Sukkot marks the change of seasons in Israel. In the past, we've discussed kayitz קיץ - "summer" and aviv אביב - "sprin...

Last year we discussed the origin of etrog . But I've recently found out that not only was the etrog used for a mitzva on Sukkot, but al...

This year for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur I bought new machzorim, after using the same ones for the previous 15 years. One of the main reaso...

On Yom Kippur, one of the prohibitions is neilat hasandal נעילת הסנדל - wearing of a sandal. Clearly the word sandal has the same meaning i...

In the spirit of the season, I'll open with an apology: I'm sorry I didn't finish all of my simanim posts before Rosh Hashana. ...

My friend, the blogger and bee-keeper Treppenwitz berated thanked me (and others) for sending him a link discussing the discovery of beehi...

Another one of the simanim is silka - סלקא. I had always assumed that silka meant beets, as in the Modern Hebrew word for beet - selek ...

What holiday tradition could be more fun for fans of Balashon than that of the puns we recite about food on the first night of Rosh HaShana?...

In the past few months, I've become more aware of the distinction between the vowels shva na (voiced) and shva nach (unvoiced). (For a...

Well, as you can see, my vacation - at least from blogging - took a little longer than I originally expected. But I did have a nice time, go...

At my son's birthday party last week, I noticed that he and his friends were playing the game Ga-ga . I used to love that game as a kid ...

Tonight my son and daughter had a little fight. She came to me saying that he called her " kookoo " קוקו (crazy) - he claimed he o...

Growing up in San Francisco, we used to have a joke about our neighbors to the south: "What's the difference between Los Angeles a...

What do angels and cabbages have in common? Well, they both share the Hebrew word kruv כרוב, but except for Jastrow - who provides the un...

In his book Yofi Shel Ivrit (chapter 31), Avshalom Kor points out a distinction I had never really paid attention to before: the difference...

Sometimes I find a such an obvious connection between a Hebrew word and a foreign one that I'm really surprised I didn't notice it e...

Many years ago, when I was first exposed to Israeli slang, I came up with the following joke: " How did Bilaam start the letter he gave...

Well.... Kri and Ktiv Game #4 finally has a winner ! Simon has done it again... I think this one should be much easier (but I haven't b...

Last week we had an example of a word that was originally written with a samech , but due to the similarity between that letter and a mem s...

In Hebrew, to say someone went bankrupt, we say that he pashat et haregel פשט את הרגל. This literally means "he extended his leg (or f...