Tmol Shilshom, Only Yesterday

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For the brand new version of the long-running meme ABC Wednesday that begins today, my A is for Agnon.
Shai Agnon, 1888-1970, was the only Israeli to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Alongside the walkway of the long Train Track Park in Jerusalem I was delighted to find this clever waist-high sign.
You can read (if you know Hebrew) either the cut out letters in the metal or the shadow of the words on the ground.
The quotation is from Agnon's famous masterpiece Tmol Shilshom, published in 1945.
Just a few years ago the book was translated into English as Only Yesterday.
You can sample some pages of the peculiar style here in Google Books.
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UPDATE:  More about where this is located:
https://jerusalemhillsdailyphoto.blogspot.co.il/2012/12/park-hamesila-railway-park.html
and
http://worldlandscapearchitect.com/jerusalem-railway-park-tichnun-nof-landscape-architects/

(Linking to signs, signs and old-new ABC Wednesday.)
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Hebrew Language Day today

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A child-high table for playing with the 22 Hebrew letters at the Jewish museum at Hechal Shlomo in Jerusalem.
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Happy Hebrew Language Day! 
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Interesting earlier posts about Hebrew: 
Onomatopoeia
Hebrew vowels in a Tiberias sculpture
The Academy of Hebrew Language in Jerusalem
Ben-Yehuda's house 
"Jew, speak Hebrew!"
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(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)
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"Jew, speak Hebrew!" **

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(** Slogan in the language battle of the Jews in pre-State Israel)

Google gave us a new doodle today in honor of  155 years since the birth of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the father of modern spoken Hebrew.

The doodle incorporates some of the words he coined:
glida  meaning ice cream
buba for doll
millon meaning dictionary, from the root milla, word.

Even before Theodor Herzl envisioned a Jewish State, even before the whole Zionist Movement,  Eliezer Ben-Yehuda was a visionary.
The word of God came to him in the 1870s at Kasr il Yahud, the crossing point of the Israelites through the Jordan River into the promised land.

"A clear, incandescent light flashed before my eyes

and a mighty inner voice sounded in my ears:

‘the resurrection of Israel on its ancestral soil.’"

 "The Jewish People [Am Yisrael]  in its own land and in its own language," became the young man's driving force and he moved from Europe to Jerusalem in 1881.

His grandson, Rabbi Ben-Yehuda, now living in the USA, summarizes thus:

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, a pre-Zionist visionary and pioneer of Jewish national renaissance and resettlement in Eretz-Yisrael, was a writer, lexicographer, newspaper editor, teacher (first to teacher an entire curriculum in Hebrew) and statesman. He founded "Va'ad Halashon" - the parent of today's Academy of the Hebrew Language and the National Hebrew Library. He authored the "Ben-Yehuda Dictionary and Thesaurus of the Hebrew Language, Ancient and Modern" . . . , a seventeen volume tome that is the most complete Hebrew language research tool in existence. He is recognized as "the man who revived the Hebrew Language."

 I am just now discovering that Eliezer Ben-Yehuda the grandson has a wealth of little-known inside information available about his famous grandfather:
For the biography book see http://fulfillment-of-prophecy.com/
and for articles on his webpage go here.
You can also watch the Rabbi giving a fascinating lecture on his grandfather to a group of Christian Zionists,  in five segments, starting here.

And for some music try Chava Albertstein's singing of the modern song about Eliezer Ben-Yehuda that every Israeli child knows.
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(A post for Our World Tuesday.)

Read this: International Literacy Day today

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A child-high table for playing with the 22 Hebrew letters at the Jewish museum at Hechal Shlomo in Jerusalem.

Today is International Literacy Day.

The International Reading Association says that

International Literacy Day, traditionally observed annually on September 8, focuses attention on worldwide literacy needs. More than 780 million of the world’s adults (nearly two-thirds of whom are women) do not know how to read or write, and between 94 and 115 million children lack access to education.

And Wikipedia has the list of countries, starting at 100% literacy and going down to 26%(!).

Imagine . . .
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Xerxes on an old scroll from Italy

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Fortunately there is a name with a Jewish connection for today's ABC Wednesday X-day.

