The Vault

40 reference articles on Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew and Yiddish. These are the explanations I write when a student asks something a textbook answered badly.

Modern Hebrew עִבְרִית

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The Hebrew spoken in Israel today — how reading works, the binyanim, gender and plurals, and the everyday grammar that textbooks rush past.

Reading & Alphabet
How Hebrew Reading Works
Right-to-left, consonant letters, vowel dots, final forms and ktiv male — the 5 ideas that unlock reading.
Reading & Alphabet
The Nikud — Complete Vowel Chart
Every vowel sign with its name, sound and an example word, plus when Israelis stop using vowels.
Grammar Basics
Personal Pronouns — I, You, He, She…
The full pronoun table with pronunciation, and the ata/at mistake every beginner makes.
Grammar Basics
Sentences Without “To Be” + yesh / ein
Why Hebrew drops “am/is/are”, how to say “there is/there isn’t”, and asking yes/no questions with ha’im.
Grammar Basics
Gender & Plurals
Masculine vs feminine nouns, the -im / -ot plural endings, and the classic exceptions.
Grammar Basics
“The” (ha-) and One-Letter Prepositions
Attaching ha- “the”, and the prefix letters be-, le-, mi- that glue onto the next word.

Biblical Hebrew לְשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶשׁ

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Reading Torah, Psalms and the Siddur in the original — gutturals, the construct state, the vav, and guided passages read line by line.

Reading & Alphabet
The Alphabet, Final Forms & the Gutturals
The 22 consonants from a reader’s view, the 5 final forms, and why guttural letters break the rules.
Reading & Alphabet
The Vowel Signs (Nikkud) — Full Chart
Qamats, patah, segol, tsere, hireq, holem, qibbuts, shureq, shewa and the hatef vowels — with examples.
Reading & Alphabet
Dagesh, Shewa & Syllables
Dagesh lene vs forte, the begadkefat letters, vocal vs silent shewa, and splitting words into syllables.
Nominals
The Definite Article הַ
He + dagesh forte, and the vowel changes before gutturals and resh — with a memory trick.
Nominals
Inseparable Prepositions & the Vav Conjunction
בְּ, לְ, כְּ and מִן — how they attach, how their vowels change, and the many faces of וְ “and”.
Nominals
The Construct State (Smikhut)
How Hebrew says “the house of the king” without “of” — the most frequent construction in the Bible.

Yiddish ייִדיש

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From the alef-beys to real reading — gender and plurals, tenses, loshn-koydesh words, and the diminutives that carry all the warmth.

Reading & Alphabet
Reading Yiddish: Vowels Are Letters!
Why Yiddish spelling is more phonetic than Hebrew: vowel letters, combinatory letters, and final forms.
Reading & Alphabet
YIVO Transliteration in 10 Minutes
The standard system for writing Yiddish in Latin letters — so you can read any textbook.
Grammar Basics
der, di, dos & the Plurals
The three genders, the definite article table, and the main plural endings (-n, -s, -er).
Grammar Basics
Pronouns & the Three Cases
ikh / mir / mikh and friends: nominative, accusative and dative without the headache.
Verbs
Present Tense + zayn & hobn
Regular present-tense endings, plus the two irregular verbs you need everywhere.
Verbs
The Past Tense — ikh hob gezen
Forming the past with hobn/zayn + participle, and which verbs take zayn.

Aramaic אֲרָמִית

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The Aramaic of the Talmud: the words and abbreviations that open a page, and how to start reading one.

Reading
How to Start Reading the Aramaic of the Talmud
Talmudic vs Biblical Aramaic, the thirty words that run a sugya (מאי, תניא, תא שמע, תיקו…), a real passage with a word-by-word gloss, and the books to start with.
ש.ר.שHebrew roots
The Hebrew Root Explorer

Three-letter roots with the whole family of words each one produces, the binyan of every verb, and where it turns up in the text.

Yaacov, native Jerusalemite

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