Israel — A Living-Hebrew Place

Teach a few modern Hebrew words (shalom, todah, ken, lo); compare to prayer words.

Children wonder and discover; you facilitate more than you lecture.

• What languages do people speak in Israel?
• How is the Hebrew we learn similar to and different from Israeli Hebrew?
• How would it feel to live where many people speak Hebrew?

Hebrew is not only ancient and holy — it’s a living language spoken daily in Israel, alongside Arabic and English. The same alef bet they’re learning is on Israeli street signs!

• Shalom — hello/peace
• Todah — thank you
• Ken / Lo — yes / no

“Do Israeli kids know these prayer words?”

Many do — and they also use Hebrew for everyday things like ‘pizza’ and ‘backpack.’

• Children understand Hebrew as a living language.
• Children learn that Israel is multilingual (Hebrew, Arabic, English) and compare prayer Hebrew to modern Hebrew.

Acknowledge Israel’s linguistic and cultural diversity, including its Arabic-speaking citizens.

Folktale. The Boy Who Spoke Only Hebrew (Modern) — Eliezer Ben-Yehuda raised his son to speak only Hebrew — the first in centuries — reviving a living language.

Changemaker. Naomi Shemer — wrote Jerusalem of Gold three weeks before the 1967 war, in a language that had been nobody’s mother tongue a century earlier, and the whole country learned it by heart.

How did an ancient prayer language become a living, spoken one — and why does that matter?

“We learned Hebrew is a living language! Try at home: use a Hebrew word this week — shalom, todah, or boker tov.”