Xerxes, King of Persia, is Achashverosh in Hebrew and became Ahasuerus in English Bibles.
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Enlarge the photo and see if you think that is Xerxes on the throne on the top of this beautiful old Scroll of Esther.
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The story of Purim is told in the Book of Esther.
Esther is a Jewish girl who becomes Queen to King Xerxes and through her bravery is able to thwart an attempt to slaughter all the Jews living in Persia at that time, about 2,500 years ago.

This parchment scroll was made in 1616 in Ferrara, Italy.
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"The Bible in Manuscripts and Printed Books" is a wonderful permanent exhibit that I found at Israel's National Library while I was there, at the Hebrew University, for the big book giveaway.
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No mincing of words here

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Psalm 3 for Robert's PsalmChallenge at Daily Athens:

1. A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son.

2. Lord, how many are my enemies! There are many who rise up against me.
3. Many are there who say of my soul, There is no help for him in God. Selah.
4. But, O Lord, you are a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of my head.
5. I cried to the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out from his holy mountain. Selah.
6. I laid down and slept; I awoke; for the Lord sustained me.
7. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves around against me.
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8. Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God! For you have struck all my enemies on the cheek bone; you have broken the teeth of the wicked.

9. Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing is upon your people. Selah.

Verse 8 can also be translated in the future tense.
David hopes God will once again smite or break the mouth of the enemies who "bad-mouth" David.
Whether this is meant literally or figuratively, you choose!
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Lashon hara is the Hebrew term for "slander" but literally it means "the evil tongue," so it is not far-fetched that David would like the tongue place in his slanderers to be messed up.
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א מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד בְּבָרְחוֹ מִפְּנֵי אַבְשָׁלוֹם בְּנֽוֹ: ב יְהֹוָה מָה־רַבּוּ צָרָי רַבִּים קָמִים עָלָֽי: ג רַבִּים אֹמְרִים לְנַפְשִׁי אֵין יְֽשׁוּעָתָה לּוֹ בֵֽאלֹהִים סֶֽלָה: ד וְאַתָּה יְהֹוָה מָגֵן בַּֽעֲדִי כְּבוֹדִי וּמֵרִים רֹאשִֽׁי: ה קוֹלִי אֶל־יְהֹוָה אֶקְרָא וַיַּֽעֲנֵנִי מֵהַר קָדְשׁוֹ סֶֽלָה: ו אֲנִי שָׁכַבְתִּי וָֽאִישָׁנָה הֱקִיצוֹתִי כִּי יְהֹוָה יִסְמְכֵֽנִי: ז לֹֽא־אִירָא מֵרִֽבְבוֹת עָם אֲשֶׁר סָבִיב שָׁתוּ עָלָֽי: ח קוּמָה יְהֹוָה הוֹשִׁיעֵנִי אֱלֹהַי כִּֽי־הִכִּיתָ אֶת־כָּל־אֹיְבַי לֶחִי שִׁנֵּי רְשָׁעִים שִׁבַּֽרְתָּ: ט לַיהֹוָה הַיְשׁוּעָה עַל־עַמְּךָ בִרְכָתֶךָ סֶּֽלָה
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Happy is the man

. Are you up to a new photo challenge? Robert of Daily Athens invites us to illustrate a favorite verse from the Psalms every Sunday. Like him, I start with Psalm 1. 

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(Please enlarge the photo)

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אַשְׁרֵי הָאִישׁ-- אֲשֶׁר לֹא הָלַךְ, בַּעֲצַת רְשָׁעִים;וּבְדֶרֶךְ חַטָּאִים, לֹא עָמָד, וּבְמוֹשַׁב לֵצִים, לֹא יָשָׁב כִּי אִם בְּתוֹרַת יְהוָה, חֶפְצוֹ; וּבְתוֹרָתוֹ יֶהְגֶּה, יוֹמָם וָלָיְלָה     Ashrei ha-ish asher . . . . 

1 HAPPY IS the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful. 

2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in His law doth he meditate day and night. 

3 And he shall be like a tree planted by streams of water, {N}
that bringeth forth its fruit in its season, and whose leaf doth not wither; and in whatsoever he doeth he shall prosper.
4 Not so the wicked; but they are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
5 Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
6 For the LORD regardeth the way of the righteous; but the way of the wicked shall perish.

