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By Joseph Lowin, PhD
"Nobody knows the Hebrew language the way Joseph Lowin does. Whether tracing the ethical root of an everyday phrase like “after you,” or uncovering the deep-seated connections between Hebrew, Aramaic, and even English, Lowin is a master of Hebrew words, phrases and ideas. To read this book is to journey into history, literature, philosophy and politics. And besides all that, it is wonderful fun, whether you are fluent in Hebrew or just a beginner. So read, learn and talk the talk that Lowin makes so accessible."
‒Francine Klagsburn
Author of Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel
ABSTRACT
Hebrew Matters is the third in a trilogy of books—following HebrewSpeak and HebrewTalk— that examines Hebrew roots, their derivations, and their contexts, as they appear in the Hebrew Bible, Rabbinic Literature, Medieval Hebrew Poetry, and on the vibrant streets of the modern State of Israel. Each of the book’s 110 chapters is devoted to one Hebrew root and takes the reader on a journey through Jewish history, Jewish literature, and Jewish thought. The book is designed so that the reader will begin to understand how these roots have developed into a reborn living language, Modern Hebrew. Although the book deals seriously with Hebrew, each root is presented with a light touch, is spiced with a good measure of humor, and tells an interesting story or two on the way.
AUTHOR INTERVIEW
Tell your readers a little about yourself.
Growing up at a time of tremendous world-wide turmoil, I lived the idyllic life of a city boy in the Bronx, New York. I later moved around quite a bit, living many years in New Haven, Conn where I attended the Yale graduate school where I received a Ph.D. in French literature. During that time I lived for two years as a student at the Sorbonne in Paris, with one year as a Fulbright Fellow. Later, having left full-time academic work for a career in Jewish community service, I spent a transformative year as a Jerusalem Fellow in Israel, together with my family. By that time I had a wife and three children who, together with me, had the unique opportunity to bathe ourselves in Israel’s all-consuming Hebrew atmosphere. I have also lived in Florida, where I taught French at the University of Miami. For thirty years Iived as a suburbanite in Rockland County, New York, commuting daily to the City, where I had a number of jobs in both academia and Jewish cultural organizations. When I fell in love with French (and then Italian), it was because I wanted to study something that was not Me. When I fell deeply in love with Hebrew it was a trip back to Myself. It should surprise no one to learn that, during a renewed era of turmoil, I once again live in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.
What inspired you to author your book?
Some thirty years ago, I became the National Jewish Education Director of Hadassah, the women’s Zionist organization. With its membership of 300,000 women, and with a monthly magazine, I was in the right place and the right time. Since the importance of Hebrew as the national language of the Jews is central to the mission of Hadassah, the editor of the magazine turned to me, as the director of the education department, and asked me to design and write a Hebrew column for his 300,000 readers. Three hundred columns later, some of my readers having asked me to “put some of the columns together,” I have now put them together in three different books.
Where did you get the inspiration for your book’s cover?
The book’s theme is the centrality of Hebrew’s three-letter roots, from which virtually all Hebrew words develop. So, when thinking about the book’s cover, I was looking for an illustration of a blossoming tree with its roots visible. When the time came, the book’s publisher turned to his creative graphic designer. He then produced an elegantly understated cover, with a small tree floating in some indeterminate, perhaps sacred, ether. Its roots and leaves face out to prospective readers and beckons them to come inside the book.
Who has been the most significant influence on you personally and as a writer?
An unworldly freshman in college, I walked into the offices of Observation Post, a campus newspaper, and was invited to sign up as a sports reporter. My mentor at the paper was not a professor but a college student, a journalism major and the editor at the paper. He taught me the importance of a creative “lede,” a first sentence or paragraph designed to draw readers into a piece of writing, even one in which they did not necessarily have an interest. With French, Latin, linguistics and phonetics under my belt, I graduated into an interest in learning and writing about how a language works. I was greatly inspired as well by William Safire, the English language columnist at The New York Times, who, without using the word grammar, for many years drew readers into his world. In my turn, I have endeavored to create my way of telling the story of the Hebrew language.
What were your struggles or obstacles you had to overcome to get this book written?
The most challenging moment came when it was time to publish the third book of my trilogy. It turns out that it is not easy to take Hebrew words and phrases written from right to left and with troublesome vowel signs to boot and make it companionable with an English font. Many publishers I had turned to were not eager to accept that challenge. At last, the publisher who finally accepted the challenge did so with a great deal of enthusiasm and confidence that his operation could do the job. And Voilà! Here is the book.
Tell your readers about your book.
In this book I try to capture how the Hebrew language “matters” to us today. What I am interested in learning is how Hebrew makes its way through the roads and byways it takes and how the stories it tells through its three-letter roots travel to the various worlds that make up Jewish civilization through the ages. Almost every word spoken in the places where Hebrew has flourished resonates with the echoes of Jewish history, Jewish civilization, and the Jewish textual tradition. Readers of this book are invited to listen in to the stories of Hebrew told here in the hope that these echoes will resonate with them as well.
Who is your target audience, and why?
Jews know more Hebrew than they think. This book is aimed at those who want to know more than they know now, those who have studied Hebrew or are currently doing so who know that, absent a lengthy immersion in the language in person, they will not learn to acquire Hebrew fully. This book is here to invite those who feel the need for it to know a little more about Hebrew, and to have Hebrew in mind as they go through life--whether they be bar mitzvah boys and bat mitzvah girls, college students, adults, or senior adults, and to have a little readerly fun doing so.
If you were going to give one reason for anyone looking at your book to read, why should they buy it?
Let me answer that question by getting back to my French background. Molière, the French comic playwright, when asked a similar question, answered that his purpose was, pardon my French, joindre l’utile à l’agréable, to join the useful with the pleasant. And, according to a member of Israel’s Hebrew Language Academy, who wrote one of the blurbs found inside the book, that’s what I try to do as well.
What do you consider your greatest success in life?
I believe that over the years of talking to myself about fashioning my worldview (I will resist the temptation of using the well-known German word for it, Weltanschaung), I have come up with a very intimate and personal, but coherent way of thinking about my place in the world.
What one unique thing sets you apart from other writers in your genre?
One of my professors at Yale—the world leader in French studies at the time—once said to me, to calm my doubts about the originality of my literary insights—“They write for themselves; you should write for you.” In that way, he implied, you will write for your readers too.