translation) “…in various guises: in the form of beasts, wild animals, birds, fish, and crockery, or simply strange creatures whose like I had not yet discovered in this world for the time being. For Bialik, the shapes of Hebrew letters began to appear…

In his exquisite autobiographical novella Safi’ah (Random Harvest), which appeared in fragments between 19, Haim Nahman Bialik wrote about his experience living in a European shtetl and attending heder (Jewish primary school).

ANCIENT FORMZ OF HEBREW DANCE FULL

The letters look fun, playful, and full of possibility.Īcross the generations, Israeli authors-not to mention mystics, scholars, and rabbis-have written about the powerful allure of the Hebrew alphabet. Daled, the word that begins dimyon (imagination), appears in a thought cloud above the head of a daydreamer. Lamed, the “l” sound that begins the word layla (night), is depicted against a starry night sky with a moon and a coyote howling behind it. Each letter of the alphabet participates in a cute cartoon that illustrates a word beginning with that letter.

Designed by Avner Katz in 1987, the poster made an indelible impression on me as a child. So commands the top righthand corner of a framed alef-bet (Hebrew alphabet) poster hanging in my father’s study in Virginia. Avner Katz’s “Learn Hebrew” poster creates fanciful shapes out of the Hebrew letters.

Ancient formz of hebrew dance