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Note: The Hebrew term ashrei, usually translated as "happy," carries much deeper meaning than our modern use of the English word. Ashrei implies peace, satisfaction, fulfillment, and tranquility of worldview. It is the mindset of the righteous. 

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International Mother Language Day

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We interrupt our walk through the Supreme Court Building in order to celebrate International Mother Language Day!

Click on the plaque to read about the "Father of modern Hebrew."

This house in Jerusalem, on Ethiopia Street, is where the Ben-Yehuda family lived.

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Eliezer and Deborah left Europe and came to Palestine in 1881. Their first son, Ben-Zion, was born in 1882.

Ben-Yehuda was passionate about reviving the Hebrew language, and he made his wife promise
to raise the boy as the first all-Hebrew speaking child in modern history.
It was hard but it worked.

Legend has it that the little boy with Hebrew mother tongue carved the graffiti in the stone of his house. Shovav--mischievous boy!

Can you make out a crescent moon inside the rectangle, and what is supposed to be a star?

That was the Ottoman Turk flag back then, when the Land of Israel was a part of the Turkish empire.
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In the years following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 came waves of mass immigration of Jews from 70 different countries, all speaking different languages.

Israel became known as the only country in which the parents learn the mother tongue from their children.
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Qamats and qubbuts

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I am in a quandary whenever Q day comes around at ABC Wednesday. So today I have no qualms about not using Q words in English.
Instead I give you qamats and qubbuts. These are two of the vowels used in Hebrew.

See them on the chart?

In Tiberias I was delighted to find a new (2008) sculpture, by David Fine, near the Sea of Galilee.

The vowels, in black basalt, are shown in playful positions!

Actually, in modern Israeli Hebrew, we don't write the vowels very often. You will see a pointed/vocalized/voweled text only for some poetry or young children's books or a printed Bible or a newspaper in easy Hebrew for new immigrants.

Otherwise we just have the consonants and we have to "guess" how the words in context should be pronounced. If we left out the vowels in English, this blog would be from the Jrslm Hls.

As the sign says, "The Tiberias vocalization of Hebrew was based on the traditional Tiberias vowel system. After this system became the authoritative pronunciation for reading the Bible, all other methods were abolished."

That was the short explanation.

Here are parts of the long story, if you prefer, quoted from Wikipedia (here and here):

After the Talmud, various regional literary dialects of Medieval Hebrew evolved. The most important is Tiberian Hebrew or Masoretic Hebrew, a local dialect of Tiberias in Galilee that became the standard for vocalizing the Hebrew Bible and thus still influences all other regional dialects of Hebrew. This Tiberian Hebrew from the 7th to 10th century CE is sometimes called "Biblical Hebrew" because it is used to pronounce the Hebrew Bible . . . .

Tiberian Hebrew incorporates the remarkable scholarship of the Masoretes (from masoret meaning "tradition"), who added vowel points and grammar points to the Hebrew letters to preserve much earlier features of Hebrew, for use in chanting the Hebrew Bible. The Masoretes inherited a biblical text whose letters were considered too sacred to be altered, so their markings were in the form of pointing in and around the letters. . . . The Aleppo Codex, a Hebrew Bible with the Masoretic pointing, was written in the 10th century likely in Tiberias and survives to this day. It is perhaps the most important Hebrew manuscript in existence.
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The Masoretic Text (MT) is a Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible (Tanakh). It defines not just the books of the Jewish canon, but also the precise letter-text of the biblical books in Judaism, as well as their vocalization and accentuation for both public reading and private study. The MT is also widely used as the basis for translations of the Old Testament in Protestant Bibles, and in recent years also for Catholic Bibles.
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Herzl and Hebrew

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Today Israel marked the 105th anniversary of the death of Benjamin Ze'ev Herzl (1860-1904).
This menorah greets visitors to the highest spot in Jerusalem, Mount Herzl, where Herzl's body was reburied after being brought to Israel in 1949.
Following the Dreyfus Affair young Herzl concluded that the Jewish people required an independent state of our own. His book The Jewish State detailed the Zionist vision and he founded the Zionist Movement.
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But two things he got wrong.
 First, he believed that once Jews had a homeland, anti-Semitism would end.
Second, he thought that Hebrew could never be revived as a modern language for the new country.

