Why Bonnie and Ronnie Can't “Read” (the Siddur)

Abstract

In the last issue of the Journal (volume 75, number 4), we read about our esteemed colleague Israel Scheffler's love affair with Hebrew. In this issue, we continue the conversation about Hebrew as part of a series of articles by distinguished senior colleagues who bring the wisdom earned by a lifelong career in Jewish education.

Many of us share Scheffler's love affair with Hebrew, and we are anguished by the challenges facing the American Jewish community with regard to the teaching and learning of Hebrew language. Whenever educators sit together, no matter the setting, they discuss: What are the best ways to teach Hebrew? What are ambitious, but reasonable goals for Hebrew language learning in pre-schools, day schools and after school programs? What constitutes literacy in each of these settings?

In this article, Lifsa Schachter, professor emeritus of education at the Segal College, shares some of her ideas on a range of questions such as these. Her ideas emanate from the research literature on second language acquisition, as well as from her own experiences and experiments designed to make a difference in the domain of Hebrew language learning. Lee Shulman (Shulman, 1987) asserts the validity of using the “wisdom of practice” in addressing educational challenges such as this one. Hebrew language teaching is an instance where experienced practitioners hold much knowledge. Yet, little of their knowledge has been committed to writing.

We're delighted to share this article with you and hope that it encourages others to write about grappling with the challenges of Hebrew language learning in our schools. We encourage our senior colleagues in particular to share their wisdom about this and other issues that can make Jewish education vital and vibrant for the Jewish people in the twenty-first century.

Notes

¹While Wohl's focus is on the day school, the areas he addressed are relevant to the supplementary school as well.

²See the randomly selected example of the first definition of “read” in the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, “to look at carefully so as to understand the meaning of (something written, printed, etc.) (Urdang, 1968, p. 1098).”

³This is the definition of the Partnership for Reading, a collaboration of three federal agencies—the National Institute for Literacy, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the U.S. Department of Education, which has as its goal promoting reading through research-based strategies and advocacy.

⁴There are minor exceptions to this symbol/sound constancy. In contemporary Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation, the dialect spoken in Israel and taught in liberal supplementary schools, the exceptions are found in three of the b^eg^ed k^ef^et letters. The bet, the khaf and the peh have alternative pronunciations and the shin can be pronounced as a's. The bet, kaf, and peh can be pronounced as “v” “kh,” and “f” when the letters appear in the middle or at the end of a syllable The tav retains an alternative pronunciation as an “s” in Ashkenazi Hebrew, The difference in the gimel and the dalet can still be heard in Yemenite liturgical reading of the Torah. It is important to understand that while these six letters can each have two forms, the difference never indicates a difference in meaning. The shin can also stand for two sounds, but these sounds do not have related meanings. Pointed texts use dots to indicate these differences in pronunciation (Brettler, 2002, p. 5).

⁵While there is no empirical evidence for the validity of this approach, its proponents anecdotally report higher levels of achievement.

⁶This should not be confused with mirror letters such as “b” and “d.” Rotate them and they still remain what they were originally.

⁷These letters are known as imot kriyah (matres lectionis), serving sometimes as a consonant and sometimes as a vowel sound. One can distinguish these two functions easily in pointed texts. When functioning as a vowel these letters will never be accompanied by either a vowel sign or a sh'va.

⁸Haramati expands on the error of teaching a bet with a patah as though it is “b” + ah = bah.

⁹This information is found in other standard Hebrew grammar books such as that by Livny (Linvy & Kokhba, 1973). Textbooks on the other hand frequently misrepresent this information. The best discussion of these points is found in Sampson (1985).

¹⁰Suggested resources: Grishaver, 1989; Eisenberg, 1976; Horowitz, 1960; and Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971—1972) articles on the alphabet and Hebrew.

¹¹The definition of a syllable for Hebrew decoding is one or more letters with one vowel sign. The sh'va is excluded from the count since it is not a vowel sign.