Learning to read Hebrew

[A. Katz]

Mira,

My story is in fact a little unusual. While I grew up in Israel, I went to 
first and second grade in the United States. I had picked up a little 
reading when I was five, but as you can imagine, I was rusty by the time 
we returned to Israel and I was expected to go into third grade.

My grandfather, who was then the Rector of the University of Tel-Aviv, 
brought me a Bible and made me start reading Genesis out loud to him. He 
made me do this until he was satisfied that my reading was good enough for 
third grade.

In third grade, we read the old testament in its unexpurgated and uncut 
form. I believe we started on Judges, because I had missed out on some 
of the earlier books.

I would like to emphasize that none of my classmates needed a translation 
from Biblical to "modern" Hebrew. I know that in academic circles much is 
made of the difference, but believe me Biblical texts are intelligible to 
modern day readers. The difference in more like that between Shakespeare 
and today's English. It is not like the difference between Chaucer and 
modern English.

There's a lot of politics that goes on in academic circles to make 
mountains out of molehills where minute differences between different 
versions of the same language are concerned.

However, if one insists on modern day school children 
unable to understand the old language, not making them read it in 
school is the best first step. We know what we use.

    --Aya

  http://hubpages.com/hub/My-Grandfathers-Voice-Recordings-of-Benzion-Katz

On Thu, 30 Sep 2010, Mira Ariel wrote:

> Hi,
>
>
>
> I'm surprised to hear that Aya Katz learnt to read Hebrew using Biblical
> texts. Growing up in Israel even before Aya, we leant to read and write from
> Modern Hebrew texts, albeit, somewhat formal, written Hebrew. We never
> started to read the Bible till we knew how to read (2nd grade), and at the
> beginning, the Biblical text was a simplified one ("Bible for children").
> So, no doubt one CAN learn Hebrew from Biblical texts, but we don't impose
> it on all kids in Israel.
>
>
>
> Best,
>
>
>
> Mira
>
>
>
> _____________
>
> Mira Ariel
>
> http://www.tau.ac.il/~mariel
>
>
>
>