This building proves that Hebrew is now alive and well. It is the Academy of the Hebrew Language on the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

To quote the [previous] website of the Academia:

    "Brought into being by legislation in 1953 as the supreme institute for the Hebrew Language, the Academy of the Hebrew Language prescribes standards for modern Hebrew grammar, orthography, transliteration, and punctuation based upon the study of Hebrew’s historical development.
The Academy’s plenum consists of 23 members and an additional 15 academic advisors, all outstanding scholars from the disciplines of languages, linguistics, Judaic studies, and Bible.
Its members also include poets, writers, and translators.
The Academy’s decisions are binding upon all governmental agencies, including the Israel Broadcasting Authority."

. . .

"The scientific secretariat answers queries from the public on a broad variety of Hebrew linguistic matters ranging from pronunciation and spelling to suggestions for Hebrew children names.
It also oversees the work of specialized committees that develop technical terminology for a wide spectrum of professional spheres.
Over 100,000 terms have been coined by the committees on terminology established by the Academy and its predecessor, the Language Committee.
These terms are available to the public in dozens of published dictionaries and lists.

. . . The Academy invites you to participate in the realization of the dream of renewing the Hebrew language."

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Onomatopoeia

O yes! O is the letter of the day. Welcome to ABC Wednesday,

where bloggers have fun playing with the alphabet. You can try too.

Oi veh, I thought, which of the many O words to choose?!
OK, let's take that big word I never know how to spell: ONOMATOPOEIA .

Onomatopoeia (from Greek ονοματοποιΐα) is a word or grouping of words that imitates the sound it describes (e.g. the animal noise meow) or suggests its source object (e.g. click, buzz, or bang). Greek όνομα, onoma, means name and ποιέω, poieō, means I make or I create, so it means name-creation.

Let's hear some Hebrew examples of onomatopoeia. My favorite is bakbuk. It means bottle. Doesn't it sound like liquid being poured from a bottle? bakbuk bakbuk bakbuk
BTW, this is also my favorite liqueur: chocolate! A tiny bit mixed with soda water or even milk, yum. Or on ice cream.

A tiftuf is water dripping, leaking. Or a light rain.
After years of drought Israel may soon run out of water. This tiftuf in the photo is at the Mekorot national water authority station in my village, of all places!

Tof is the onomatopoeiac Hebrew word for drum. Tof-Miriam is what we call a tambourine or timbrel.
This Miriam is one of the female Bible heroes portrayed in a dome in Jerusalem's Dormition Abbey.

Gur is a lion cub or a puppy. Grrr

 
Zvuv is a fly. Well, actually this is more a picture of a stinging insect. What he did was zimzem--he made a buzzing noise.

Has is the verb asking you to hush. Sha, sha means shhh, be still.

Rishroosh is the sound of waves lapping on the shore, like above at the Sea of Galilee.

The most well-known and well-loved use of the word is in the song by Hannah Senesh. (Can be heard on YouTube.)

ELI, ELI (Halicha L'kesariya)

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Eli, Eli

Shelo yigamer le'olam:

Hachol vehayam

Rishrush shel hamayim

Berak hashamayim

Tefilat ha-adam.

A STROLL IN CAESARIA

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Oh God!

Let it last forever,

the sand, the sea,

the lapping of the waves,

the glitter of the stars,

the prayer of men.

(translation by anonymous)
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Patriotic marshmallows

Hey, this blog needs more fluff, right?

In our little moshav grocery store this last remaining bag caught my eye. A limited edition of blue and white marshmallows! Complete with an Israeli flag. Probably in honor of the recent Independence Day, Lag BaOmer, and Jerusalem Day. Can you believe??

Marshmallows are not widely known or loved in Israel. Probably because we have no graham crackers with which to make s'mores. (As in "some more," the American campfire treat. A graham cracker sandwich with chocolate and gooey toasted marshmallows inside.)
And the Academy of the Hebrew Language has not yet invented a word for this formerly foreign fluff, so the name on the package says in Hebrew letters MaRSHMaLO.